Gore Vidal: The United States of Amnesia (2013)

What a waste of my time!!!

It’s an especially fun movie from a director and cast who are clearly having a good time allowing themselves to let loose.

Not sure how, but this is easily one of the best movies all summer. Multiple levels of funny, never takes itself seriously, super colorful, and creative.

Mostly, the movie is committed to the value of a good time.

Gore Vidal was always good value for money. Writer, polemicist, raconteur, wit and intellectual.Vidal died in 2012, he lived to a good age and this film released a year later is a documentary of his personal and professional life with contributions from those who knew him.Gore was a patrician who came from a political family but had complex relationships with his parents. In a roundabout way he was related to the Kennedys through Jackie Onassis and experienced the Camelot years.Yet he was critical of both Democrats and Republicans as they served the same people, the moneyed and liked to paint himself as an outsider. For many years he lived in Italy.Gore could be charming and also abrasive and was willing to take on all comers. Gore engaged in debated with the right wing author William Buckley Jr, got in a scrape with Norman Mailer and even turned his back to former acolyte Christopher Hitchens when he got too close to the American right and for his support of the Iraq War.This was an enjoyable documentary, I always find it stimulating to listen to Vidal even if he might be exaggerating his stories or embellishing his own importance but I would had liked to see more focus on his writing as well.

Vidal was born into privilege but this didn't stop him from having a disastrous relationship with his mother, Nina. He seemed to have a better one with his father but his parents divorced when he was young and his mother burned through several marriages. He attended a New England boys, Phillips Exeter Academy in Exeter, New Hampshire and had an affair with another boy, who died at Iwo Jima.Vidal in the movie commented on the futility of war and the horrible waste of lives it incurs. He served in the Navy in the Pacific Theater for several years and claimed he never heard one serviceman utter a patriotic comment. To Vidal patriotism was just a cover-up for justifying war.Even as a youth Vidal knew he wanted to write and after he graduated from Exeter he skipped college and set off on a writing career. His third book, The City and the Pillar, became very controversial because of its explicit use of homosexual situations. It is worthy to note that Vidal did not like the terms homosexual/heterosexual and claimed that a person being either one was likened to having blue eyes or brown. This is pretty much the medical position taken today.However, in the 1950s and 1960s (before the Cultural Revolution of the late '60s) writing openly about sex of any type was a taboo. Vidal found his works banned by the New York Times and he had to go to Hollywood to write screenplays to make money. He did quite well monetarily there and with the money he made bought a grand estate in New York. Nevertheless, his frank and overt language in The City and the Pillar caused many critics to smear his name for years.Vidal was a great writer and his historical novels were first-rate. I read both Julian and Lincoln, and both capture the era perfectly that Vidal is describing. The first the mid-4th century Roman Empire and the second when Abraham Lincoln takes the helm of guiding the Union to ultimate victory in the Civil War (1861-1865). He was also a great debater and the movie captured some of his infamous run-ins with that great bastion of American conservatism, William F. Buckley. The movie also took up the relationship between Vidal and Christopher Hitchens, who before the latter endorsed the Second Iraq War (2003-2011), appeared to be the anointed heir-apparent of Vidal's legacy. Regarding the Second Iraq War Vidal clearly called it right.The movie covers Vidal's life from 1925 to 2012. His prime time was the 1950s to the 1980s. It could have been more incisive of Vidal's life but still I had to marvel how prescient he was. He saw clearly the drift that overtook the United States in the second half of the 20th-century and the now current political impasse at which we have now arrived.8/10

Just watched over the weekend the film "Gore Vidal: USA of Amnesia" and I must say that I was highly impressed. The film was informative and educational and thought provoking. Though Gore Vidal was mostly before my generation I knew and heard all about his writings and works even the great essays of our time his views on life, culture, politics and the state of democracy pushed the limits. One thing I can say about Gore was he was no yes man! Vidal always would challenge and question the powerful and the establishment, he would always challenge those running the show. I was lucky enough to have saw some interviews with him in his later years before his passing and it was a treat to hear him speak his words were a world of knowledge and advice. This film tells the history of Gore's life as he grew up went to college, served in service and was educated and became an author writing great stories and essay type works on our moral state of society and culture. This was displayed in interviews and clips and it was a treat to see his debates with the right wing author William Buckley Jr. as Gore always spoke for the left more. Still he was often fighting the left as evidenced when he ran and opposed democrat Jerry Brown in 1982 for California's U.S. Senate seat. And plus during the film Gore states in interviews about the blunders of Clinton, and Barrack as he tells the truth politics is a money game it's bought and paid for thru the banks! And I like the way that Vidal stated that sex was good the feel good pleasure was a must he said it right love affairs and marriages are overrated. He was even outspoken for gay rights and he hated religion, and he was so right when he said companionship and friendship is important and critical as evidenced by him living many years with a male friend! True this film is opinionated, and you may not like or agree with Gore Vidal, but one thing is for sure he was a firestorm of truth, honesty, and down right blunt and brash for the way he saw American life as more should be like him and challenge the political and rich and powerful with more thought provoking ideas and different approaches to society and culture. As Gore was a truth seeker for all he really challenged people and democracy to wake up and live with more freedom and rights. It's clear Gore Vidal was a legend and clearly no yes man!

seriously? the title flies in the face of reality without regard. The write-up states that the liberals have lost, and this dramatic movie scrapbook of this mans one-liners and zingers is the repeal to the American people who ignored him and his ideology? Sorry but last time I checked, liberalism was alive and well, feeding off of the middle and the right three times a day. Now, with that being said, there are some ideals that I agree with... but the entire objective of this film seems to want to create an even further rift between the American people. But hey, that's pretty much every movie created these days. The following this guy has seems to pretty much be contained to sophomoric undergrads with a minor in Poli Sci. The same mentality of the Che Guerva supporters.