Directed by Joseph Dorman
1998 {order video}
A movie about the political power of ideas and intellectuals. Since they were young radicals in the 30's, Irving Howe, Daniel Bell, Nathan Glazer, and Irving Kristol have been fighting for their ideas. Interviews and footage from 1930s protests, World War II, and the 1960s resurgence of radicalism show the intensity and the passion with which these men and their peers grappled with the ideas that would decide the fate of the world. Starting with their days in New York's immigrant neighborhoods, following them through their college days, the McCarthy era, the Leftist rise of the 60's, and on to the present, we trace the paths of these brilliant minds through the social and political changes that defined a century.
The movie offers one of the deepest portraits ever filmed of the fluidity of ideas, as good minds grapple with the cataclysms of history and the human condition and have the temerity to keep searching for answers.
-- Stephen Holden, New York Times
