GORE VIDAL: THE UNITED STATES OF AMNESIA (Nicholas D. Wrathall). 83 minutes. Opens Friday (February 7). For venues and times, see Movies. Rating: NNNN
Nicholas D. Wrathall’s documentary Gore Vidal: The United States Of Amnesia weaves extensive footage of the author and gadfly – who died in 2012 – discussing American political and cultural policy (and his own illustrious personal life) with admiring testimonials from celebrated writers and thinkers who knew him over the decades, including Tim Robbins and Sting.
Everyone has very nice things to say, but the real star is Vidal himself – a man born to privilege who understood the contradictions of his queer liberal perspective and reinvented himself as an outspoken critic of conservatism and religious oppression, a game and witty debater and a subversive author and screenwriter.
It’s a bracing history of a life vividly lived, and few documentaries manage the simple visual eloquence of cutting between clips of the young, furious Vidal and the physically faltering but still mentally acute man he became in his later years.
Wrathall doesn’t shy away from the reality of old age, although it’s heartening to see Vidal’s eyes still blaze with righteous fury while old rivals like William F. Buckley Jr. slide into louche parodies of themselves.
