Few authors have been as steeped in the culture of America’s ruling elite as Gore Vidal. His grandfather was a senator, his father Roosevelt’s aviation secretary and he himself ran for Congress in 1960. This lends unique authority to his elegant disgust with what he calls ‘a sanctimonious society of hustlers’ – or more recently, ‘the largest rogue state of all’. Framed by a recent US book tour, the film traces the evolution of Vidal’s nightmare vision of a country whose elected assembly has been hijacked by an imperial military machine and the corporations it serves. His ascorbic wit makes it all hugely entertaining, and the clips of public spats with Norman Mailer and William F. Buckley are priceless.