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Conversation


Thomas Crow and Gore Vidal
 
March 8, 2006
The Getty Villa, Auditorium
Video See video excerpts from this conversation.
To celebrate the opening of the Getty Villa, the Getty Research Institute presents a conversation with one personality firmly associated in the public mind with bringing the classical past to life—novelist Gore Vidal.

On stage in the Villa's new auditorium, a space that feels remarkably intimate even with a full house, Vidal plays the part of literary lion to the delight of the audience, relaxed and witty as he responds to questions posed by Thomas Crow, director of the Getty Research Institute, about his historical novels set in antiquity, Julian (1964) and Creation (1981). He takes no prisoners as he answers questions from the floor, analyzing contemporary politics in light of the decline of the Roman Empire.