TV Review: The Incomparable Mr. Buckley, a documentary for American Masters, directed by Barak Goodman (2024)

Novelist, magazine editor, talk show host, harpsichordist and all-around multi-hyphenate William F. Buckley, Jr.

William F. Buckley on the set of his television show Firing Line. 

I do not share much political ideology with William F. Buckley, but I find him to be a fascinating figure. Part of this is due to Buckley’s personal style: who wouldn’t be in awe of a man who pounded out newspaper columns in thirty minutes, keys clacking on his portable typewriter as he sat in the back of his chauffeured limousine, surrounded by his Cavalier King Charles spaniels? A man who played Bach on the harpsichord, ran a magazine, had his own television show, went skiing in Switzerland, and wrote novels in the gap between skiing and dinner? Regardless of what you think of William F. Buckley, there is no denying that the man was possessed of an immense amount of style.  

The Incomparable Mr. Buckley is a new documentary for PBS’ American Masters series, produced and directed by Barak Goodman, a veteran documentary filmmaker. The film examines Buckley’s life and his influence on American politics. There is a treasure trove of film clips, including home movies from Buckley’s youth, the 1965 Cambridge debate between Buckley and James Baldwin, Buckley threatening to punch Gore Vidal, and many episodes of Firing Line. The Incomparable Mr. Buckley also makes the intelligent decision to forgo footage of talking head commentators—instead we merely hear them speak over footage of Buckley.  

Buckley was renowned as an author and the founder and editor of the conservative magazine National Review, before his television talk show Firing Line took his fame to a new level in 1966. As brilliant as Buckley was on the page, television revealed a new side of his appeal. 

Buckley on television was simply fascinating to watch: the slouched posture, the crossed legs, the pen, the clipboard, the raised eyebrows, the toothy grin, the tongue flicking at the corner of his mouth, the sparkling blue eyes. Photographs of Buckley reveal a handsome man, but it is only in action, before the camera, that his unique charisma fully surfaces. You simply can’t stop looking at him. And then there was that voice. Where on earth was William F. Buckley from? His mellifluous tone was a mixture of East Coast establishment, learning English after he’d already learned Spanish, a hint of a Southern drawl from his mother’s side of the family, and spending several years as a teenager at boarding school in England. Buckley’s voice was an instrument that he wielded like a virtuoso. Similar to the actor James Mason, Buckley’s voice was pure honey to listen to, and it could lull you to sleep, seduce you, or mock you with biting, sarcastic humor. 

When Buckley started National Review in 1955, American conservative thought was regarded as an afterthought at best. After all, Republicans had lost 5 Presidential elections in a row from 1932-1948. One of the defining moments of the nascent conservative movement was when archconservative Barry Goldwater defeated the liberal Republican Nelson Rockefeller for the 1964 Republican Presidential nomination. This was a huge step to the right for the Republican party. Goldwater was crushed by LBJ in the general election, but out of the ashes of this defeat came an unexpected silver lining. A Hollywood actor had delivered a powerful 30-minute speech on Goldwater’s behalf during the last week of the campaign. The speech did nothing to help Goldwater’s imminent defeat, but it launched the political career of the actor who gave the speech: Ronald Reagan. Immediately, movers and shakers in the Republican party in California began thinking of Reagan as a possible candidate for Governor in 1966.  

Ronald Reagan became the ultimate conservative Republican: he had the charisma that Richard Nixon so conspicuously lacked, and Reagan was more wedded to conservative ideology than the more pragmatic Nixon. Buckley was never a huge fan of Nixon, and according to the documentary, William pressured his brother James, then a Senator from New York, to call on Nixon to resign. James Buckley gave a speech in March of 1974 calling for Nixon’s resignation, and he became the first conservative Republican to call on the president to resign. (Speaking of James Buckley, who passed away in 2023 at the age of 100, he would be a fascinating documentary subject.)  

Much like the conservative movement itself, the documentary loses a bit of steam once the Cold War comes to a peaceful conclusion. As the Republican party shifted ever rightward, Buckley wasn’t always perfectly in step with it. His 1993 book Happy Days Were Here Again was subtitled Reflections of a Libertarian Journalist. I find it significant that Buckley used “libertarian” to describe himself rather than “conservative.”  

The documentary ends with footage of Trump and the January 6th rioters, and we see what American “conservatism” has degenerated into. Several articles about the documentary have focused on what Buckley’s son, the acclaimed satirist and novelist Christopher says at the end, regarding his father and Donald Trump: “He might just have said, ‘Demand a recount!’” What I take this to mean is not that Buckley would have supported Trump’s claim about the 2020 election being fraudulent, but rather that Buckley would have said we should recount the 2016 election to see if there was some way we could avoid the crisis of having Trump be president in the first place. The more relevant part of Christopher Buckley’s quote that reviewers have ignored is what he says before the final line: “I’ve been asked a thousand times ‘What would your father have made of Donald Trump?’ Well, look, he’s left us 50 books, 1,500 episodes of Firing Line, 6,000 columns. You figure out what he would’ve made of Donald Trump.” The answer should be glaringly obvious to anyone who has any familiarity with the works of William F. Buckley: he would have despised Donald Trump, as Buckley would have recognized what an idiot and buffoon Trump is. Buckley unknowingly came up with the perfect metaphor for Donald Trump when he wrote in his 1976 book Airborne: "The key to a serene relationship with sharks is simply this: Bear it in mind that they are so dumb, you can neither anticipate nor outwit them." (p.133) 

Despite the downbeat ending, The Incomparable Mr. Buckley is a fascinating and engaging look at one of the twentieth century’s most interesting public intellectuals.