Political
Film Festival
Film
Screening & Discussion
Henry Fonda
& Cliff Robertson in Gore Vidal’s
THE BEST MAN
35mm screening!
Guest
Speaker: Rep. Steve Israel
Thursday,
July 11 at 7pm
Presidential
politics may loom larger and darker since Watergate, but this disenchanted peek
behind the scenes of an American election still bites and remains relevant,
thanks to a Gore Vidal script (based on his own play) which dissects
with gleeful cynicism the machinery of tub-thumping, image-building and
chicanery that goes into motion as rival presidential candidates Henry Fonda
and Cliff Robertson fight to cut each other's throats. Russell (Fonda)
is a Harvard man, an intellectual, and Secretary of State. Unlike most people
around him he has principles: he wants to wage a scrupulously honest campaign
for the nomination. But Cantwell (Robertson), Russell's opponent, plays dirty,
and Russell must decide whether he should use Cantwell's own methods to fight
back. The personal battle is played against the noise and glitter of a
wide-open convention, done up for the screen with superb realism. Vidal weaves
in memorable lines galore, like the Southern senator's all-purpose reply to
awkward questions about how many integrated schools there are in his state (“None,
thank God, but we're making remarkable progress”), and the film features a
whole string of brilliant performances from Ann Sothern, Edie Adams,
and Shelly Berman, along with Lee Tracy, in his recreation of his
Broadway role of the dying, crusty ex-President whose endorsement is sought by
both candidates. (USA, 1964, 102 mins, b/w, 35mm)
Former
Congressman Steve Israel left
Capitol Hill – unindicted and undefeated – to pursue a career as a writer. In
addition to writing two critically acclaimed satires of Washington, he now
owns Theodore's Books, an independent bookstore in Oyster Bay. He
also heads the non-partisan Cornell University Institute of Politics
and Global Affairs, where for several years he taught a course on
"Politics, Media & Popular Culture." Israel was a Member
of Congress for sixteen years. He left in 2017, having served as House
Democrats chief political strategist between 2011-2015 as Chairman
of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. President Bill
Clinton called him “one of the most thoughtful Members of Congress.” Which, Israel
states, isn’t really saying much at all. Israel is a frequent political
commentator on MSNBC. His insights appear regularly in the New
York Times, The Atlantic Magazine, as well as The
Washington Post and Wall Street Journal. He was profiled
on HBO’s Last Week Tonight with John Oliver and appeared on
CBS’ Sixty Minutes.
