Speaker 1: Hey, it's Alec. We all love true crime podcasts, but
Speaker 1: perhaps you're looking for something a little different, less murder,
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Speaker 1: trusted galleries dealing in world class art, and how its
Speaker 1: doors would close forever in the wake of an unprecedented scandal.
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Speaker 1: eighty million dollars in fake paintings, or more precisely, forgeries.
Speaker 1: All episodes of Art Fraud are available right now. Okay,
Speaker 1: here's our show. This is Alec Baldwin, and you're listening
Speaker 1: to Here's the Thing from My Heart Radio. My guest
Speaker 1: today comes from the most legendary of American families. Rory
Speaker 1: Kennedy is the youngest daughter of Senator Robert F. Kennedy
Speaker 1: and the niece of President John F. Kennedy. But as
Speaker 1: she will tell us during our conversation, she's also one
Speaker 1: of the great Kennedy Women. Instead of following her forebearers
Speaker 1: into law or politics, Kennedy has made a name for
Speaker 1: herself as a documentary filmmaker. Her films feature a wide
Speaker 1: range of subjects, from surfing legend Laird Hamilton's to challenging
Speaker 1: issues like poverty, addiction, and mental illness. In her current film,
Speaker 1: She's tackling corporate corruption. That film, Downfall, the case against Boeing,
Speaker 1: investigates the circumstances that led to two tragic passenger jet
Speaker 1: crashes in two thousand eighteen and nineteen. Rory Kennedy and
Speaker 1: I talk about her remarkable upbringing and how the people
Speaker 1: she's encountered in her life have influenced her trajectory. I
Speaker 1: think it's hard to detach anybody from how they grew up, right,
Speaker 1: I Mean, it's such an influence and impact on who
Speaker 1: you become. And certainly that was the case with me.
Speaker 1: I grew up, you know, the youngest of eleven and
Speaker 1: in obviously a very political family, and I was impacted
Speaker 1: by that. I mean I was also surrounded, my mother
Speaker 1: made a point of this by really extraordinary role models,
Speaker 1: you know, and we had such a the honor of
Speaker 1: meeting whether it was you know, presidents or congressman and
Speaker 1: senators or people like Nelson Mitndela and Desmond Tutu, you
Speaker 1: know who who were in our homes, and also some
Speaker 1: of the great athletes and you know NASA astronauts. I mean, so,
Speaker 1: I think it was a life where we were surround
Speaker 1: did by people who created a sense of aspiration and
Speaker 1: to try to make the world a bit of a
Speaker 1: better place now. But would you say, though that, as
Speaker 1: you're making a film, do you have protocols, rules, tenants,
Speaker 1: whatever word you want to use while you sit there
Speaker 1: and say that's not something I'm going to do that's
Speaker 1: influenced by the way your family has been treated. If
Speaker 1: you're making a film and that's some aspect of a story,
Speaker 1: there's a very kind of scandalizing, tawdry, shy away from that.
Speaker 1: Because the way you guys have been attacked from time
Speaker 1: to time. I think I have certain sensitivities. For example,
Speaker 1: with downfall, the case against Boeing, there's three forty six
Speaker 1: people who died, and there are the family members who
Speaker 1: are related to those people, some of whom we talked
Speaker 1: to in our film, And I was definitely thinking, well,
Speaker 1: how is it going to be for these folks to
Speaker 1: watch this film, right, And I've had to see scenes
Speaker 1: over and over again that play themselves out on the
Speaker 1: news that are are very upsetting to watch about my
Speaker 1: family dying right and being killed and and I didn't
Speaker 1: want to subject them to that. But I also wanted
Speaker 1: to make a film that was impactful. We do c
Speaker 1: g I recreations of what it was like to be
Speaker 1: in the cockpit so that we could really help people
Speaker 1: understand the perspective of the pilots in these planes and
Speaker 1: what they were struggling with with the umkest system. And
Speaker 1: you know, but I thought, how are these folks going
Speaker 1: to watch this film? So when I sent the film
Speaker 1: to them before it's coming out, I highlighted all the
Speaker 1: sections that I thought would be hard for them to watch,
Speaker 1: so that they could be aware of that and go
Speaker 1: into it and decide to watch those sections or not. So,
Speaker 1: you know, maybe I have some sensitivity and moments like that.
Speaker 1: I think the types of films I choose generally tend
Speaker 1: to be political in nature and tend to you know,
Speaker 1: I hope when people watch these films, whether it's this
Speaker 1: or a film about Vietnam The Final Days of the
Speaker 1: war film about Abu Grabe, that we learned from them,
Speaker 1: and we learned from watching these stories and and hopefully
Speaker 1: make better choices moving forward. Right. So, I think the
Speaker 1: choices of the films I make are certainly impacted by
Speaker 1: the family I grew up in. It's interesting that you
Speaker 1: mentioned that. And this is only tangential, but remember being
Speaker 1: invited years ago Clinton was in the White House. I
Speaker 1: was invited to the White House to a screening of
Speaker 1: the movie The Paper by Ronnie Howard, and I'm sitting
Speaker 1: in a seat in the theater and the woman to
Speaker 1: my right, who's sitting next to me, A gun goes
Speaker 1: off in the middle of the film, and that woman
Speaker 1: grabbed my arm and gasped this huge gasp when the
Speaker 1: gun went off. It was your mom, right, So you
Speaker 1: know there's me to this day. It's she's not prepared
Speaker 1: for that. Those sounds. Yeah, So there's trauma related to
Speaker 1: that for sure. Now to get to the film. So
Speaker 1: I watched this film, obviously, and I was mesmerized. Congratulations,
Speaker 1: by the way, I mean, you came to the Hampton's
Speaker 1: Film Festival. Every year a film of yours comes and
Speaker 1: we all look atach other We're like, can we really
Speaker 1: invite her again? We were bringing Rory out to Easthampton again.
Speaker 1: I mean is it enough? And I mean how much
Speaker 1: more can we shine her up here? But we loved
Speaker 1: your film about your mom. We're gonna get to that later.
Speaker 1: Loved Last Days of Vietnam. That was a great I'm
Speaker 1: not just saying this, that's a great movie. Great movie
Speaker 1: really just you what film can do and the spirit
Speaker 1: of what's happening and understanding that those moments that you
Speaker 1: did a great job. Now, this film made me angry.
Speaker 1: This film. I was pissed off because only one guy
Speaker 1: I think, I think is criminally charged, correct, that's correct,
Speaker 1: and that we identify that person, Mark Forkner, And he
Speaker 1: was in charge of what at Boing. He was a pilot,
Speaker 1: a test pilot, and he was you know, he really
Speaker 1: wasn't responsible for what up end and a lot of
Speaker 1: people feel like he was scapegoaded because he was really
Speaker 1: in charge of making sure, you know, he was testing
Speaker 1: the plane. And then he played a role in keeping
Speaker 1: the m cast system away from the regulators and that's
Speaker 1: documented and there's proof of that, and so they followed
Speaker 1: up with that. But you know, Congressman de Fasio, for example,
Speaker 1: led the congressional investigation into what happened, the biggest investigation
Speaker 1: the Infrastructure and Transportation Committee's history, and he concluded that
Speaker 1: this is was really top down right, that the top
Speaker 1: group in management at Boeing was very aware of the
Speaker 1: m CAST system, that there was a concerted effort to
Speaker 1: keep the system away from the regulators, to hide the system,
Speaker 1: and to cut corners along the way, and that there
Speaker 1: was you know, it was a culture of concealment, is
Speaker 1: what he calls it. So I think that there are
Speaker 1: a lot of people who feel like the folks who
Speaker 1: are most responsible have yet to be held accountable, and
Speaker 1: there's been no criminal charges, and you know, Muhlinberg walked
Speaker 1: away with the head of Bowing, the head of Bowing
Speaker 1: sixty two million dollars. So you know, I think after
Speaker 1: you've kind of watched the film and really understand all
Speaker 1: the decisions that the management of Boeing made along the
Speaker 1: way to prioritize profit over safety, that you know, when
Speaker 1: you understand the depths of those choices, that I think
Speaker 1: many people like you are outraged. Well for people I
Speaker 1: don't want to, I want them to see the film obviously,
Speaker 1: but I want to give them just a taste of
Speaker 1: so Boeing wants to create. I'll let you fill in
Speaker 1: the blanks. So they want to create a fleet. They're
Speaker 1: losing market share, they're getting their hat handed to them
Speaker 1: by air Bus. Things are not looking good for Boeing,
Speaker 1: who had been dominant around the world for decades. And
Speaker 1: then and then we're the pride of not to Seattle
Speaker 1: with the United States. They've Asian industry, and then the
Speaker 1: things start to go down from so they want to
Speaker 1: play catchup and they want to produce a lower cost,
Speaker 1: more fuel efficient I think was the goal of the
Speaker 1: seven max. Got to get the word max in there.
Speaker 1: The seven thirty seven fuel efficiency was the goal. And
Speaker 1: then a part of this was the development of this
Speaker 1: system which was to help to so they don't make
Speaker 1: too steep a climb. A system takes over the plane
Speaker 1: and lowers the nose of the plane and forces the
Speaker 1: plane down, but doesn't shut off. It forces the nose
Speaker 1: of the plane down straight into the ground. Correct, Well, yeah,
Speaker 1: that's correct. There was There were concerned at a certain
Speaker 1: angle that the plane would stall, and so they instead
Speaker 1: of changing the kind of structure of the plane and
Speaker 1: moving the engines and whatnot. They decided to fix it
Speaker 1: with a computer system, again in an effort to save money,
Speaker 1: it seems, and that computer system was connected to one
Speaker 1: sensor on the side of the airplane, like a weather vane.
Speaker 1: And so if that sensor was damage, which happens off
Speaker 1: and gets hit by bird, something happens to it, it
Speaker 1: would send and this is what happened, erroneous information to
Speaker 1: the computer system. So it would tell the computer system
Speaker 1: that the plane was at a certain angle and you
Speaker 1: needed to push the nose down. But it wasn't at
Speaker 1: that angle. It was, you know, more at a flat angle.
Speaker 1: And not only would it push the nose of the
Speaker 1: plane down, but it would do it over and over
Speaker 1: and over again. Probably the most powering details you covered
Speaker 1: the film is and the pilots were not told about
Speaker 1: the installation of this system, that's correct. It's you know,
Speaker 1: prior to the Line Air crash, which was the the
Speaker 1: first crash, the pilots were completely unaware that this system
Speaker 1: was even on the airplane, which was also kind of
Speaker 1: flew in the face of what had been the normal
Speaker 1: relationship between Bowing and pilots, which was to really educate
Speaker 1: for pilots about everything. Training, you know, make them fully
Speaker 1: equipped to handle any situation that would happen. But in
Speaker 1: this case, they in an effort to really keep this
Speaker 1: from regulators. Really, what was motivating them is that if
Speaker 1: they have a totally new system on the airplane, then
Speaker 1: they have to train pilots. And if they have to
Speaker 1: train pilots, it costs them a million dollars per an aircraft,
Speaker 1: you know, on average to train these pilots. So they
Speaker 1: wanted to again it seems, save the money. And so
Speaker 1: instead of making people aware that this system was on
Speaker 1: the airplane, they made a concerted effort to We're not
Speaker 1: even gonna tell you about this machine we've installed, which,
Speaker 1: if it behaves badly, is going to crash the plane.
Speaker 1: And there's a manual override that they might have been
Speaker 1: able to activate. They could have gotten out of it.
Speaker 1: I guess if that they if they had had the training.
Speaker 1: If they had had the training, except what we also
Speaker 1: discover and case in the course of this film is
Speaker 1: a document that came out in It's called a coordination
Speaker 1: sheet that shows that if something went wrong with the system,
Speaker 1: that the pilots would need to fix it. Within ten seconds.
Speaker 1: Otherwise the power of the MCT system would overtake them
Speaker 1: if they didn't do it in ten seconds, and the
Speaker 1: results would be catastrophic. And catastrophic in airplane language means
Speaker 1: the plane will crash and everybody will die. So you know,
Speaker 1: even if the pilots right. So in the second instance,
Speaker 1: in the Ethiopian airplane crash, the pilots were aware of
Speaker 1: the system, they did everything right, they did what they
Speaker 1: were told to do, and the plane still crashed. So
Speaker 1: you know, if you don't and what you have to
Speaker 1: also remember, and this is why we also created the
Speaker 1: kind of the c g I recreation of what happens
Speaker 1: in that cockpit because there's this cacophony of sounds and
Speaker 1: error alerts that are all contradict geting each other that
Speaker 1: the pilots are trying to understand and navigate and figure out. Okay,
Speaker 1: this is saying where you know, the altitude is in disagreement,
Speaker 1: that air speed is in disagreement, that the all systems
Speaker 1: alert is on, the stick shaker is going, there's all
Speaker 1: of these alerts coming at them, and then with that
Speaker 1: they have to navigate. Okay, Well, what this all means
Speaker 1: is that I need to do these steps within ten seconds,
Speaker 1: and otherwise this plane is going to crash. I mean,
Speaker 1: I don't want to go on a plane that is
Speaker 1: putting pilots in that position. I don't want to put
Speaker 1: my children or my people whose job who would give
Speaker 1: anything to save the lives of their passengers. Think of
Speaker 1: something more unimaginable than to be on the in the
Speaker 1: cockpit of a plane and the plane is behaving and
Speaker 1: not in some anomalous way. You see yourself hurtling towards
Speaker 1: the ground. It's at nine eleven. You're the plane is
Speaker 1: going into the ground and you're sitting there thinking what
Speaker 1: can you don't and you don't know what to do? Right,
Speaker 1: It's completely know maybe they're eating a turkey sandwich. You know,
Speaker 1: it does not like you're not. They're sitting there, everything
Speaker 1: on total alert for the entire plane ride. Before we
Speaker 1: get into the macro of your filmmaking, one more thing,
Speaker 1: I think you make it clear in the film, the
Speaker 1: idea that this is a different Bowing. At this point,
Speaker 1: I thought it was fascinating how you talk about the
Speaker 1: move to Chicago. They moved the headquarters to Chicago for
Speaker 1: the purposes of distancing themselves from the influence, and I
Speaker 1: though it was well thought. The influence was good. It
Speaker 1: was a nice battery. It was a nice exchange between
Speaker 1: Union's management, design and technology and the corporate and these
Speaker 1: guys like, no, no, no, we we don't want to
Speaker 1: be too close to those guys in Seattle. So we're
Speaker 1: gonna move to Chicago so we can make our decisions
Speaker 1: in this bubble in Chicago. And it seems like what
Speaker 1: was a great company, that rare, I mean, multibillion dollar enterprise.
Speaker 1: It made big, expensive things that they were very proud of,
Speaker 1: that defined the city, and everything moves to Chicago, and
Speaker 1: it seems like that's part of the problem. It was
Speaker 1: once the that merger was made and they moved to Chicago,
Speaker 1: that cost cutting thing becomes primary. I think that's right,
Speaker 1: you know. I think like you, I love Boeing and
Speaker 1: what Boeing stood for in this country, and you know
Speaker 1: the history of Bowing, and we really celebrate that in
Speaker 1: the film because it's been an extraordinary company for decades.
Speaker 1: You know, it helped us get out of World War Two,
Speaker 1: It helped build the fighter jets to win that war.
Speaker 1: It helped get us to the moon with my uncle Jack.
Speaker 1: I mean, they helped build those engines and the rocket ships.
Speaker 1: They helped people be able to travel all over the
Speaker 1: world for the first time, you know, with the seven
Speaker 1: forty seven, an extraordinary accomplishment. So we wanted to celebrate that.
Speaker 1: And during those very early years and for many decades,
Speaker 1: Boeing did one thing, which was to say, we're going
Speaker 1: to prioritize excellence and safety and then the profits will follow.
Speaker 1: We're going to make the best planes possible, we're gonna innovate,
Speaker 1: we're going to do new things, and we're going to
Speaker 1: think to the future. And then it changed hands, taken
Speaker 1: over really. I mean, one person we interviewed said somehow
Speaker 1: McDonald douglas bought Bowing with Boeing's money and the McDonald
Speaker 1: douglas people were put in charge, and they had a
Speaker 1: very different business model, which was very Wall Street focused
Speaker 1: and quarterly earnings, you know, And so they've made a
Speaker 1: series of decision corporate decisions to cut back on personnel
Speaker 1: whose whose job it was to ensure safety and put
Speaker 1: pressure on the folks who were building the planes to
Speaker 1: build them quicker and faster. And when people would complain
Speaker 1: about safety, that slows that process down documentary filmmaker Rory Kennedy.
Speaker 1: If you enjoy conversations about the making of documentary films,
Speaker 1: check out my episode with British filmmaker Lucy Walker. Her
Speaker 1: documentary Bring Your Own Gaide is an in depth look
Speaker 1: at California wildfires and their effect on local residents. What
Speaker 1: I want to understand is, well, how are we stopping
Speaker 1: it and why are people living in these areas and
Speaker 1: building these houses that burn over and over and over again.
Speaker 1: Could we do better? So you would think that when
Speaker 1: people look at developing an area for housing, they would
Speaker 1: think about far safety, but nobody's actually thinking about what
Speaker 1: are they going to be able to ensure these homes
Speaker 1: and who's going to pay if these homes burned down.
Speaker 1: To hear more of my conversation with Lucy Walker, go
Speaker 1: to Here's the Thing dot org. After the break, Rory
Speaker 1: Kennedy and I discussed the filmmakers who have influenced her work.
Speaker 1: I'm Alec Baldwin and you're listening to Here's the Thing.
Speaker 1: Filmmaker Rory Kennedy has made more than forty documentaries. Her
Speaker 1: work has earned an Emmy and several OSCAR nominations along
Speaker 1: the way, I wanted her to share some of her
Speaker 1: process as a filmmaker. Well, you know, different people and
Speaker 1: companies work in different ways. I'm very hands on as
Speaker 1: a filmmaker, and I you know, I love to be
Speaker 1: doing all the interviews and being in the edit room,
Speaker 1: and so I don't take on a huge number of
Speaker 1: projects at any given time. And usually when I decide
Speaker 1: that I really want to do a particular project, I
Speaker 1: really try to make it happen. I was really committed.
Speaker 1: I felt like this story was so important, the Downfall story.
Speaker 1: I think, like so many other people, I witnessed these
Speaker 1: two airplanes crashing within five months of each other, the
Speaker 1: exact same aircraft. Three forty six people died, and you know, I,
Speaker 1: like so many other people, fly right, And I felt
Speaker 1: like I want to know what happened, who knew what when,
Speaker 1: who is responsible for this? And I want to make
Speaker 1: sure that something like this doesn't happen again. But I
Speaker 1: also felt that, you know, during the last decades that
Speaker 1: America has been really prioritizing corporate interests, right, And so
Speaker 1: I think this film, I think this film I hope
Speaker 1: rises to something that's not just about these crashes, which
Speaker 1: is you know, as meaningful as it gets, but I
Speaker 1: think it touches on something else, which is the need
Speaker 1: to regulate, the need to balance out corporate interests making money,
Speaker 1: making money, making money, and the need to balance that
Speaker 1: with public interests. Right, And we've seen corporations like going
Speaker 1: balances for many decades and do fantastically well. And I
Speaker 1: think that when that gets out of balance, it hurts everybody.
Speaker 1: So when you see someone like the fi Ausio, the
Speaker 1: head of the committee, the guy that was the leading
Speaker 1: light there in the Congress, did he have as much
Speaker 1: integrity overall as it appears to be on screens? Fantastic
Speaker 1: because because you know as well as I do, you
Speaker 1: know where are people in government who care enough and
Speaker 1: they want to fight the way we're going? Like like
Speaker 1: Boeing was a company, you said, well, you understand, you
Speaker 1: want people to make money and make profits. Bowling was
Speaker 1: doing quite well before. I'm sure they had a slump
Speaker 1: when Douglas took over. But what you find is not
Speaker 1: only do people want to make money, they want to
Speaker 1: make obscene amounts of money. They want to make an
Speaker 1: amount of money that they're looking at you like your child,
Speaker 1: like well you know now calm down, sunny, because there's
Speaker 1: a lot of money at stake here for us who
Speaker 1: run and own the company. And my point is is
Speaker 1: that for me, I'm always so sad. I'm always so
Speaker 1: impacted by government officials who don't have the guts to
Speaker 1: do their job. And the government's job is. I mean,
Speaker 1: I've I watched people in testimony in hearings and I
Speaker 1: think to myself, thank God I'm out there, because I
Speaker 1: would be looking at the heads of car companies and alchemies, going,
Speaker 1: you don't get it. You come here, you answer our
Speaker 1: questions on behalf of the American people. We have the authority,
Speaker 1: and I feel like that authority is not always employed effectively.
Speaker 1: You said Defacio did a good job. He's amazing. I
Speaker 1: mean he and his heart was so in the right place.
Speaker 1: But he was also dogged and he held these folks accountable.
Speaker 1: And you know when you see him in those congressional
Speaker 1: testimonies and chasing down every single document and you know,
Speaker 1: putting this report together, which took years in the making
Speaker 1: and is incredibly thorough. They go after bowing and they
Speaker 1: hold them accountable, and they're continuing to go after bowing.
Speaker 1: So I think there are a lot of extraordinary heroes
Speaker 1: who are celebrated who are really on the front lines
Speaker 1: of this, whether it's Defasio or Michael Stummo, who's the
Speaker 1: father of Samuel Stummo who died in the Ethiopian plane
Speaker 1: crash and turned from a victim to really an advocate.
Speaker 1: And he, I mean, I just got off the phone
Speaker 1: with him yesterday and he he's not giving up on this.
Speaker 1: I mean, Bowing has thrown a lot of money at
Speaker 1: these families to get them to be quiet, and he
Speaker 1: is not going to be silenced. And he is continuing
Speaker 1: to you know, spread the message that that this that
Speaker 1: he has a very continued concerns about the safety of
Speaker 1: the seven thirty seven Acts, the seven eight seven Dreamliner.
Speaker 1: They just announced yesterday the f A a that I mean,
Speaker 1: as though this should be news, but that the FAA
Speaker 1: is going to actually regulate Bowing and not let Bowing
Speaker 1: regulating regulate. So you know, watch the film because that's
Speaker 1: another interesting point about how when I was studying government
Speaker 1: at gw in the seventies, when I went down to
Speaker 1: Washington to go to school, and we talked about that,
Speaker 1: and we talked about how you know, uh, departmentalization, how
Speaker 1: people are in these departments, like presidents come and go.
Speaker 1: We're here civil servants for twenty thirty years, and so
Speaker 1: here at the f A, we have our own relationships
Speaker 1: with eight with airline companies, and they allowed Bowing to
Speaker 1: self regulate and self inspect. I do think you're right
Speaker 1: that there's they're not enough people in government who are advocating.
Speaker 1: But I guess my point is is that in this
Speaker 1: film you show a world where advocacy comes from a
Speaker 1: lot of different perspective. It comes from the government officials
Speaker 1: doing the right thing in this case to Fasio, it
Speaker 1: also comes from you know, people who don't think of
Speaker 1: themselves as advocates but turn into ad it's as a result.
Speaker 1: And then you know Andy Pestor, who's a dogged journalist
Speaker 1: who chases down the story and gets us the information.
Speaker 1: And it's the combination of all of those people who
Speaker 1: come together, and you know the storytellers, right, So I'm
Speaker 1: I'm not putting myself in that category, but we also
Speaker 1: have to you know, the Lucy Walkers and and yourself,
Speaker 1: the people who are packaging these stories and getting them
Speaker 1: out in a way that's digestible to an audience and
Speaker 1: so that that translates hopefully into creating a better world.
Speaker 1: I'm curious for people to understand how documentary films come
Speaker 1: to the screen. Bob Drew, he did the trip tick
Speaker 1: primary about your uncle. I mean, one of the funniest
Speaker 1: things in the world you've ever seen in your life.
Speaker 1: Hubert Humphrey walking into like some barn with men sitting
Speaker 1: on bales of hay, saying, America, we know what it's
Speaker 1: got to do. And then you cut to your uncle
Speaker 1: walking with his wife into room for the people and
Speaker 1: people are crying and screaming like it's a Beatles concert.
Speaker 1: Who is going to win the primary? Who were your
Speaker 1: influences in your filmmaking, Well, certainly Bob Drew was, I
Speaker 1: mean an extraordinary filmmaker. Penny Baker was a huge influence
Speaker 1: on me as well. Barbara Copple, who you know. The
Speaker 1: first documentary feature I made was American Hollow, which was
Speaker 1: about a family in eastern Kentucky and it was really
Speaker 1: an extraordinary story ray of its woman who had thirteen
Speaker 1: kids and they all lived off the land, and we
Speaker 1: kind of spent a year with them. Certainly influenced by
Speaker 1: Barbara and her extraordinary work and in Kentucky and Appalachia. So,
Speaker 1: you know, I think those early verite filmmakers have huge
Speaker 1: influence on the world of filmmaking today. And then they're
Speaker 1: just you know, there's just a slew of incredible filmmakers
Speaker 1: who are colleagues of mine. You know Lucy Walker you mentioned,
Speaker 1: I think she's a fantastic filmmaker. My old partner, Liz Garbage,
Speaker 1: is fantastic. We're not still together as a company, but
Speaker 1: were we remained very good friends and advocates for each
Speaker 1: other film. Yeah, that's fantastic. Yeah, gosh, you's your so knowledgeable.
Speaker 1: Amy Berg is fantastic. RJ. Cutler, Davis Guggenheim. I mean,
Speaker 1: there's just Don Porter. I think that we're surround funded
Speaker 1: by really talented filmmakers, and I think there's I think
Speaker 1: we've all also been influenced, you know. I think this
Speaker 1: verity influence has impacted the kinds of work that we do.
Speaker 1: But I think we're also influenced by Hollywood and the
Speaker 1: films that we're seeing, the narrative films and the dramatic storytelling,
Speaker 1: so that we're making films that keep you a little
Speaker 1: bit more at the edge of your seat of what's
Speaker 1: going to happen next, you know, and and really pull
Speaker 1: you into the characters and and and to the plot
Speaker 1: and too. You know, the storytelling. I think it's very
Speaker 1: sophisticated these days. I think you know, you see it
Speaker 1: out in the world, and you know, when you turn
Speaker 1: on your Netflix account, it's a mix up there. It's
Speaker 1: not like, here's the narratives and then go down deep
Speaker 1: into your Netflix account to find the documentaries there up center.
Speaker 1: You know, because people are watching them and they're they're
Speaker 1: pulled in and and I think it's because they're really
Speaker 1: great storytellers. Filmmaker Rory Kennedy, if you're enjoying this conversation,
Speaker 1: tell a friend and be sure to follow Here's the
Speaker 1: Thing on the I Heart Radio app, Spotify or wherever
Speaker 1: you get your podcasts. When we come back, Rory Kennedy
Speaker 1: talks about the film of hers that was the hardest
Speaker 1: for her to make. I'm Alec Baldwin and you were
Speaker 1: listening to Here's the Thing. The Kennedy family has made history,
Speaker 1: and most of that while occupying a path from Hyanna Sport, Massachusetts,
Speaker 1: down to McClean, Virginia. And yet Rory somehow landed in California. Well,
Speaker 1: my husband Mark, as you know, as a screenwriter and
Speaker 1: a writer, and he is also my partner in writing documentaries,
Speaker 1: but he has other writing that draws him out there.
Speaker 1: So we decided we'd go out there for a couple
Speaker 1: of years because at that time, ten or twelve years ago,
Speaker 1: the kind of independent film world was fizzling out here
Speaker 1: in New York and was sort of pivoting over the
Speaker 1: West Coast. We fell in love with California. Your brother
Speaker 1: moved that. I talked to my friend, I go, how
Speaker 1: do you like it? Goes it's great? I go, oh god, no, no,
Speaker 1: I said, not you not you come on, you're going
Speaker 1: You're going out there? I said, I mean, I think
Speaker 1: Cheryl is great, but there's a lot of other women
Speaker 1: out there for you, Bob, And he doesn't have to
Speaker 1: be living out there in California, and he loves it. Yeah.
Speaker 1: He came out there with his EMU, his bird. I
Speaker 1: remember he was trying to figure out a way to
Speaker 1: get the bird out there, and I said, well, you know,
Speaker 1: maybe try Richard Plepler. He's got that HBO plane. So
Speaker 1: he called Richard and he said, can I bring my
Speaker 1: can you take my bird out? But he failed to
Speaker 1: mention that the bird was six ft high and needed
Speaker 1: to go with Richard anyway, so he said, the catering
Speaker 1: order came out and then Bob, he didn't have a
Speaker 1: house for the first couple of weeks, so the bird
Speaker 1: lived at my house with Mark Nate blueberries and anyway,
Speaker 1: there are lots of stories to tell about to be
Speaker 1: the bird. And he loves California, know too, but yeah,
Speaker 1: he loves he loves it out there. Now, you did
Speaker 1: the movie about your mom, and of course you make
Speaker 1: a little joke there, But how difficult it was to
Speaker 1: recruit your mom? Yes she was not she was not
Speaker 1: a willing subject to be filmed, but eventually she settled down.
Speaker 1: My siblings were very difficult to by the way, really well, yes,
Speaker 1: they just didn't make it easy busy now, they just
Speaker 1: wanted to make it difficult for me, because why would
Speaker 1: why would they make it easy when they don't have
Speaker 1: to know? They were all fantastic and including my mother,
Speaker 1: and they they did answer ultimately all the questions I
Speaker 1: asked them. And my mother, I was just with her
Speaker 1: yesterday I played back and with her, and I mean
Speaker 1: I was just I was winning whole game. My diets
Speaker 1: were so much better. I played brilliantly, and then she
Speaker 1: beat me again. She's ninety four. I cannot beat that woman.
Speaker 1: Clinging back him and I'm not a bad back him
Speaker 1: and Claire, I love I love that your mother also.
Speaker 1: And you know this infinitely better than I do. She
Speaker 1: just in her own wonderful way and in a truly
Speaker 1: in a truly marvelous way. She just doesn't suffer fools
Speaker 1: at all. And we're playing golf up there at the
Speaker 1: golf tournament, and she says to me, come in golf
Speaker 1: with me. You're gonna you're gonna be with me, and
Speaker 1: you're gonna be with Frank and so and so and so.
Speaker 1: And I go, I said, I beg your pardon. I said,
Speaker 1: you have to really understand it's important because this I've
Speaker 1: crossed this this juncture before. I said, I'm a miserable golfer.
Speaker 1: Of course you can hit a golf ball. Come on,
Speaker 1: come on, I said, no, I don't think you really understand.
Speaker 1: I need you desperately to listen to carefully what I'm saying. No, no, no, no, no, please,
Speaker 1: because this is nonsense. Come on, you're gonna come with me.
Speaker 1: You're gonna play with me and Frank and I. As
Speaker 1: is always the case, I am scared to know. So
Speaker 1: I do fairly well. I can drive the ball, I
Speaker 1: could I I get lucky with the iron. I can
Speaker 1: put back and drive iron some terrible We get to
Speaker 1: the second to the third hold in your mother TN.
Speaker 1: She goes, you're right, you really can golf? Can you?
Speaker 1: Did she check you off your team? Can we get
Speaker 1: could we get in here? Someone? Where's the ringer that
Speaker 1: was following us? To fill inform me? Now? One thing
Speaker 1: I noticed when I worked with the counselor sisters who
Speaker 1: did disturb in the universe about their father, William Kunstler,
Speaker 1: And when I was talking to them, it was I
Speaker 1: kind of knew this, but it was brought into sharper
Speaker 1: focus for me. The cost. I mean, they told me
Speaker 1: that they were trying to retire a debt of forty
Speaker 1: fifty dollars of debt they owed for archival footage from
Speaker 1: NBC and other network news organizations. Is that true for
Speaker 1: you as well? Meaning? Do you find these costs are
Speaker 1: just because I, for one, belief that old network news
Speaker 1: organizations the materials should be made free under fair use.
Speaker 1: These are public airways. Yeah, well it is. It can
Speaker 1: be astronomical the cost associated with archive. I mean, we're
Speaker 1: lucky enough with this film that it was. It was
Speaker 1: fully financed by Netflix, who covered those costs for us,
Speaker 1: so so we're not dead on it. But it can
Speaker 1: really make her a a lot of terrific documentaries out there.
Speaker 1: I think more people are leaning into fair use, but
Speaker 1: there has been a few instances of backlash against that
Speaker 1: where people chase them down and demand being paid, you know,
Speaker 1: particularly for these historical documentaries. It's it's a real cost.
Speaker 1: It's like people who when I was working more consistently
Speaker 1: on the issue of campaign financial reform with creative coalition
Speaker 1: organizations I worked with years ago in the nineties, from
Speaker 1: disparate sources, we learned that the one of the great
Speaker 1: enemies of campaign finance reform is the National Association of
Speaker 1: Broadcasters because these affiliates in the network TV world. Someone
Speaker 1: said to me, there are stations in this country that
Speaker 1: make seventy of their annual budget during one election cycle
Speaker 1: and selling political advertising. They do not want to take
Speaker 1: the money out of politics, and the n a B,
Speaker 1: the National Association War is constantly finding campaign finance law changes. Yeah, listen,
Speaker 1: I so appreciate your work in that area too, because
Speaker 1: I think, you know, when just circling back to your
Speaker 1: point about you know, who are these leaders now like
Speaker 1: Defasio who are advocating for us. I think it's it's
Speaker 1: hard given the system that we have to really produce
Speaker 1: and and encourage people who are who are in it
Speaker 1: exclusively for the public interest, right. I mean, that's those
Speaker 1: are the types of people who you want to be
Speaker 1: driven to politics as people who are going to make
Speaker 1: the world a better place, but instead they're often driven
Speaker 1: there because of money, and that's not really the reason
Speaker 1: you want people ultimately in that in that position. So
Speaker 1: I think there's a lot still to be done, obviously
Speaker 1: with campaign finance reform in this country. Which film for
Speaker 1: you was the most difficult to put together as a film,
Speaker 1: What was the biggest challenge. Well, I think the hardest
Speaker 1: one for me was ethel you know, the stakes were
Speaker 1: so high and it was so deeply personal. You know,
Speaker 1: I had to look through lots of footage. We're talking
Speaker 1: about archive footage, you know, some of which was extraordinary
Speaker 1: and beautiful and so fun to see and just you know,
Speaker 1: gave me a depth of understanding of my family and
Speaker 1: my father, who I never met. You know, just watching
Speaker 1: him in this footage and a lot of footage has
Speaker 1: never been seen before. Was was a really beautiful experience
Speaker 1: for me. But it was also emotionally challenging and difficult,
Speaker 1: and you know, I wanted to ultimately make a film
Speaker 1: that showed, you know, the challenges and the difficulties that
Speaker 1: my mother in particular went through and faced, but also
Speaker 1: you know, to celebrate her because I think that for
Speaker 1: so many people in our family, with a focus on
Speaker 1: Robert Kennedy, John F. Kennedy, Teddy Kennedy, but there's not
Speaker 1: as much focus on the women, right and there. You know,
Speaker 1: my aunt unit started the Special Olympics. She's contributed enormously
Speaker 1: and but she hasn't quite gotten that same level of attention,
Speaker 1: and nor has my mother. And so many people when
Speaker 1: they introduced me, they say, oh, this is Robert Kennedy's daughter,
Speaker 1: and I'm like, well, my mother actually raised me, and
Speaker 1: you know, she played a pretty big part in like
Speaker 1: who I Am. So part of it was like, I
Speaker 1: think she deserves the spotlight at least for a moment,
Speaker 1: like at least understood. Yeah, and to help people understand
Speaker 1: her contribution because she was also her nature was to
Speaker 1: kind of stand behind and not you know, be the
Speaker 1: one on the microphone and be the one sort of
Speaker 1: at the front line. So anyway, I think just for
Speaker 1: me personally, the stakes were higher on that one and
Speaker 1: and it was more challenging for me. What are you
Speaker 1: working on next? I'm working on a couple of projects.
Speaker 1: I've got another film with Netflix that is about a
Speaker 1: volcanic eruption that I'm doing right now, and then I've
Speaker 1: got a film about the global refugee crisis that Yes,
Speaker 1: these are the main ones I'm focused on, and I'm
Speaker 1: very excited to, you know, have this film coming out
Speaker 1: on Netflix, and UM committed to getting as many eyes
Speaker 1: on it as possible. Now, Last Days of Vietnam was in.
Speaker 1: How many of these films Ethel was in. I can't
Speaker 1: believe it. But if these last films, have most of
Speaker 1: them been with Netflix. Now, this is my first film
Speaker 1: that I've directed with Netflix. Last Days was with PBS,
Speaker 1: Ethel was with HBO, did a film about NASA with
Speaker 1: the Discovery Channel. Let me just say I like that.
Speaker 1: I have such admiration and respect for you. You're such
Speaker 1: a talented artist, and you've always committed yourself to making
Speaker 1: the world a better place. And you have such a
Speaker 1: love for people and heart that is more open and
Speaker 1: more generous than anybody I know. And I just have
Speaker 1: such deep admiration and respect for you. Might love to
Speaker 1: your mom, Will you take care of Thank you? Rory Kennedy.
Speaker 1: Her documentary Downfall, The Case against Boeing, is available now
Speaker 1: on Netflix. This episode was produced by Kathleen Russo, Zack McNeice,
Speaker 1: and Maureen Hoban. Our engineer is Frank Imperial. Here's the
Speaker 1: Thing is brought to you by iHeart Radio.