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,
Speaker 1: more intrigue. I invite you to check out a new
Speaker 1: podcast I just released called Art Fraud. It's the true
Speaker 1: story of one of New York City's oldest and most
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.
Speaker 2: The art market is ripe for cons because it's inherently subjective.
Speaker 2: I just couldn't even look at it because it was
Speaker 2: so garish and so not by rothco.
Speaker 1: We're talking about eighty million dollars in fake paintings, or
Speaker 1: more precisely, forgeries. All episodes of Art Fraud are available
Speaker 1: right now. Okay, here's our show. This is Alec Baldwin,
Speaker 1: and you're listening to Here's the Thing from iHeart Radio.
Speaker 1: My guest today comes from the most legendary of American families.
Speaker 1: Rory Kennedy is the youngest daughter of Senator Robert F.
Speaker 1: Kennedy and the niece of President John F. Kennedy. But
Speaker 1: as she will tell us during our conversation, she's also
Speaker 1: one of the great Kennedy Women. Instead of following her
Speaker 1: forbearers into law or politics, Kennedy has made a name
Speaker 1: for herself as a documentary filmmaker. Her films feature a
Speaker 1: wide range of subjects, from surfing legend Laird Hamilton to
Speaker 1: challenging issues like poverty, addiction, and mental illness. In her
Speaker 1: current film, She's tackling corporate corruption. That film, Downfall, the
Speaker 1: case against Boeing, investigates the circumstances that led to two
Speaker 1: tragic passenger jet crashes in twenty eighteen and nineteen. Rory
Speaker 1: Kennedy and I talk about her remarkable upbringing and he
Speaker 1: how the people she's encountered in her life have influenced
Speaker 1: her trajectory.
Speaker 3: I think it's hard to detach anybody from how they
Speaker 3: grew up, right, I mean, that's such an influence and
Speaker 3: impact on who you become. And certainly that was the
Speaker 3: case with me. I grew up, you know, the youngest
Speaker 3: of eleven and in obviously a very political family, and
Speaker 3: I was impacted by that. I mean I was also surrounded,
Speaker 3: my mother made a point of this by really extraordinary
Speaker 3: role models, you know, when we had such a the
Speaker 3: honor of meeting, whether it was you know, presidents or
Speaker 3: congressman and senators, or people like Nelson Mandela and Desmond Tutu,
Speaker 3: you know who were in our homes, and also some
Speaker 3: of the great athletes and you know NASA astronauts. I mean, so,
Speaker 3: I think it was a life where we were surrounded
Speaker 3: by people who created a sense of aspiration and to
Speaker 3: try to make the world a bit of a better place.
Speaker 1: Now, what would you say though that, as you're making
Speaker 1: a film, do you have protocols, rules, tenets, whatever word
Speaker 1: you want to use, where you sit there and say
Speaker 1: that's not something I'm going to do. That's influenced by
Speaker 1: the way your family's been treated. If you're making a
Speaker 1: film and let's say some aspect of a story, there's
Speaker 1: a very kind of scandalizing, tawdry. When to shy away
Speaker 1: from that is the way you guys have been attacked
Speaker 1: from time to time.
Speaker 3: I think I have certain sensitivities. For example, with Downfall,
Speaker 3: the case against Going, there's three hundred and forty six
Speaker 3: people who died, and there are the family members who
Speaker 3: are related to those people, some of whom we talked
Speaker 3: to in our film, And I was definitely thinking, well,
Speaker 3: how is it going to be for these folks to
Speaker 3: watch this film, right, And I've had to see scenes
Speaker 3: over and over again that play themselves out on the
Speaker 3: news that are very upsetting to watch about my family
Speaker 3: dying right and being killed, and I didn't want to
Speaker 3: subject them to that. But I also wanted to make
Speaker 3: a film that was impactful. We do cgi recreations of
Speaker 3: what it was like to be in the cockpit so
Speaker 3: that we could really help people understand the perspective of
Speaker 3: the pilots in these planes and what they were struggling
Speaker 3: with with the MCS system. And you know, but I thought,
Speaker 3: how are these folks going to watch this film? So
Speaker 3: when I sent the film to them before it's coming out,
Speaker 3: I highlighted all the sections that I thought would be
Speaker 3: hard for them to watch, so that they could be
Speaker 3: aware of that and go into it and decide to
Speaker 3: watch those sections or not. So, you know, maybe I
Speaker 3: have some sensitivity and moments like that. I think the
Speaker 3: types of films I choose generally tend to be political
Speaker 3: in nature and tend to, you know, I hope when
Speaker 3: people watch these films, whether it's this or a film
Speaker 3: about Vietnam the final days of the war, film about
Speaker 3: Abu grabe that we learned from them, and we learn
Speaker 3: from watching these stories and hopefully make better choices moving forward. Right, So,
Speaker 3: I think the choices of the films I make are
Speaker 3: certainly impacted by the family I grew up in.
Speaker 1: It's interesting that you mentioned that. And this is only tangential,
Speaker 1: but remember being invited years ago Clinton was in the
Speaker 1: White House. I was invited to the White House to
Speaker 1: a screening of the movie The Paper by Ronnie Howard,
Speaker 1: and I'm sitting in a seat in the theater and
Speaker 1: the woman to my right, who's sitting next to me,
Speaker 1: A gun goes off in the middle of the film,
Speaker 1: and that woman grabbed my arm and gasped this huge
Speaker 1: gasp when the gun went off.
Speaker 2: It was your mom, right, So you know there's me.
Speaker 1: To this day's she's not prepared for that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, those sounds. Yeah, so there's trauma related to that
Speaker 2: for sure.
Speaker 1: Now to get to the film. So I watched this film, obviously,
Speaker 1: and I was mesmerized. Congratulations by the way, I mean,
Speaker 1: you came to the Hampton's Film Festival. Every year a
Speaker 1: film of yours comes and we all look at together
Speaker 1: and we're like, can we really invite her again? Do
Speaker 1: we bringing rored out to Eastampton again? I mean, isn't
Speaker 1: enough enough? I mean, how much more can we shine
Speaker 1: her up here? But we loved your film about your mom.
Speaker 1: We're going to get to that later. I loved Last
Speaker 1: Days of Vietnam. That was a great I'm not just
Speaker 1: saying this, that's a great movie. Great movie really just
Speaker 1: you what film can do and the spirit of what's
Speaker 1: happening and understanding that those moments that you did a
Speaker 1: great job. Now, this film made me angry. This film.
Speaker 1: I was pissed off because only one guy I think
Speaker 1: is criminally charged, correct, that's correct, and that we identify
Speaker 1: that person, Mark Forkner, And he was in charge of
Speaker 1: what is bowing.
Speaker 3: He was a pilot, a test pilot, and he was
Speaker 3: you know, he really wasn't responsible for what end and
Speaker 3: a lot of people feel like he was scapegoaded because
Speaker 3: he was really in charge of making sure, you know,
Speaker 3: he was testing the plane. And then he played a
Speaker 3: role in keeping the MCS system away from the regulators
Speaker 3: and that's documented and there's proof of that, and so
Speaker 3: they followed up with that. But you know, Congressman Defasio,
Speaker 3: for example, led the Congressional investigation into what happened the
Speaker 3: biggest investigation the Infrastructure and Transportation Committee's history. And he
Speaker 3: concluded that this was really top down right, that the
Speaker 3: top group in management at Boeing was very aware of
Speaker 3: the MCS system, that there was a concerted effort to
Speaker 3: keep the system away from the regulators, to hide the system,
Speaker 3: and to cut corners along the way, and that there
Speaker 3: was you know, it was a culture of concealment, is
Speaker 3: what he calls it. So I think that there are
Speaker 3: a lot of people who feel like the folks who
Speaker 3: are most responsible have yet to be held accountable. And
Speaker 3: there's been no criminal charges, and you know, Lahllenberg walked
Speaker 3: away with.
Speaker 1: The head of Boeing, the head of Boeing sixty something.
Speaker 2: That sixty two million dollars.
Speaker 3: So you know, I think after you've kind of watched
Speaker 3: the film and really understand all the decisions that the
Speaker 3: management at Boeing made along the way to prioritize profit
Speaker 3: over safety, that you know, when you understand the depths
Speaker 3: of those choices that I think many people like you
Speaker 3: are outraged.
Speaker 1: Well for people, I don't want to I want them
Speaker 1: to see the film obviously, but I want to give
Speaker 1: them just a taste of so Boeing wants to create
Speaker 1: I'll let you fill in the blank. So they want
Speaker 1: to create a fleet. They're losing market share, they're getting
Speaker 1: their hat handed to them by Airbus. Things are not
Speaker 1: looking good for Boeing, who have been dominant around the
Speaker 1: world for decades and then and were the pride of
Speaker 1: not just Seattle, but the United States as industry. And
Speaker 1: then the things start to go down from so they
Speaker 1: want to play ketchup and they want to produce a
Speaker 1: lower cost, more fuel efficient I think was the goal of.
Speaker 2: The seven seven seven thirty seven MAX.
Speaker 1: Got to get the word max in there. The seven
Speaker 1: thirty seven fuel efficiency was the goal. And then a
Speaker 1: part of this was the development of this system which
Speaker 1: was to help to so they don't make too steep
Speaker 1: a climb. A system takes over the plane and lowers
Speaker 1: the nose of the plane and forces the plane down,
Speaker 1: but doesn't shut off. It forces the nose of the
Speaker 1: plane down straight into the ground.
Speaker 2: Correct, Well, yeah, that's correct.
Speaker 3: There was there were concern at a certain angle that
Speaker 3: the plane would stall, and so they instead of changing
Speaker 3: the kind of structure of the plane and moving the
Speaker 3: engines and whatnot. They decided to fix it with a
Speaker 3: computer system, again in an effort to save money, it seems,
Speaker 3: and that computer system was connected to one sensor on
Speaker 3: the side of the airplane, like a weather van. And
Speaker 3: so if that sensor was damage, which happens off and
Speaker 3: gets hit by bird, something happens to it, it would
Speaker 3: send and this is what happened erroneous the information to
Speaker 3: the computer system. So it would tell the computer system
Speaker 3: that the plane was at a certain angle and you
Speaker 3: needed to push the nose down, But it wasn't at
Speaker 3: that angle. It was more at a flat angle, and
Speaker 3: not only would it push the nose of the plane down,
Speaker 3: but it would do it over and over and over again.
Speaker 1: Probably the most powerwing details you covered the film is
Speaker 1: and the pilots were not told about the installation of
Speaker 1: the system.
Speaker 2: That's correct.
Speaker 3: It's prior to the Line air crash, which was the
Speaker 3: first crash. The pilots were completely unaware that the system
Speaker 3: was even on the airplane, which was also kind of
Speaker 3: flew in the face of what had been the normal
Speaker 3: relationship between Boeing and pilots, which was to really educate
Speaker 3: and form pilots about everything training, you know, make them
Speaker 3: fully equipped to handle any situation that would happen. But
Speaker 3: in this case they in an effort to really keep
Speaker 3: this from regulators. Really, what was motivating them is that
Speaker 3: if they have a totally new system on the airplane,
Speaker 3: then they have to train pilots. And if they have
Speaker 3: to train pilots, it costs them a million dollars per
Speaker 3: an aircraft, you know, on average to train these pilots.
Speaker 3: So they wanted to again it seems save the money.
Speaker 3: And so instead of making people aware that this system
Speaker 3: was on the airplane, they made a concerted effort to.
Speaker 1: We're not even going to tell you about this machine
Speaker 1: we've installed, which, if it behaves badly, is going to
Speaker 1: crash the plane. Yes, and there's a manual override that
Speaker 1: they might have been able to activate. They could have
Speaker 1: gotten out of it, I guess if they'd had the training.
Speaker 3: If they had had the training. Except what we also
Speaker 3: discover and show case in the course of this film
Speaker 3: is a document that came out in twenty sixteen. It's
Speaker 3: called a coordination sheet that shows that if something went
Speaker 3: wrong with the system, that the pilots would need to
Speaker 3: fix it within ten seconds. Otherwise the power of the
Speaker 3: MCS system would overtake them if they didn't do it
Speaker 3: in ten seconds and the results would be catastrophic. And
Speaker 3: catastrophic in airplane language means the plane will crash and
Speaker 3: everybody will die. So you know, even if the pilots right.
Speaker 3: So in the second instance, in the Ethiopian airplane crash,
Speaker 3: the pilots were aware of the system, they did everything right,
Speaker 3: they did what they were told to do, and the
Speaker 3: plane still crashed. So you know if you don't and
Speaker 3: what you have to also remember, and this is why
Speaker 3: we also created the kind of the CGI recreation of
Speaker 3: what happens in that cockpit is there's this cacophony of
Speaker 3: sounds and error alerts that are all contradict each other
Speaker 3: that the pilots are trying to understand and navigate and
Speaker 3: figure out. Okay, this is saying where you know, the
Speaker 3: altitude is in disagreement, the airspeed is in disagreement, that
Speaker 3: all systems alert is on, the stick shaker is going,
Speaker 3: there's all of these alerts coming at them, and then
Speaker 3: with that they have to navigate. Okay, Well, what this
Speaker 3: all means is that I need to do these steps
Speaker 3: within ten seconds and otherwise this plane is going to crash.
Speaker 3: I mean, I don't want to go on a plane
Speaker 3: that is putting pilots in that position. I don't want
Speaker 3: to put my children.
Speaker 1: Face people are whose job who give anything to save
Speaker 1: the lives of their passengers. Think of something more unimaginable
Speaker 1: than to be on in the cockpit of a plane
Speaker 1: and the plane is behaving and not in some anomalous way.
Speaker 1: You see yourself hurtling towards the ground. It's like nine
Speaker 1: to eleven. Yeah, you're the plane's going into the ground
Speaker 1: and you're sitting there thinking what can and you don't
Speaker 1: know what to do?
Speaker 2: Yeah, right, it's completely funny. Maybe they're eating a turkey sandwich.
Speaker 3: You know, it does not like you're not there sitting
Speaker 3: there every on total alert for the entire plane ride.
Speaker 1: Well, before we get into the macro of your filmmaking,
Speaker 1: one more thing, I think you make it clear in
Speaker 1: the film the idea that this is a different Boeing.
Speaker 1: At this point, I thought it was fascinating how you
Speaker 1: talk about the move to Chicago. They moved the headquarters
Speaker 1: to Chicago for the purposes of distancing themselves from the influence,
Speaker 1: and I thought it was well that the influence was good.
Speaker 1: It was a nice battery. It was a nice exchange
Speaker 1: between Union's management, design and technology and the corporate And
Speaker 1: these guys are like, no, no, no, we don't want
Speaker 1: to be too close to those guys in Seattle. So
Speaker 1: we're going to move to Chicago so we can make
Speaker 1: our decisions in this bubble in Chicago. And it seems
Speaker 1: like what was a great company, that rare I mean,
Speaker 1: multi billion dollar enterprise that made big, expensive things that
Speaker 1: they were very proud of, that defined a city, and
Speaker 1: everything moves to Chicago, And it seems like that's part
Speaker 1: of the problem was once the that merger was made
Speaker 1: and they moved Chicago, that cost cutting thing becomes primary.
Speaker 3: I think that's right, you know, I think, like you,
Speaker 3: I love Boeing and what Boeing stood for in this country,
Speaker 3: and you know the history of Boeing, and we really
Speaker 3: celebrate that in the film because it's been an extraordinary
Speaker 3: company for decades. You know, it helped us get out
Speaker 3: of World War two, It helped build the fighter jets
Speaker 3: to win that war. It helped get us to the
Speaker 3: moon with my uncle Jack. I mean, they helped build
Speaker 3: those engines in the rocket ships, they helped people be
Speaker 3: able to travel all over the world for the first time,
Speaker 3: you know, with the seven forty seven and extraordinary accomplishment.
Speaker 3: So we wanted to celebrate that. And during those very
Speaker 3: early years and for many decades, Boeing did one thing,
Speaker 3: which was to say, we're going to prioritize excellence and
Speaker 3: safety and then the profits will follow. We're going to
Speaker 3: make the best planes possible, we're going to innovate, we're
Speaker 3: going to do new things, and we're going to think
Speaker 3: to the future. And then it changed hands, taken over really.
Speaker 3: I mean, one person we interviewed said somehow McDonald douglas
Speaker 3: bought Boeing with Boeing's money and the McDonald douglas people
Speaker 3: were put in charge, and they had a very different
Speaker 3: business model, which was very Wall Street focused and quarterly earnings,
Speaker 3: you know, And so they've made a series of decision
Speaker 3: corporate decisions to cut back on personnel whose job it
Speaker 3: was to ensure safety and put pressure on the folks
Speaker 3: who were building the planes to build them quicker and faster.
Speaker 3: And when people would complain about safety, that slows that
Speaker 3: process down.
Speaker 1: Documentary filmmaker Rory Kennedy, if you enjoy conversations about the
Speaker 1: making of documentary films. Check out my episode with British
Speaker 1: filmmaker Lucy Walker. Her documentary Bring Your Own Gate is
Speaker 1: an in depth look at California wildfires and their effect
Speaker 1: on local residents.
Speaker 4: What I want to understand is, well, how are we
Speaker 4: stopping it and why are people living in these areas
Speaker 4: and building these houses that burn over and over and
Speaker 4: over again. Could we do better? So you would think
Speaker 4: that when people look at developing an area for housing,
Speaker 4: they would think about fire safety, but nobody's actually thinking about,
Speaker 4: well are they going to be able to ensure these
Speaker 4: homes and who's going to pay if these homes burn 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.
Speaker 3: Well, you know, different people and companies work in different ways.
Speaker 3: I'm very hands on as a filmmaker, and I you know,
Speaker 3: I love to be doing all the interviews.
Speaker 2: And being in the edit room, and.
Speaker 3: So I don't take on a huge number of projects
Speaker 3: at any given time. And usually when I decide that
Speaker 3: I really want to do a particular project, I really
Speaker 3: try to make it happen. I was really committed. I
Speaker 3: felt like this story was so important, the downfall story.
Speaker 3: I think, like so many other people, I witnessed these
Speaker 3: two airplanes crashing within five months of each other, the
Speaker 3: exact same aircraft. Three hundred and forty six people died,
Speaker 3: and you know, I, like so many other people, fly right,
Speaker 3: and I felt like I want to know what happened,
Speaker 3: who knew what when, who is responsible for this? And
Speaker 3: I want to make sure that something like this doesn't
Speaker 3: happen again. But I also felt that, you know, during
Speaker 3: the last decades that America has been really prioritizing corporate interests, right,
Speaker 3: And so I think this film than usual. I think
Speaker 3: this film, I hope rises to something that's not just
Speaker 3: about these crashes, which is you know, as meaningful as
Speaker 3: it gets. But I think it touches on something else,
Speaker 3: which is the need to regulate, the need to balance
Speaker 3: out corporate interests making money, making money, making money, and
Speaker 3: the need to balance out with public interest right. And
Speaker 3: we've seen corporations like Gooing balances for many decades and
Speaker 3: do fantastically well. And I think that when that gets
Speaker 3: out of balance, it hurts everybody.
Speaker 1: So when you see someone like the fire the head
Speaker 1: of the committee, the guy that was the leading life
Speaker 1: there in the Congress, did he have as much integrity
Speaker 1: overall as it appears to be on screen?
Speaker 2: He's fantastic because you know as well as I do.
Speaker 1: You know, where are people in governments who care enough
Speaker 1: and they want to fight the way we're going. Like
Speaker 1: Boeing was a company you see, well, you understand you
Speaker 1: want people to make money and make profits. Boeing was
Speaker 1: doing quite well before. Sure they had a slump when
Speaker 1: Douglas took over. But what you find is not only
Speaker 1: do people want to make money, they want to make
Speaker 1: obscene amounts of money. They want to make an amount
Speaker 1: of money that they're looking at you like you're a child, like, well,
Speaker 1: you know, now, calm down, sunny, because there's a lot
Speaker 1: of money at stake here for us who run and
Speaker 1: own the company. And my point is is that for me,
Speaker 1: I'm always so sad. I'm always so impacted by government
Speaker 1: officials who don't have the guts to do their job,
Speaker 1: and the government's job is to mean. I watched people
Speaker 1: in testimony in hearings, and I think to myself, thank
Speaker 1: God I'm not there, because I would be looking at
Speaker 1: the heads of car companies or ol companies, going, you
Speaker 1: don't get it. You come here, you answer our questions
Speaker 1: 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, Defasio did a good job.
Speaker 3: He's amazing. I mean, he and his heart was so
Speaker 3: in the right place. But he was also dogged and
Speaker 3: he held these folks accountable. And you know when you
Speaker 3: see him in those congressional testimonies and chasing down every
Speaker 3: single document and you know, putting this report together, which
Speaker 3: took years in the making and is incredibly thorough. They
Speaker 3: go after bowing and they hold them accountable, and they're
Speaker 3: continuing to go after bowing. So I think there are
Speaker 3: a lot of extraordinary heroes who are celebrated, who are
Speaker 3: really on the front lines of this, whether it's Defasio
Speaker 3: or Michael Stumo who's the father of Samya Stummo who
Speaker 3: died in the Ethiopian plane crash and turned from a
Speaker 3: victim to really an advocate. And he, I mean, I
Speaker 3: just got off the phone with him yesterday and he
Speaker 3: he's not giving up on this. I mean, Boeing's thrown
Speaker 3: a lot of money at these families to get them
Speaker 3: to be quiet, and he is not going to be silenced,
Speaker 3: and he is continuing to you know, spread the message
Speaker 3: that that is that he has very continued concerns about
Speaker 3: the safety of the seven thirty seven Acts, the seven
Speaker 3: eighty seven Dreamliner. They just announced yesterday the FAA that
Speaker 3: I mean as though this should be news, but that
Speaker 3: the FAA is going to actually regulate Boeing and not
Speaker 3: let Boeing regulation regulating.
Speaker 1: So, you know, point to 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, departmentalization, how people
Speaker 1: are in these departments, like presidents come and go we're
Speaker 1: here civil servants for twenty thirty years, and so here
Speaker 1: at the FA we have our own relationships with eight
Speaker 1: with airline companies, and they allowed Gooing to self regulate
Speaker 1: and self inspect.
Speaker 3: I do think you're right that there's they're not enough
Speaker 3: people in government who are advocating. But I guess my
Speaker 3: point is is that in this film you show a
Speaker 3: world where advocacy comes from a lot of different perspective.
Speaker 3: It comes from the government officials doing the right thing
Speaker 3: in this case to Fasio. It also comes from you know,
Speaker 3: people who don't think of themselves as advocates but turn
Speaker 3: into ads as a result. And then you know Andy Pastor,
Speaker 3: who's a dogged journalist who chases down the story and
Speaker 3: gets us the information. And it's the combination of all
Speaker 3: of those people who come together, and you know, the storytellers, right,
Speaker 3: So I'm not putting myself in that category, but we
Speaker 3: also have to you know, the Lucy Walkers and yourself,
Speaker 3: the people who are packaging these stories and getting them
Speaker 3: out in a way that's a digestible to an audience,
Speaker 3: and 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 in the room for the people,
Speaker 1: and people are crying and screaming like it's a Beatles concert. Oh,
Speaker 1: who's going to win the primary. Who were your influences
Speaker 1: in your filmmaking.
Speaker 3: Well, certainly Bob Drew was, I mean an extraordinary filmmaker.
Speaker 3: Penny Baker was a huge influence on me as well.
Speaker 3: Barbara Copple, who you know, the first documentary feature I
Speaker 3: made was American Hollow, which was about a family in
Speaker 3: eastern Kentucky, and it was really an extraordinary story of
Speaker 3: this woman who had thirteen kids and they all lived
Speaker 3: off the land and we kind of spent a year
Speaker 3: with them. Certainly influenced by Barbara and her extraordinary work
Speaker 3: in Kentucky and Appalachia. So you know, I think those
Speaker 3: early Veritay filmmakers have huge influence on the world of
Speaker 3: filmmaking today, and then they're just you know, there's just
Speaker 3: a slew of incredible filmmakers who are colleagues of mine.
Speaker 3: You know, Lucy Walker you mentioned, I think she's a
Speaker 3: fantastic filmmaker. My old partner, Liz Garbus, is fantastic.
Speaker 2: Together the company, we're not still together as a.
Speaker 3: Company, but we remain very good friends and advocates for
Speaker 3: each other. Yeah, that's fantastic. Yeah, gosh, you are so
Speaker 3: knowledge well. Amy Berg is fantastic.
Speaker 2: RJ.
Speaker 3: Cutler, Davis Guggenheim. I mean, there's just Don Porter. I
Speaker 3: think that we're surround by really talented filmmakers, and I
Speaker 3: think there's I think we've all also been influenced, you know.
Speaker 3: I think this verite influence has impacted the kinds of
Speaker 3: work that we do.
Speaker 2: But I think we're also.
Speaker 3: Influenced by Hollywood and the films that we're seeing, the
Speaker 3: narrative films and the dramatic storytelling, so that we're making
Speaker 3: films that keep you a little bit more at the
Speaker 3: edge of your seat of what's going to happen next,
Speaker 3: you know, and really pull you into the characters and
Speaker 3: to the plot and to you know, the storytelling. I
Speaker 3: think it's very sophisticated these days. I think you know,
Speaker 3: you see it out in the world, and you know
Speaker 3: when you turn on your.
Speaker 2: Netflix account, it's a mix up there.
Speaker 3: It's not like, here's the narratives and then go down
Speaker 3: deep into your Netflix account to find the documentaries. They're
Speaker 3: up center. You know, because people are watching them. They're
Speaker 3: they're pulled in, and I think it's because they're really
Speaker 3: great storytellers.
Speaker 1: Filmmaker Rory Kennedy, if you're enjoying this conversation, tell a
Speaker 1: friend and be sure to follow Here's the Thing on
Speaker 1: the iHeartRadio app, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts.
Speaker 1: When we come back, Rory Kennedy talks about the film
Speaker 1: of hers that was the hardest for her to make.
Speaker 1: I'm Alec Baldwin and you're listening to Here's the Thing.
Speaker 1: The Kennedy family has made history, and most of that
Speaker 1: while occupying a path from Hyannasport, Massachusetts, down to McLean, Virginia,
Speaker 1: and yet Rory somehow landed in California.
Speaker 3: Well, my husband Mark, as you know, is a screenwriter
Speaker 3: and a writer, and he is also my partner in
Speaker 3: writing documentaries, but he has other writing that draws him
Speaker 3: out there. So we decided we'd go out there for
Speaker 3: a couple of years because at that time, ten or
Speaker 3: twelve years ago, the kind of independent film world was
Speaker 3: fizzling out here in New York and was sort of
Speaker 3: pivoting over the West Coast.
Speaker 2: We fell in love with California.
Speaker 1: Your brother moves that. I tooked to him on find
Speaker 1: I go, how do you like? He goes, It's great.
Speaker 1: I go, oh god, no, no, I said, not you
Speaker 1: not you come on out. I said, you're you're going
Speaker 1: out there? I said, man, I think Cheryl's great, but
Speaker 1: there's a lot of other women out there for you, Bob,
Speaker 1: and we doesn't have to be living out there in California.
Speaker 1: And he loves it.
Speaker 3: Yeah. He came out there with his EMU, his bird.
Speaker 3: I remember he was trying to figure out a way
Speaker 3: to get the bird out there, and I said, well,
Speaker 3: you know, I maybe try Richard Plepler. He's got that
Speaker 3: HBO plane. So he called Richard and he said, can
Speaker 3: I bring my can you take my bird out? But
Speaker 3: he failed to mention that the bird was six feet
Speaker 3: high and needed to go with Richard anyway, so he
Speaker 3: said the bird caing order came out and then Bobby
Speaker 3: didn't have a house for the first couple of weeks,
Speaker 3: so the bird lived at my house with Mark made
Speaker 3: blueberries and anyway, there are lots of stories to tell
Speaker 3: about Toby the bird.
Speaker 1: And he loves California, know too.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, he loves he loves it out there.
Speaker 1: Now, you did the movie about your mom, and of
Speaker 1: course you make a little joke there, but how difficult
Speaker 1: it was to recruit your mom?
Speaker 2: Yes she was.
Speaker 1: She was not a willing subject to be filmed, No,
Speaker 1: but eventually she settled down.
Speaker 3: My siblings were very difficult too, by the way. Really well, yes,
Speaker 3: they just didn't.
Speaker 2: Make it easy.
Speaker 3: They're busy yet, No, they just wanted to make it
Speaker 3: difficult for me, because why would it Why would they
Speaker 3: make it easy when they don't have to know? They
Speaker 3: were all fantastic and including my mother, and they they
Speaker 3: did answer ultimately all the questions.
Speaker 2: I asked them.
Speaker 3: And my mother, I was just with her yesterday. I
Speaker 3: played backhaming with her, and I mean I was just
Speaker 3: I was winning whole game. My dice were so much better.
Speaker 3: I played brilliantly, and then she beat me again. She's
Speaker 3: ninety four. I cannot beat that woman playing back him.
Speaker 3: And I'm not a bad Vackham.
Speaker 2: And Claire, I love that.
Speaker 1: I love that. Your mother also, And you know this
Speaker 1: infy better than I do. She just in her own
Speaker 1: wonderful way and in a truly in a truly marvelous way.
Speaker 1: She just doesn't suffer fools at all. And we're playing
Speaker 1: golf up there at the golf tournament, and she says
Speaker 1: to me, come and golf with me. You're gonna you're
Speaker 1: gonna be with me, and you're gonna be with Frank
Speaker 1: and so and so and so. And I go, I said,
Speaker 1: I beg your pardon. I said, you have to really
Speaker 1: understand it's important because this I've crossed this with this
Speaker 1: juncture before. I said, I'm a miserable golfer. Oh of
Speaker 1: course you can hit a golf ball. Come on, come on,
Speaker 1: I said, no, no, I don't think you really understand. I
Speaker 1: need you desperately to listen to carefully what I'm saying. No, no, no, no, no, please,
Speaker 1: this is non sense. Come on, You're to 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 do so
Speaker 1: I do fairly well. I can drive the ball. I
Speaker 1: could I get lucky with the iron. I can put
Speaker 1: I can drive iron some terrible We get to the
Speaker 1: second of the third. Hold in your mother, She goes,
Speaker 1: you're right, you really can't golf? Can you?
Speaker 2: Did you shake you off your team? Could we get
Speaker 2: low in here?
Speaker 1: Someone? Where's the ringer that was following us to fill information? Now?
Speaker 1: One thing I noticed when I worked with the Counstler
Speaker 1: sisters who did disturb in the universe about their father,
Speaker 1: William Kunstler. And when I was talking to them, it
Speaker 1: was I kind of knew this, but it was brought
Speaker 1: into sharper focus for me. The cost. I mean, they
Speaker 1: told me that they were trying to retire a debt
Speaker 1: of like forty thousand, fifty thousand dollars of debt they
Speaker 1: owed for archival footage from NBC and other network news organizations.
Speaker 1: Is that true for you as well? Meaning do you
Speaker 1: do you find these costs or just? I mean, because I,
Speaker 1: for one belief that old network news organizations the material
Speaker 1: should be made free under fair use. These are public airwaves.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, it is.
Speaker 3: It can be astronomical the cost associated with archive. I mean,
Speaker 3: we're lucky enough with this film that it was it
Speaker 3: was fully financed by Netflix, who covered those costs for us,
Speaker 3: so we're not debt on it, but it can really
Speaker 3: make her a lot of terrific documentaries out there. I
Speaker 3: think more people are leaning into fair use, but there
Speaker 3: has been a few instances of backlash against that where
Speaker 3: people chase them down and demand being paid, you know,
Speaker 3: particularly for these historical documentaries.
Speaker 2: It's a real cost.
Speaker 1: Well, it's like people who when I was working more
Speaker 1: consistently on the issue of campaign finance reform with creative
Speaker 1: coalition organizations I worked with years ago in the nineties,
Speaker 1: from disparate sources, we learned that 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 percent of their annual budget during one election
Speaker 1: cycle and selling political advertising. They do not want to
Speaker 1: take the money out of politics, and the NAB, the
Speaker 1: National Association BOROK, is constantly fighting campaign finance law changes.
Speaker 3: Yeah, well, listen I so appreciate your work in that
Speaker 3: air area too, because I think, you know, when just
Speaker 3: circling back to your point about you know, who are
Speaker 3: these leaders now like Defasio who are advocating for us.
Speaker 3: I think it's it's hard, given the system that we
Speaker 3: have to really produce and encourage people who are in
Speaker 3: it exclusively for the public interest, right. I mean that
Speaker 3: those are the types of people who you want to
Speaker 3: be driven to politics as people who are going to
Speaker 3: make the world a better place, but instead they're often
Speaker 3: driven there because of money, and that's not really the
Speaker 3: reason you want people ultimately in that position. So I
Speaker 3: think there's a lot still to be done, obviously with
Speaker 3: campaign finance reform in this country.
Speaker 1: Which film for you was the most difficult to put
Speaker 1: together as a film, What was the biggest challenge?
Speaker 3: Well, I think the hardest one for me was ethel
Speaker 3: you know, the stakes were so high and it was
Speaker 3: so deeply personal. You know, I had to look through
Speaker 3: lots of footage. We're talking about archive footage, you know,
Speaker 3: some of which was extraordinary and beautiful and so fun
Speaker 3: to see and just you know, gave me a depth
Speaker 3: of understanding of my family and my father who I
Speaker 3: never met, you know, just watching him in this footage
Speaker 3: and a lot of footage has never been seen before,
Speaker 3: was a really beautiful experience for me. But it was
Speaker 3: also emotionally challenging and difficult, and you know, I wanted
Speaker 3: to ultimately make a film that showed, you know, the
Speaker 3: challenges and the difficulties that my mother in particular went
Speaker 3: through and faced, but also, you know, to celebrate her
Speaker 3: because I think that for so many people in our family,
Speaker 3: with a focus on Robert Kennedy, John F. Kennedy, Teddy Kennedy,
Speaker 3: but there's not as much focus on the women, right,
Speaker 3: and they're you know, my unit started the Special Olympic.
Speaker 3: She's contributed enormously, but she hasn't quite gotten that same
Speaker 3: level of attention and Nora has my mother and so
Speaker 3: many people when they introduce me, they say, oh, this
Speaker 3: is Robert Kennedy's daughter, and I'm like, well, my mother
Speaker 3: actually raised me, and you know, she played a pretty
Speaker 3: big part in like who I am. So part of
Speaker 3: it was like, I think she deserves the spotlight at
Speaker 3: least for a moment, like at least to be understood, yeah,
Speaker 3: and to help people understand her contribution because she was
Speaker 3: also her nature was to kind of stand behind and
Speaker 3: not you know, be the one on the microphone and
Speaker 3: be the one sort of at the front line. So anyway,
Speaker 3: I think just for me personally, the stakes were higher
Speaker 3: on that one and it was more challenging for me.
Speaker 1: What are you working on next?
Speaker 2: I'm working on a couple projects.
Speaker 3: I've got another film with Netflix that is about a
Speaker 3: volcanic eruption that I'm doing right now, and then I've
Speaker 3: got a film about.
Speaker 2: The global refugee crisis that's a big light.
Speaker 3: Yes, these are the main ones I'm focused on, and
Speaker 3: I'm very excited to, you know, have this film coming
Speaker 3: out on Netflix and committed to getting as many eyes
Speaker 3: on it as possible.
Speaker 1: Now, Last Days of Vietnam was in twenty fourteen. How
Speaker 1: many of these films Ethel was in twenty twelve, I
Speaker 1: can't believe it. What of these last films have most
Speaker 1: of them been with Netflix?
Speaker 3: Now, this is my first film that I've directed with Netflix.
Speaker 3: Last Days was with PBS, Etha was with HBO, did
Speaker 3: a film about NASA with the Discovery Channel.
Speaker 2: Let me just.
Speaker 3: Say, Alec that I have such an admiration and respect
Speaker 3: for you. You're such a talented artist, and you've always
Speaker 3: committed yourself to making the world a better place.
Speaker 2: And you have such.
Speaker 3: A love for people and a heart that is more
Speaker 3: open and more generous than anybody I know. And I
Speaker 3: just have such deep admiration.
Speaker 2: And respect for you.
Speaker 1: I love for your mom.
Speaker 2: I will you take care. Thank you.
Speaker 1: Rory Kennedy. Her documentary Downfall, The Case against Boeing, is
Speaker 1: available now on Netflix. This episode was produced by Kathleen Russo,
Speaker 1: Zach MacNeice, and Maureen Hobin. Our engineer is Frank Imperio.
Speaker 1: Here's the Thing is brought to you by iHeart Radio.