First Run Features

Abstract

Adult. Four men who've been fighting an ongoing battle of ideas since their college days in the 1930s are profiled.

Arguing the World. First Run Features. 1997; rel. 1999. 109min. $39.95 (home use). DDC: 320.

Adult. Four men who've been fighting an ongoing battle of ideas since their college days in the 1930s are profiled. Irving Howe, Daniel Bell, Nathan Glazer, and Irving Kristol are still going at it many years later, as seen in crosscutting interviews where the men air their passionate and sometimes conflicting views. Tracing their youth in New York's immigrant neighborhoods, this production then touches on the formation of the scholars' political views and shows their evolution from the paranoid McCarthy era and the radical 1960s to present day. Representing both the left and the right, the diverse views of these articulate scholars who place more importance on ideas than material wealth make for a thought-provoking documentary. -leaf Dick