The best of enemies cast4/19/2023 ![]() ![]() But in plays that aim elsewhere for photo-realism – the show’s Andy Warhol, Aretha Franklin and Bobby Kennedy reliably match the archives – audiences are asked to make an adjustment in how they visually read a production. Photograph: Wasi DanijuĪs a means of equalising opportunity for actors, there is no reasonable argument against racially fluid casting. ![]() Photo-realism … a Kennedy speech in Best of Enemies. He exactly captures every aspect – drawl, lolling posture, facial tics – of the Republican’s awkward broadcasting persona, except for one element in the room. ![]() Charles Edwards’ Vidal delivers a near-perfect soundalike and acceptable lookalike, while Buckley, who can be seen as the epitome of a privileged white right-winger, is portrayed by the black British actor David Harewood. The roar of complex thoughts and challenges to orthodoxy is so enthralling that it makes Radio 4’s Today programme sound like CBeebies.īut Graham and director Jeremy Herrin (with characteristic pace and clarity) crucially give this media archaeology a contemporary framing. It was very important for me to get it right because she has a whole community that loves her and lifts her up still.In a play inspired by Morgan Neville and Robert Gordon’s 2015 documentary about the encounters, Graham suggests that these ideological antler-locking head-to-heads were influential on multiple levels – popularising bitter, unbridgeable gulfs between conservative and liberal America that still endure making TV, rather than legislatures, the national debating chamber and, through ABC’s Buckley-Vidal ratings triumph, creating a US peak-time triopoly – with NBC and CBS – lasting until the protagonist of Ink launched Fox News.Īt one very enjoyable level, Best of Enemies is – in the line of earlier Graham work and Peter Morgan’s Frost/Nixon – historical karaoke, recreating verbatim choice ideas and insults from the studio duels. Henson also commented on the family's acceptance of her role, telling the outlet, "The family said I was spot-on. Atwater's granddaughter Ann-Nakia Green attended the premiere and dubbed it "moving, funny, beautiful, and relevant" (per THR). Though Atwater died in 2016, Bissell and the rest of the crew on "The Best of Enemies" got approval from her family for both the movie and Henson's portrayal of her. Tambay Obenson of IndieWire explained why the white savior trope is hurtful: "Audiences are routinely fed a saccharine treatment of racial conflict in movies that center the transformations of white protagonists (whether real or concocted), in what ultimately becomes a sort of interracial buddy-comedy-drama, as is the case with films like 'The Best of Enemies' and 'Green Book.' These movies shield white audiences from the true horrors of the period, particularly the physical and psychological toll on many black people faced with intimidation and violence, by relegating them to supporting roles in their own fight for freedom and recognition." ![]()
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