Gore Vidal Pages

Tribeca: 'Gore Vidal' Filmmaker on the Late Author's Life and Legacy (Q&A)

Joshua Stecker of The Hollywood Reporter speaks with Australian filmmaker Nicholas Wrathall about his new documentary on Gore Vidal's life--"an intimate portrait of a man many revere as one of America's last great intellectuals."

Wrathall: [Vidal's] grandfather opposed entering World War I and lost his seat in the [US] Senate for years because of that. Then he was reelected, but was always known as a very honest man. And Gore was brought up that way. So he felt his way of being honest from outside the system was to point out all the faults and point out what people were really up to and what their motivations were. And sort of expose the 'inside of the Beltway,' so to speak.
.....
You think of this man who was friends with Eleanor Roosevelt and J.F.K. and then later in life became friends with Mikhail Gorbachev, you couldn’t have a bigger political spectrum. I’m from Australia, and he knew the ex-Prime Minister of Australia, Gough Whitlam, and the premier of my state New South Wales, Bob Carr, really well. When I found that out, I was just stunned that even in far-flung Australia, he knew these people. They visited him in Italy and had phone conversations and talked politics.

He was a very engaged person who wanted to know what was going on in every aspect of the world. He studied history and philosophy and he knew everyone. It was exciting for him. He wanted to know what people were doing. He had such a thirst for knowledge that he needed to know what everyone was doing everywhere all the time. It’s insane to think, but he managed to keep up before the Internet with all these people all over the world.

Read the entire interview at www.hollywoodreporter.com

Tribeca ’13: “Gore Vidal” director seeks finishing funding » Realscreen

Nicholas Wrathall, director of Gore Vidal: the United States of Amnesia, has launched a Kickstarter campaign seeking finishing funds for his buzzy Tribeca hit. ["We] still need to pay for all the archive and licensing to pay for the release beyond the festival life,” he said.

Wrathall is seeking US$30,000 on Kickstarter to complete the doc, writing on the fundraising site: “We still need to do the music composition and online post production, as well as archival clearances.” The project has a May 11 fundraising deadline.

The director’s film comprehensively covers the life of Vidal, the acclaimed essayist, novelist and screenwriter, who passed away last year at the age of 86. It features a number of interviews with him from throughout his life, as well as new interviews and commentary from notable figures such as the late intellectual Christopher Hitchens and the writer Robert Scheer.

via realscreen.com

Trailer for Gore Vidal: The United States of Amnesia, a 2013 Tribeca Film Festival documentary

The trailer is out!

 

About the film:

No twentieth-century figure has moved as easily and confidently, and had a more profound effect in the worlds of literature, drama, film, politics, historical debate, and the culture wars than Gore Vidal. He was a brilliant novelist, political essayist, literary critic, historian, scenarist, television pundit, political activist and candidate. As a raconteur, lecturer and platform performer he was rivaled only by Mark Twain. Vidal was an American icon, yet an intimate, accurate picture of the man has eluded us until now. This film dramatizes Gore’s amazing life and political views, highlighting his concern of the unraveling American Democracy. His beliefs are at the centre of the film and we journey with him as he takes us through the reasoning (both historical and ethical) on which he’s founded his political and world view. This is Gore Vidal’s last word and testimony. It is a stern warning to the viewer of the direction the country is taking. Never has Vidal been so timely.

Gore Vidal: The United States of Amnesia | 2013 Tribeca Film Festival

Gore Vidal: The United States of Amnesia will be a featured documentary in the 2013 Tribeca Film Festival.

The 89-minutes-long feature is directed by Nicholas Wrathall

The documentary includes Gore Vidal, Christopher Hitchens, Jay Parini, Nina Straight, Burr Steers, Jodie Evans, and others.

Cinematographers: Derek Wiesenhahn, Joel Schwartzberg, Armando De'ath, Jake Clenell; Editors: Suresh Ayaar, William Haugse, Rob Bralver, Derek Boonstra; Executive Producers: Nicholas Wrathall, Erik Nelson, Mike Barnett. Producers: Nicholas Wrathall, Theodore James; Screenwriter: Nicholas Wrathall.

via www.tribecafilm.com

Newly Public FBI Document Shows Agency Kept Close Watch on Gore Vidal - Washington Whispers (usnews.com)

The Federal Bureau of Investigation spent a decade keeping tabs on leftist political critic Gore Vidal, who died last year, according to newly released internal documents.

Vidal's FBI file, which is 35 pages long, shows the agency recorded criticisms the writer made of then-FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover, a famously paranoid man who is believed to have kept files on hundreds of government officials and political leaders. The Vidal file was obtained by MuckRock, an organization that works for government transparency, and shared with U.S. News.

via www.usnews.com

Gore Vidal | polarimagazine.com

From the first sentence [of Myra Breckingridge,] I was transfixed, a convert, an acolyte, and I remain so to this day. “I am Myra Breckinridge whom no man will ever possess,” the novel begins. Myra’s voice was nothing like I had read before. “Frankly I can think of no greater pleasure than to approach an open face and swiftly say whatever needs to be said to shut it.” Touché.
.....
In talking about the rise of Christian fundamentalists in 1970s America, Vidal concludes, “The authors of Leviticus proscribe homosexuality – and so do all good Christers. But Leviticus also proscribes rare meat, bacon, shellfish, and the wearing of nylon mixed with wool. If Leviticus were to be obeyed in every instance, the garment trade would collapse.” This is the Vidal style through and through: a serious comment is followed by an ironic gloss.

Christopher Bryant writing about Gore Vidal, www.polarimagazine.com

Photo: Gore Vidal and Paul Newman, 1961, Greek isle of Delos; detail of collage from Gore Vidal: Snapshots in History's Glare, 2009.

JFK, Gore Vidal, and Tennessee Williams go shooting

Twitter is a bit atwitter with the photo, via @BeschlossDC, of JFK shooting with Gore Vidal and Tennessee Williams.... Alas, no Beschloss mention of The Glorious Bird's aside to Vidal about JFK's nice a**. Vidal told Tennessee that he can't cruise the next president of the United States. That was probably meant to egg him on. From Gore Vidal's Palimpsest: A Memoir, 1995, photo caption:

Jack was shooting at a target when we arrived at the Kennedy house. Abesently, Tenn took the rifle and shot three bull's-eyes, to Jack's consernation. "And that," said the Bird, "was with my blind eye."

Atheist? Not If You Want To Finish High School in Arizona | Addicting Info

We all know that this country was founded on religious freedom, but we also know that many Christians of the nation wish to rewrite history to make it seem as if we were founded upon Judeo-Christian values. Not so. The Treaty of Tripoli says, and I quote:

“The United States government is in no way founded upon the Christian religion.”

But tell that to Arizona Republicans, who have introduced a bill that would require high school graduates to take an oath that includes the words “so help me God.” In other words, if you’re an atheist, you have to proclaim belief in God to graduate high school. Unbelievable in 2013, in a country that was founded upon religious freedom, right?

via www.addictinginfo.org

Claire Bloom credits Gore Vidal with pulling her out of depression | Hollywood.com

The Clash of the Titans star wed film producer Elkins in 1969, but their marriage was short-lived and the couple split three years later.

Bloom, who reveals infidelity was the cause of the break-up, struggled to overcome the heartache and she admits the celebrated playwright stepped up to console her.

She tells Vanity Fair magazine, "I was horribly depressed when that marriage ended. I knew I had to do something, so I booked myself for a trip to Greece and intended to travel alone, by bus, throughout the country.

"When I told Gore about it on the phone, he promptly decided to come with me - cancelled the whole bus idea and booked cars for us to visit Athens, Delphi and everywhere else I wanted to do. And he was so funny about my terrible husband and his infidelity that by the time the trip was over, my depression had totally lifted."

Vidal passed away last year (12).

Also paying tribute to the late writer in the new issue of Vanity Fair, Susan Sarandon has opened up about how he helped her through pregnancy and childbirth when she became a first-time mum to daughter Eva Amurri.

via www.hollywood.com

Great Fire of New York City, December 17th, 1835

Most of lower Manhattan and the Financial District were burned down on the freezing night of December 17th, 1835. In Gore Vidal's meticulously-researched novel, Burr, the protagonist Charlie Schuyler, the morning after the great blaze, describes the destruction during the previous night:

Like everyone else in the city, I was awake the whole night. Half the First Ward has burned down.

It was Dante's Hell: ice and fire together. A horrible racket of bells pealing, of fire-engines clattering, of houses collapsing. At midnight the sky was like a red dawn. Today every New Yorker who knows how to read mentions The Last Days of Pompeii.

I am thankful that I won't be required to describe what I saw. Memory too crowded with fiery images. Wall Street in flames. A freezing wind full of fire--an anomaly.

Suddenly the new Merchants' Exchange vanishes in a long wave of flame. A moment later I was able to see through the walls to the statue beneath the dome of Alexander Hamilton [in the church graveyard.]

From nowhere, a half-dozen young sailors raced into the building and tried to save the statue. They pulled the figure off its pedestal but then the police forced them out of the building just in time for with a hissing sigh the dome fell in and Hamilton was seen no more (his would-be rescuer was a young officer from the Navy Yard--a banker's son, who else?).

A group of Irish approached [Leggett and me] and said, "They'll be making no more of them five-per-cent dividends, with they now?".... Leggett grinned and gave [the speaker] a thumbs-up.

In the side streets the shopkeepers were gloomily digging among the ashes to see what the fire had spared. In Pearl Street there are miles of scorched cloth stacked on the side-walls. In Fulton Street furniture. Nearly every street like an open bazaar of ruined good. The poor steal whatever they can, particularly food...as do the pigs, who have declared themselves a national holiday and are now rampant.... The only contented sound in the city is their squeaking and snorting as they turn up delicacies where once were taverns, grocery shops, homes."

via www.gorevidalpages.com

Image (click to enlarge) - View of the Great Fire in N.York, Dec. 16th & 17, 1835, as seen from Williamsburg (sic), by Nicolino Caly,&nbs

via citizenship.typepad.com

Most of lower Manhattan and the Financial District were burned down on the freezing night of December 17th, 1835. In Gore Vidal's meticulously-researched novel, Burr, the protagonist Charlie Schuyler, the morning after the great blaze, describes the destruction during the previous night:

Like everyone else in the city, I was awake the whole night. Half the First Ward has burned down.

It was Dante's Hell: ice and fire together. A horrible racket of bells pealing, of fire-engines clattering, of houses collapsing. At midnight the sky was like a red dawn. Today every New Yorker who knows how to read mentions The Last Days of Pompeii.

I am thankful that I won't be required to describe what I saw. Memory too crowded with fiery images. Wall Street in flames. A freezing wind full of fire--an anomaly.

Suddenly the new Merchants' Exchange vanishes in a long wave of flame. A moment later I was able to see through the walls to the statue beneath the dome of Alexander Hamilton [in the church graveyard.]

From nowhere, a half-dozen young sailors raced into the building and tried to save the statue. They pulled the figure off its pedestal but then the police forced them out of the building just in time for with a hissing sigh the dome fell in and Hamilton was seen no more (his would-be rescuer was a young officer from the Navy Yard--a banker's son, who else?).

A group of Irish approached [Leggett and me] and said, "They'll be making no more of them five-per-cent dividends, with they now?".... Leggett grinned and gave [the speaker] a thumbs-up.

In the side streets the shopkeepers were gloomily digging among the ashes to see what the fire had spared. In Pearl Street there are miles of scorched cloth stacked on the side-walls. In Fulton Street furniture. Nearly every street like an open bazaar of ruined good. The poor steal whatever they can, particularly food...as do the pigs, who have declared themselves a national holiday and are now rampant.... The only contented sound in the city is their squeaking and snorting as they turn up delicacies where once were taverns, grocery shops, homes."

via www.gorevidalpages.com

Image (click to enlarge) - View of the Great Fire in N.York, Dec. 16th & 17, 1835, as seen from Williamsburg (sic), by Nicolino Caly,&nbs