August 27, 2024 • 38 mins
Our Here’s the Thing Summer Staff Picks series continues, featuring our favorite episodes from the archives. This week, we revisit Alec Baldwin’s 2022 conversation with Rory Kennedy, documentary filmmaker and the youngest child of Ethel and Robert F. Kennedy. She is an Academy Award-nominated, Emmy Award-winning director and producer who has made more than 40 acclaimed documentaries. Her work confronts complicated subjects like poverty, corruption, domestic abuse, addiction and human rights, as well as surfing legends, NASA and the extraordinary life of her mother. Her 2022 film, “Downfall: The Case Against Boeing,” on the two tragic Boeing 737 Max passenger jet crashes, has become all the more prescient following the recent news regarding the company’s continuing plane malfunctions.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
This is Alec Baldwin, and you were listening to Here's
the Thing from iHeart Radio. It's summer and that means
it's time for our tradition at Here's the Thing. Will
the staff share their favorite episodes from our archives in
our Summer staff Picks series? Next up is producer Zach MacNeice.
Speaker 2 (00:20):
Thanks Alec. On January fifth of this year, twenty twenty four,
on Alaska Airline's Boeing seven three seven Max nine made
an emergency landing in Portland, Oregon after a piece of
the fuselage blew out of the plane. Five days later,
on January fourteenth, a Boeing seven three seven eight hundred
was forced to turn around and land in Japan after
(00:41):
a crack was found mid air on the cockpit window.
On March seventh, a Boeing seven seven seven two hundred
made an emergency landing in Los Angeles after attire fell
off the plane during takeoff. And today, July thirty first,
Boeing has named a new CEO, Robert Ortberg, after announcing
a one point four billion dollar loss in the second
(01:04):
quarter of the year. These are just a few of
the many recent Boeing headlines In the past two and
a half years since the release of Rory Kennedy's documentary Downfall,
The Case against Boeing. Alex spoke with Rory in March
of twenty twenty two, and I couldn't think of a
better time to revisit this conversation about the film, The
Great American Company and Rory Kennedy's incredible life as a
(01:26):
documentary filmmaker.
Speaker 1 (01:30):
My guest today comes from the most legendary of American families.
Rory Kennedy is the youngest daughter of Senator Robert F.
Kennedy and the niece of President John F.
Speaker 3 (01:42):
Kennedy.
Speaker 1 (01:43):
But as she will tell us during our conversation, she's
also one of the great Kennedy Women. Instead of following
her forbears into law or politics, Kennedy has made a
name for herself as a documentary filmmaker. Her films feature
a wide range of subjects, from surfing legend Laird Hamilton
(02:03):
to challenging issues like poverty, addiction, and mental illness. In
her current film, she's tackling corporate corruption. That film, Downfall
the Case against Boeing, investigates the circumstances that led to
two tragic passenger jet crashes. In twenty eighteen and nineteen,
(02:23):
Rory Kennedy and I talk about her remarkable upbringing and
how the people she's encountered in her life have influenced
her trajectory.
Speaker 4 (02:32):
I think it's hard to detach anybody from how they
grew up, right, I mean, that's such an influence and
impact on who you become. And certainly that was the
case with me.
Speaker 5 (02:44):
I grew up.
Speaker 4 (02:46):
The youngest of eleven and in an obviously a very
political family, and I was impacted by that. I mean
I was also surrounded, my mother made a point of
this by really extraordinary role models, you know, when we
had such a the honor of meeting, whether it was
(03:07):
you know, presidents or congressmen and senators or people like
Nelson Mittndela and Desmond Tutu, you know, who were in
our homes, and also some of the great athletes and
you know NASA astronauts.
Speaker 5 (03:22):
I mean, so, I think.
Speaker 4 (03:24):
It was a life where we were surrounded by people
who created a sense of aspiration and to try to
make the world a bit of a better place.
Speaker 1 (03:35):
Now, what would you say though, that, as you're making
a film, do you have protocols, rules, tenets, whatever word
you want to use, where you sit there and say
that's not something I'm going to do that's influenced by
the way your family's been treated. If you're making a
film and let's say some aspect of a story, there's
a very kind of scandalizing, tawdry to shy away from
(03:56):
that is the way you guys have been attacked from
time to time.
Speaker 4 (03:59):
I think I have certain sensitivities. For example, with Downfall,
the case against Boeing, there's three hundred and forty six
people who died, and there are the family members who
are related to those people, some of whom we talked
to in our film, And I was definitely thinking, well,
how is it going to be for these folks to
(04:20):
watch this film right? And I've had to see scenes
over and over again that play themselves out on the
news that are very upsetting to watch about my family
dying right and being killed, and I didn't want to
subject them to that. But I also wanted to make
a film that was impactful. We do cgi recreations of
(04:42):
what it was like to be in the cockpit so
that we could really help people understand the perspective of
the pilots in these planes and what they were struggling
with with the MCS system. And you know, but I thought,
how are these folks going to watch this film? So
when I sent the film to them before it's coming out,
I highlighted all the sections that I thought would be
(05:03):
hard for them to watch, so that they could be
aware of that and go into it and decide to
watch those sections or not. So, you know, maybe I
have some sensitivity and moments like that. I think the
types of films I choose generally tend to be political
in nature and tend to you know, I hope when
(05:25):
people watch these films, whether it's this or a film
about Vietnam, the final days of the war, film about
Abu Grabe, that we learned from them, and we learn
from watching these stories and hopefully make better choices moving forward.
Speaker 1 (05:43):
Right.
Speaker 4 (05:43):
So, I think the choices of the films I make
are certainly impacted by the family I grew up in.
Speaker 1 (05:49):
It's interesting that you mentioned that, and this is only tangential,
but remember being invited years ago Clinton was in.
Speaker 3 (05:55):
The White House.
Speaker 1 (05:55):
I was invited to the White House to a screening
of the movie The Paper Howard, and I'm sitting in
a seat in the theater and the woman to my
right who's sitting next to me. A gun goes off
in the middle of the film, and that woman grabbed
my arm and gasped this huge gasp when the gun
went off.
Speaker 5 (06:13):
It was your mom, right, So you know there's.
Speaker 3 (06:17):
Me to this day, it's she's not prepared for that. Yeah,
those sounds.
Speaker 4 (06:22):
Yeah, so there's trauma related to that for sure.
Speaker 3 (06:25):
Now to get to the film.
Speaker 1 (06:26):
So I watched this film obviously, and I was mesmerized.
Congratulations by the way. I mean, you came to the
Hampton's Film Festival. Every year a film of yours comes
and we all look at together and we're like, can
we really invite her again? Do we bringing Rory down
to Easthampton again? I mean, is it enough enough? I mean,
how much more can we shine her up here? But
(06:47):
we loved your film about your mom. We're gonna get
to that later. I loved Last Days of Vietnam. That
was a great I'm not just saying this, that's a
great movie. Great movie. Really, just you what film can
do in this period of what's happening and understanding that
those moments that you did a great job and this
film made me angry this film. I was pissed off
(07:09):
because only one guy I think is criminally charged. Correct,
that's correct, and that we identify that person, Mark Forkner.
Speaker 3 (07:18):
And he was in charge of what it is bowing.
Speaker 4 (07:20):
He was a pilot, a test pilot, and he was
you know, he really wasn't responsible for what happened, and
a lot of people feel like he was scapegoaded because
he was really in charge of making sure, you know,
he was testing the plane and then he played a
role in keeping the MCS system away from the regulators.
(07:43):
And that's documented and there's proof of that, and so
they followed up with that. But you know, Congressman Defaisio,
for example, led the congressional investigation into what happened, the
biggest investigation the Infrastructure and Transportation Committee's history, and he
concluded that this was really top down right, that the
(08:04):
top group in management at Boeing was very aware of
the MCS system, that there was a concerted effort to
keep the system away from the regulators, to hide the system,
and to cut corners along the way, and that there
was you know, it was a culture of concealment, is
what he calls it. So I think that there are
(08:26):
a lot of people who feel like the folks who
are most responsible have yet to be held accountable. And
there's been no criminal charges. And you know, Lallenberg walked
away with the head of Boeing, the head of Boeing
sixty sixty two million dollars. So, you know, I think
after you've kind of watched the film and really understand
(08:48):
all the decisions that the management at Boeing made along
the way to prioritize profit over safety, that you know,
when you understand the depths of those choices that I
think many people like you are outraged.
Speaker 1 (09:03):
Well for people, I don't want to I want them
to see the film obviously, but I want to give
them just a taste of So Boeing wants to create
I'll let you fill in the blank. So they want
to create a fleet. They're losing market share, they're getting
their hat handed to them by Airbus. Things are not
looking good for Boeing, who had been dominant around the
world for decades and then and were the pride of
(09:25):
not just Seattle but the United States aviation industry, and
then the things start to go down from so they
want to play ketchup and they want to produce a
lower cost, more fuel efficient I think was the goal
of the seven seven thirty seven MAX. Got to get
the word max and there the seven thirty seven fuel
efficiency was the goal. And then a part of this
was the development of this system which was to help
(09:46):
to so they don't make too steep a climb.
Speaker 3 (09:48):
A system takes.
Speaker 1 (09:49):
Over the plane and lowers the nose of the plane
and forces the plane down, but doesn't shut off. It
forces the nose of the plane down straight into the ground.
Speaker 3 (09:58):
Correct.
Speaker 4 (09:59):
Well, yeah, that's there were concern at a certain angle
that the plane would stall, and so they instead of
changing the kind of structure of the plane and moving
the engines and whatnot, they decided to fix it with
a computer system, again in an effort to save money,
it seems, and that computer system was connected to one
(10:23):
sensor on the side of the airplane like a weather vein,
and so if that sensor was damaged, which happens off
and gets hit by bird, something happens to it, it
would send and this is what happened, erroneous information to
the computer system. So it would tell the computer system
that the plane was at a certain angle and you
(10:43):
needed to push the nose down, but it wasn't at
that angle. It was more at a flat angle, and
not only would it push the nose of the plane down,
but it would do it over and over and over again.
Speaker 1 (10:56):
Probably the most powering details you covered the film is
and the pilots were not told about the installation of
this system.
Speaker 4 (11:03):
That's correct, it's you know, prior to the Line air crash,
which was the first crash, the pilots were completely unaware
that the system was even on the airplane, which was
also kind of flew in the face of what had
been the normal relationship between Boeing and pilots, which was
(11:25):
to really educate and form pilots about everything training, you know,
make them fully equipped to handle any situation that would happen.
But in this case they in an effort to really
keep this from regulators. Really, what was motivating them is
that if they have a totally new system on the airplane,
(11:46):
then they have to train pilots. And if they have
to train pilots, it cost them a million dollars per
an aircraft, you know, on average to train these pilots.
So they wanted to again it seems, save the money,
and so instead of making people aware that this system
was on the airplane. They made a concerted effort to we're.
Speaker 1 (12:07):
Not even going to tell you about this machine we've installed, which,
if it behaves badly, is going to crash the plane. Yes,
and there's a manual override that they might have been
able to activate. They could have gotten out of it,
I guess if they'd had the training.
Speaker 4 (12:22):
If they had had the training. Except what we also
discover and showcase in the course of this film is
a document that came out in twenty sixteen. It's called
a coordination sheet that shows that if something went wrong
with the system, that the pilots would need to fix
it within ten seconds, otherwise the power of the MCS
(12:45):
system would overtake them if they didn't do it in
ten seconds, and.
Speaker 5 (12:49):
The results would be catastrophic.
Speaker 4 (12:51):
And catastrophic in airplane language means the plane will crash
and everybody will die. So you know, even if the
pilots right. So in the second instance, in the Ethiopian
airplane crash, the pilots were aware of the system, they
did everything right, they did what they were told to do,
and the plane still crashed. So you know, if you
(13:13):
don't and what you have to also remember, and this
is why we also created the kind of the CGI
recreation of what happens in that cockpit is there's this
cacophony of sounds and error alerts that are all contradicting
each other that the pilots are trying to understand and
navigate and figure out. Okay, this is thing where you know,
(13:34):
the altitude is in disagreement, the air speed is in disagreement,
the all systems alert is on the stickshaker is going,
there's all of these alerts coming at them, and then
with that they have to navigate. Okay, well, what this
all means is that I need to do these steps
within ten seconds and otherwise this plane is going to crash.
(13:57):
I mean, I don't want to go on a plane
that is putting pilots in that position. I don't want
to put my children.
Speaker 1 (14:02):
Or fa people are whose job who'd give anything to
save the lives of their passengers. Think of something more
unimaginable than to be on the in the cockpit of
a plane and the plane is behaving and not in
some anomalous way. You see yourself hurtling towards the ground.
It's yeah, nine to eleven. You're the planes going into
the ground and you're sitting there thinking what can you
(14:24):
and you don't know what to do?
Speaker 5 (14:25):
Yeah, right, it's completely funny. You know, maybe they're eating
a turkey sandwich.
Speaker 4 (14:29):
You know, it does not like you're not there sitting
there on total alert for the entire plane ride.
Speaker 1 (14:35):
Well, before we get into the macro of your filmmaking,
one more thing. I think you make it clear in
the film the idea that this is a different Boeing.
At this point, I thought it was fascinating how you
talk about the move to Chicago. They moved the headquarters
to Chicago for the purposes of distancing themselves from the influence, and.
Speaker 3 (14:53):
I thought it was well that the influence was good.
It was a nice battery.
Speaker 1 (14:56):
It was a nice exchange between Union's management, design, technology,
and the corporate And these guys are like, no, no, no,
we don't want to be too close to those guys
in Seattle. So we're going to move to Chicago so
we can make our decisions in this bubble in Chicago.
And it seems like what was a great company that rare,
I mean, multi billion dollar enterprise. It made big, expensive
(15:19):
things that they were very proud of that defined the city,
and everything moves to Chicago, and it seems like that's
part of the problem was once that merger was made
and they moved to Chicago, that cost cutting thing becomes primary.
Speaker 5 (15:32):
I think that's right, you know.
Speaker 4 (15:34):
I think, like you, I love Boeing and what Boeing
stood for in this country, and you know the history
of Boeing, and we really celebrate that in the film
because it's been an extraordinary company for decades. You know,
it helped us get out of World War Two. It
helped build the fighter jets to win that war. It
helped get us.
Speaker 5 (15:53):
To the moon with my uncle Jack.
Speaker 4 (15:55):
I mean, they helped build those engines in the rocket chips.
They helped people be able to travel all over the
world for the first time, you know, with the seven
forty seven and extraordinary accomplishment. So we wanted to celebrate that.
And during those very early years and for many decades,
Boeing did one thing, which was to say, we're going
(16:18):
to prioritize excellence and safety and then the profits will follow.
We're going to make the best planes possible, We're going
to innovate, we're going to do new things and we're
going to think to the future. And then it changed hands,
taken over really. I mean, one person we interviewed said
somehow McDonald douglas bought Boeing with Boeing's money and the
(16:42):
McDonald douglas people were put in charge, and they had
a very different business model, which was very Wall Street
focused and quarterly earnings, you know, And so they made
a series of decision corporate decisions to cut back on
personnel who's whose job it was to ensure safety and
(17:03):
put pressure on the folks who are building the planes
to build them quicker and faster, and when people would
complain about safety, that slows that process down.
Speaker 1 (17:15):
Documentary filmmaker Rory Kennedy. If you enjoy conversations about the
making of documentary films, check out my episode with British
filmmaker Lucy Walker. Her documentary Bring Your Own Brigade is
an in depth look at California wildfires and their effect
on local residents.
Speaker 6 (17:34):
What I want to understand is, well, how are we
stopping it and why are people living in these areas
and building these houses that burn over and over and
over again. Could we do better? So you would think
that when people look at developing an area for housing.
They would think about far safety, but nobody's actually thinking about,
(17:54):
well are they going to be able to ensure these
homes and who's going to pay if these homes burn down.
Speaker 1 (18:00):
To hear more of my conversation with Lucy Walker, go
to Here's the Thing dot org. After the break, Rory
Kennedy and I discussed the filmmakers who have influenced her work.
(18:22):
I'm Alec Baldwin and you're listening to Here's the Thing.
Filmmaker Rory Kennedy has made more than forty documentaries. Her
work has earned an Emmy and several Oscar nominations along
the way. I wanted her to share some of her
process as a filmmaker.
Speaker 4 (18:39):
Well, you know, different people and companies work in different ways.
I'm very hands on as a filmmaker, and I you know,
I love to be doing all the interviews and being
in the edit room, and so I don't take on
a huge number of projects at any given time. And
usually when I decide that I really want to do
a particular project, I really try to make it happen.
(19:03):
I was really committed. I felt like this story was
so important, the downfall story. I think, like so many
other people, I witnessed these two airplanes crashing within five
months of each other, the exact same aircraft. Three hundred
and forty six people died. And you know, I, like
so many other people, fly right, and I felt like,
(19:24):
I want to know what happened, who knew what when,
who is responsible for this? And I want to make
sure that something like this doesn't happen again. But I
also felt that, you know, during the last decades that
America has been really prioritizing corporate interests, right, And so
(19:45):
I think.
Speaker 5 (19:45):
This film than usual.
Speaker 4 (19:47):
I think this film, I hope, rises to something that's
not just about these crashes, which is, you know, as
meaningful as it gets. But I think it touches on
something else, which is the need to regulate, the need
to balance out corporate interests making money, making money, making money,
(20:11):
and the need to balance out with public interest right.
And we've seen corporations like Boeing balances for many decades
and do fantastically well. And I think that when that
gets out of balance, it hurts everybody.
Speaker 3 (20:25):
So when you see.
Speaker 1 (20:26):
Someone like Defasio, the head of the committee, the guy
that was the leading light there in the Congress. Did
he have as much integrity overall as it appears to
be on screen.
Speaker 3 (20:35):
He's fantastic because you know as well as I do.
Speaker 1 (20:38):
You know, where are people in government who care enough
and they want to fight the way we're going. Like
Boeing was a company, you say, well, you understand, you
want people to make money and make profits. Boeing was
doing quite well before. Sure they had a slump when
Douglas took over. But what you find is not only
do people want to make money, they want to make
obscene amounts of money. They want to make an amount
of money that they're looking at you like you're a child, like, well,
(20:59):
you know, now, calm down, sunny, because there's a lot
of money at stake here for us who run and
own the company.
Speaker 3 (21:06):
And my point is is that for me, I'm always
so sad.
Speaker 1 (21:10):
I'm always so impacted by government officials who don't have
the guts to do their job, and the government's job
is to I mean, I watched people in testimony in
hearings and I think to myself, thank God I'm not there,
because I would be looking at the heads of car
companies or ol companies going you don't get it. You
come here, you answer our questions on behalf of the
(21:31):
American people. We have the authority, and I feel like
that authority is not always employed effectively. You said de
Fassio did.
Speaker 3 (21:38):
A good job.
Speaker 4 (21:38):
He's amazing. I mean he and his heart was so
in the right place. But he was also dogged and
he held these folks accountable. And you know when you
see him in those congressional testimonies and chasing down every
single document and you know, putting this report together, which
took years in the making and is incredibly thorough. They
(22:02):
go after Bowing and they hold them accountable, and they're
continuing to go after Boeing.
Speaker 5 (22:08):
So I think there are.
Speaker 4 (22:09):
A lot of extraordinary heroes who are celebrated who are
really on the front lines of this, whether it's Defasio
or Michael Stumo, who's the father of Samuel Stumo who
died in the Ethiopian plane crash and turned from a
victim to really an advocate. And he I mean, I
just got off the phone with him yesterday and he
(22:30):
he's not giving up on this. I mean, Boeing's thrown
a lot of money at these families to get them
to be quiet, and he is not going to be silenced,
and he is continuing to you know, spread the message
that he has very continued concerns about the safety of
the seven thirty seven Acts, the seven eighty seven Dreamliner.
(22:52):
They just announced yesterday the FAA that I mean as
though this should be news, but that the FAA is
going to actually regulate bowing and not let Boeing regulations regulating.
Speaker 1 (23:03):
So, you know, point to watch the film because that's
another interesting point about how when I was studying government
at GW in the seventies, when I went down to
Washington to go to school, and we talked about that,
and we talked about how, you know, departmentalization, how people
are in these departments, like presidents come and go. We're
(23:23):
here civil servants for twenty thirty years, and so here
at the FA we have our own relationships with eight
with airline companies, and they allowed Boeing to self regulate
and self inspect.
Speaker 4 (23:33):
I do think you're right that there's they're not enough
people in government who are advocating. But I guess my
point is is that in this film, you show a
world where advocacy comes from a lot of different perspective.
It comes from the government officials doing the right thing
in this case, Defasio. It also comes from you know,
people who don't think of themselves as advocates but turn
(23:56):
into ad before it's as a result. And then you
know Andy p Store, who's a dogged journalist who chases
down the story and gets us the information. And it's
the combination of all of those people who come together,
and you know, the storytellers, right, So I'm not putting
myself in that category, but we also have to you know,
(24:17):
the Lucy Walkers and yourself, the people who are packaging
these stories and getting them out in the way this
audience digestible to an audience, and so that that translates
hopefully into creating a better world.
Speaker 1 (24:34):
I'm curious for people to understand how documentary films come
to the screen. Bob Drew, he did the trip tick
primary about your uncle. I mean, one of the funniest
things in the world you've ever seen in your life,
Hubert Humphrey walking into like some barn with men sitting
on bails of hay, saying America, we know what it's
(24:54):
got to do. And then you cut to your uncle
walking with his wife in your room. For the people
and people are crying and screaming like it's a Beatles
concert or who's going to win the primary.
Speaker 3 (25:03):
Who were your influences in your filmmaking.
Speaker 4 (25:06):
Well, certainly Bob Drew was, I mean an extraordinary filmmaker.
Penny Baker was a huge influence on me as well.
Barbara Kopple, who you know. The first documentary feature I
made was American Hollow, which was about a family in
eastern Kentucky, and it was really an extraordinary story of
(25:27):
a woman who had thirteen kids and they all lived
off the land, and we kind of spent a year
with them. Certainly influenced by Barbara and her extraordinary work
in Kentucky and Appalachia. So, you know, I think those
early veritay filmmakers have huge influence on the world of
(25:49):
filmmaking today. And then they're just you know, there's just
a flew of incredible filmmakers who are colleagues of mine.
You know Lucy Wallerker you mentioned, I think she's a
fantastic filmmaker. My old partner Liz Garbis, is fantastic. Together
to the company, we're not still together as a company,
(26:09):
but we remain very good friends and advocates for each other.
Speaker 5 (26:15):
Yeah, that's fantastic.
Speaker 4 (26:17):
Yeah, gosh, your so knowledge well, Amy Berg is fantastic.
Speaker 5 (26:21):
RJ.
Speaker 4 (26:21):
Cutler, Davis Guggenheim. I mean there's just Don Porter. I
think that we're surrounded by really talented filmmakers, and I
think there's I think we've all also been influenced, you know.
I think this verite influence has impacted the kinds of
work that we do. But I think we're also influenced
(26:41):
by Hollywood and the films that we're seeing, the narrative
films and the dramatic storytelling, so that we're making films
that keep you a little bit more at the edge
of your seat of what's going to happen next, you know,
and really pull you into the characters and and and
to the plot, to you know, the storytelling. I think
(27:02):
it's very sophisticated these days. I think, you know, you
see it out in the world, and you know, when
you turn on your Netflix account, it's a mix up there.
It's not like, here's the narratives and then go down
deep into your Netflix account to find the documentaries. They're
up center, you know, because people are watching them and
(27:23):
there they're pulled in and I think it's.
Speaker 5 (27:26):
Because they're really great storytellers.
Speaker 1 (27:31):
Filmmaker Rory Kennedy, If you're enjoying this conversation, tell a
friend and be sure to follow Here's the Thing on
the iHeartRadio app, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts.
When we come back, Rory Kennedy talks about the film
of hers that was the hardest for her to make.
(28:00):
I'm Alec Baldwin and you were listening to Here's the Thing.
The Kennedy family has made history, and most of that
while occupying a path from Hyanna Sport, Massachusetts, down to McLean, Virginia,
and yet Rory somehow landed in California.
Speaker 4 (28:17):
Well, my husband Mark, as you know, as a screenwriter
and a writer, and he is also my partner in
writing documentaries, but he has other writing that draws him
out there. So we decided we'd go out there for
a couple of years because at that time, ten or
twelve years ago, the kind of independent film world was
fizzling out here in New York and was sort of
(28:39):
pivoting over the West Coast.
Speaker 5 (28:40):
We fell in love with California.
Speaker 3 (28:42):
Your brother moves that I talked to him on Find
I Go how do you look. He goes, it's great.
I go, oh god, no, no, I said.
Speaker 5 (28:48):
Not you not, you come on out?
Speaker 1 (28:50):
I said, you're you're going out there? I said, I
think Cheryl's great, but there's a lot of other women
out there for you, Bob. And he doesn't have to
be living out there in California, and he loves it.
Speaker 5 (29:00):
He came out there with his EMU, his bird.
Speaker 4 (29:03):
I remember he was trying to figure out a way
to get the bird out there, and I said, well,
you know, I maybe try Richard Plepler. He's got that
HBO plane. So he called Richard and he said, can
I bring my Can you take my bird out? But
he failed to mention that the bird was six feet
high and needed to go with Richard anyway.
Speaker 5 (29:24):
So he said order the bird.
Speaker 4 (29:27):
Came out and then Bobby didn't have a house for
the first couple of weeks, so the bird lived at
my house with Mark Nde blueberries and anyway. There are
lots of stories to tell about Toby the bird.
Speaker 3 (29:38):
And he loves California no too, Yeah.
Speaker 5 (29:41):
Yeah, he loves he loves it out there.
Speaker 1 (29:43):
Now, you did the movie about your mom, and of
course you make a little joke there, But how difficult
it was to recruit your mom?
Speaker 4 (29:51):
Yes, she.
Speaker 1 (29:56):
Was not, she was not a willing subject to be filmed. No,
but eventually she's set down.
Speaker 4 (30:00):
My siblings were very difficult too, by the way. Really well, yes,
they just didn't make it easy.
Speaker 3 (30:06):
They're busy.
Speaker 4 (30:07):
Yeah, No, they just wanted to make it difficult for me,
because why would it Why would they make it easy
when they don't have to know? They were all fantastic,
and including my mother, and they they did answer ultimately
all the questions I asked them. And my mother, I
was just with her yesterday I played backham and with her,
and I mean I was just I was winning the
whole game. My dice were so much better. I played brilliantly,
(30:32):
and then she beat me again. She's ninety four. I
cannot beat that woman playing backham and I'm not a
bad vackham and player.
Speaker 3 (30:38):
I love that. I love that.
Speaker 1 (30:39):
Your mother also, And you know this infly better than
I do. She just in her own wonderful way and
in a truly in a truly marvelous way, she just
doesn't suffer fools at all. And we're playing golf up
there at the golf tournament, and she says to me,
coming golf with me. You're you're gonna be with me,
and you're gonna be with Frank and so and so
and so. And I go, I said, I beg your pardon.
I said, you have to really understand it's important. Could
(31:00):
this I've crossed this with this juncture before, I said,
I'm a miserable golfer.
Speaker 3 (31:03):
Oh, of course you can hit a golf ball. Come on,
come on you.
Speaker 1 (31:06):
I said, no, no, I don't think you really understand. I
need you desperately to listen to carefully what I'm saying. No, no, no, no, no,
please with this is non sets. Come on, you're to
come with me. You're gonna play with me and Frank
and I. As is always the case, I am scared
to do so. I do fairly well. I can drive
the ball. I could I get lucky with the irons.
I can put I can drive iron some terrible We
get to the second of me the third hold your
other t She goes, you're right, you really can golf?
(31:27):
Can you?
Speaker 5 (31:28):
Did you shake you off your tea?
Speaker 4 (31:31):
Get?
Speaker 3 (31:32):
Could we get lou in here?
Speaker 4 (31:33):
Someone?
Speaker 3 (31:33):
Where's the ringer that was following us to fill in
for me.
Speaker 1 (31:36):
Now, one thing I noticed when I worked with the
Kunstler sisters who did disturbing in the Universe about their father,
William Kunstler, And when I was talking to them, it
was I kind of knew this, but it was brought
into sharper focus from me.
Speaker 3 (31:49):
The cost.
Speaker 1 (31:51):
I mean, they told me that they were trying to
retire a debt of like forty thousand, fifty thousand dollars
of debt they owed for archival footage from NBC and
other network news organizations. Is that true for you as well?
Meaning do you find these costs or just I mean,
because I have one belief that old network news organizations
the material should be made free under fair use.
Speaker 3 (32:09):
These are public airways.
Speaker 5 (32:11):
Yeah, well it is.
Speaker 4 (32:13):
It can be astronomical the cost associated with archive. I mean,
we're lucky enough with this film that it was. It
was fully financed by Netflix, who covered those costs for us,
so we're not dead on it. But it can really
make or break a lot of terrific documentaries out there.
I think more people are leaning into fair use, but
(32:34):
there has been a few instances of backlash against that
where people chase them down and demand being paid you know,
particularly for these historical documentaries, it's a real cost.
Speaker 1 (32:48):
It's like people who when I was working more consistently
on the issue of campaign financial form with creative coalition
organizations I worked with years ago in the ninety is,
from disparate sources, we learned that one of the great
enemies of campaign finance reform is the National Association of
Broadcasters because these affiliates in the network TV world. Someone
(33:11):
said to me there are stations in this country that
make seventy percent of their annual budget during one election cycle, right,
and selling political advertising. They do not want to take
the money out of politics, and the NAB, the National
Association BOK is constantly finding campaign finance law changes.
Speaker 3 (33:27):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (33:27):
Well, listen, I so appreciate your work in that air
area too, because I think, you know, when just circling
back to your point about you know, who are these
leaders now like Defasio who are advocating for us. I
think it's it's hard, given the system that we have
to really produce and encourage people who are in it
(33:48):
exclusively for the public interest, right, I mean, that's those
are the types of people who you want to be
driven to politics, as people who are going to make
the world a better place, but instead they're often driven
there because of money, and that's not really the reason
you want people ultimately in that position. So I think
there's a lot still to be done, obviously with campaign
(34:11):
finance reform in this country.
Speaker 1 (34:13):
Which film for you was the most difficult to put
together as a film? What was the biggest challenge?
Speaker 4 (34:19):
Well, I think the hardest one for me was ethel
you know, the stakes were so high and it was
so deeply personal. You know, I had to look through
lots of footage. We're talking about archive footage, you know,
some of which was extraordinary and beautiful and so fun
to see and just you know, gave me a depth
(34:40):
of understanding of my family and my father, who I
never met, you know, just watching him in this footage
and a lot of footage has never been seen before
was a really beautiful experience for me. But it was
also emotionally challenging and difficult, and I you know, I
wanted to ultimately make a film that showed, you know,
(35:04):
the challenges and the difficulties that my mother in particular
went through and.
Speaker 5 (35:09):
Faced, but also.
Speaker 4 (35:12):
You know, to celebrate her because I think that for
so many people in our family with they focus on
Robert Kennedy, John F. Kennedy, Teddy Kennedy, but there's not
as much focus on the women, right and there. You know,
my aunt units started the Special Olympic. She's contributed enormously,
but she hasn't quite gotten that same level of attention
(35:33):
and Nora has my mother and so many people when
they introduce me, they say, oh, this is Robert Kennedy's daughter,
and I'm like, well, my mother actually raised me, and
you know, she played a pretty big part in like
who I am. So part of it was like, I
think she deserves the spotlight at least for a moment, like,
(35:54):
at least to be understood, Yeah, and to help people
understand her contribution because she was also her nature was
to kind of stand behind and not you know, be
the one on the microphone and be the one sort
of at the front line. So anyway, I think just
for me personally, the stakes were higher on that one
and it was more challenging for me.
Speaker 3 (36:15):
What are you working on next?
Speaker 4 (36:17):
I'm working on a couple projects. I've got another film
with Netflix that is about a volcanic eruption that I'm
doing right now. And then I've got a film about
the global refugee crisis that's a big light. Yes, these
are the main ones I'm focused on, and I'm very
excited to, you know, have this film coming out on
(36:38):
Netflix and committed to getting as many eyes on it
as possible.
Speaker 1 (36:44):
Now, Last Days of Vietnam was in twenty fourteen. How
many of these films Ethel was in twenty twelve. I
can't believe that.
Speaker 3 (36:51):
But of these last films, have most of them been
with Netflix?
Speaker 4 (36:55):
Now, this is my first film that I've directed with Netflix.
Last Is was with PBF, a Etho was with HBO,
did a film about Naso with the Discovery Channel.
Speaker 5 (37:06):
Let me just.
Speaker 4 (37:06):
Say, Alec that I have such an admiration and respect
for you. You're such a talented artist, and you've always
committed yourself to making the world a better place, and
you have such a love for people and a heart
that is more open and more generous than anybody I know.
(37:27):
And I just have such deep admiration.
Speaker 5 (37:31):
And respect for you.
Speaker 3 (37:32):
I love for your mom.
Speaker 4 (37:32):
II.
Speaker 5 (37:33):
Will you take care?
Speaker 4 (37:33):
Thank you.
Speaker 3 (37:38):
Rory Kennedy.
Speaker 1 (37:39):
Her documentary Downfall, The Case against Boeing, is available now
on Netflix. This episode was produced by Kathleen Russo, Zach MacNeice,
and Maureen Hobin. Our engineer is Frank Imperio. Here's the
thing that is brought to you by iHeart Radio
This is Alec Baldwin, and you were listening to Here's
the Thing from iHeart Radio. It's summer and that means
it's time for our tradition at Here's the Thing. Will
the staff share their favorite episodes from our archives in
our Summer staff Picks series? Next up is producer Zach MacNeice.
Speaker 2 (00:20):
Thanks Alec. On January fifth of this year, twenty twenty four,
on Alaska Airline's Boeing seven three seven Max nine made
an emergency landing in Portland, Oregon after a piece of
the fuselage blew out of the plane. Five days later,
on January fourteenth, a Boeing seven three seven eight hundred
was forced to turn around and land in Japan after
(00:41):
a crack was found mid air on the cockpit window.
On March seventh, a Boeing seven seven seven two hundred
made an emergency landing in Los Angeles after attire fell
off the plane during takeoff. And today, July thirty first,
Boeing has named a new CEO, Robert Ortberg, after announcing
a one point four billion dollar loss in the second
(01:04):
quarter of the year. These are just a few of
the many recent Boeing headlines In the past two and
a half years since the release of Rory Kennedy's documentary Downfall,
The Case against Boeing. Alex spoke with Rory in March
of twenty twenty two, and I couldn't think of a
better time to revisit this conversation about the film, The
Great American Company and Rory Kennedy's incredible life as a
(01:26):
documentary filmmaker.
Speaker 1 (01:30):
My guest today comes from the most legendary of American families.
Rory Kennedy is the youngest daughter of Senator Robert F.
Kennedy and the niece of President John F.
Speaker 3 (01:42):
Kennedy.
Speaker 1 (01:43):
But as she will tell us during our conversation, she's
also one of the great Kennedy Women. Instead of following
her forbears into law or politics, Kennedy has made a
name for herself as a documentary filmmaker. Her films feature
a wide range of subjects, from surfing legend Laird Hamilton
(02:03):
to challenging issues like poverty, addiction, and mental illness. In
her current film, she's tackling corporate corruption. That film, Downfall
the Case against Boeing, investigates the circumstances that led to
two tragic passenger jet crashes. In twenty eighteen and nineteen,
(02:23):
Rory Kennedy and I talk about her remarkable upbringing and
how the people she's encountered in her life have influenced
her trajectory.
Speaker 4 (02:32):
I think it's hard to detach anybody from how they
grew up, right, I mean, that's such an influence and
impact on who you become. And certainly that was the
case with me.
Speaker 5 (02:44):
I grew up.
Speaker 4 (02:46):
The youngest of eleven and in an obviously a very
political family, and I was impacted by that. I mean
I was also surrounded, my mother made a point of
this by really extraordinary role models, you know, when we
had such a the honor of meeting, whether it was
(03:07):
you know, presidents or congressmen and senators or people like
Nelson Mittndela and Desmond Tutu, you know, who were in
our homes, and also some of the great athletes and
you know NASA astronauts.
Speaker 5 (03:22):
I mean, so, I think.
Speaker 4 (03:24):
It was a life where we were surrounded by people
who created a sense of aspiration and to try to
make the world a bit of a better place.
Speaker 1 (03:35):
Now, what would you say though, that, as you're making
a film, do you have protocols, rules, tenets, whatever word
you want to use, where you sit there and say
that's not something I'm going to do that's influenced by
the way your family's been treated. If you're making a
film and let's say some aspect of a story, there's
a very kind of scandalizing, tawdry to shy away from
(03:56):
that is the way you guys have been attacked from
time to time.
Speaker 4 (03:59):
I think I have certain sensitivities. For example, with Downfall,
the case against Boeing, there's three hundred and forty six
people who died, and there are the family members who
are related to those people, some of whom we talked
to in our film, And I was definitely thinking, well,
how is it going to be for these folks to
(04:20):
watch this film right? And I've had to see scenes
over and over again that play themselves out on the
news that are very upsetting to watch about my family
dying right and being killed, and I didn't want to
subject them to that. But I also wanted to make
a film that was impactful. We do cgi recreations of
(04:42):
what it was like to be in the cockpit so
that we could really help people understand the perspective of
the pilots in these planes and what they were struggling
with with the MCS system. And you know, but I thought,
how are these folks going to watch this film? So
when I sent the film to them before it's coming out,
I highlighted all the sections that I thought would be
(05:03):
hard for them to watch, so that they could be
aware of that and go into it and decide to
watch those sections or not. So, you know, maybe I
have some sensitivity and moments like that. I think the
types of films I choose generally tend to be political
in nature and tend to you know, I hope when
(05:25):
people watch these films, whether it's this or a film
about Vietnam, the final days of the war, film about
Abu Grabe, that we learned from them, and we learn
from watching these stories and hopefully make better choices moving forward.
Speaker 1 (05:43):
Right.
Speaker 4 (05:43):
So, I think the choices of the films I make
are certainly impacted by the family I grew up in.
Speaker 1 (05:49):
It's interesting that you mentioned that, and this is only tangential,
but remember being invited years ago Clinton was in.
Speaker 3 (05:55):
The White House.
Speaker 1 (05:55):
I was invited to the White House to a screening
of the movie The Paper Howard, and I'm sitting in
a seat in the theater and the woman to my
right who's sitting next to me. A gun goes off
in the middle of the film, and that woman grabbed
my arm and gasped this huge gasp when the gun
went off.
Speaker 5 (06:13):
It was your mom, right, So you know there's.
Speaker 3 (06:17):
Me to this day, it's she's not prepared for that. Yeah,
those sounds.
Speaker 4 (06:22):
Yeah, so there's trauma related to that for sure.
Speaker 3 (06:25):
Now to get to the film.
Speaker 1 (06:26):
So I watched this film obviously, and I was mesmerized.
Congratulations by the way. I mean, you came to the
Hampton's Film Festival. Every year a film of yours comes
and we all look at together and we're like, can
we really invite her again? Do we bringing Rory down
to Easthampton again? I mean, is it enough enough? I mean,
how much more can we shine her up here? But
(06:47):
we loved your film about your mom. We're gonna get
to that later. I loved Last Days of Vietnam. That
was a great I'm not just saying this, that's a
great movie. Great movie. Really, just you what film can
do in this period of what's happening and understanding that
those moments that you did a great job and this
film made me angry this film. I was pissed off
(07:09):
because only one guy I think is criminally charged. Correct,
that's correct, and that we identify that person, Mark Forkner.
Speaker 3 (07:18):
And he was in charge of what it is bowing.
Speaker 4 (07:20):
He was a pilot, a test pilot, and he was
you know, he really wasn't responsible for what happened, and
a lot of people feel like he was scapegoaded because
he was really in charge of making sure, you know,
he was testing the plane and then he played a
role in keeping the MCS system away from the regulators.
(07:43):
And that's documented and there's proof of that, and so
they followed up with that. But you know, Congressman Defaisio,
for example, led the congressional investigation into what happened, the
biggest investigation the Infrastructure and Transportation Committee's history, and he
concluded that this was really top down right, that the
(08:04):
top group in management at Boeing was very aware of
the MCS system, that there was a concerted effort to
keep the system away from the regulators, to hide the system,
and to cut corners along the way, and that there
was you know, it was a culture of concealment, is
what he calls it. So I think that there are
(08:26):
a lot of people who feel like the folks who
are most responsible have yet to be held accountable. And
there's been no criminal charges. And you know, Lallenberg walked
away with the head of Boeing, the head of Boeing
sixty sixty two million dollars. So, you know, I think
after you've kind of watched the film and really understand
(08:48):
all the decisions that the management at Boeing made along
the way to prioritize profit over safety, that you know,
when you understand the depths of those choices that I
think many people like you are outraged.
Speaker 1 (09:03):
Well for people, I don't want to I want them
to see the film obviously, but I want to give
them just a taste of So Boeing wants to create
I'll let you fill in the blank. So they want
to create a fleet. They're losing market share, they're getting
their hat handed to them by Airbus. Things are not
looking good for Boeing, who had been dominant around the
world for decades and then and were the pride of
(09:25):
not just Seattle but the United States aviation industry, and
then the things start to go down from so they
want to play ketchup and they want to produce a
lower cost, more fuel efficient I think was the goal
of the seven seven thirty seven MAX. Got to get
the word max and there the seven thirty seven fuel
efficiency was the goal. And then a part of this
was the development of this system which was to help
(09:46):
to so they don't make too steep a climb.
Speaker 3 (09:48):
A system takes.
Speaker 1 (09:49):
Over the plane and lowers the nose of the plane
and forces the plane down, but doesn't shut off. It
forces the nose of the plane down straight into the ground.
Speaker 3 (09:58):
Correct.
Speaker 4 (09:59):
Well, yeah, that's there were concern at a certain angle
that the plane would stall, and so they instead of
changing the kind of structure of the plane and moving
the engines and whatnot, they decided to fix it with
a computer system, again in an effort to save money,
it seems, and that computer system was connected to one
(10:23):
sensor on the side of the airplane like a weather vein,
and so if that sensor was damaged, which happens off
and gets hit by bird, something happens to it, it
would send and this is what happened, erroneous information to
the computer system. So it would tell the computer system
that the plane was at a certain angle and you
(10:43):
needed to push the nose down, but it wasn't at
that angle. It was more at a flat angle, and
not only would it push the nose of the plane down,
but it would do it over and over and over again.
Speaker 1 (10:56):
Probably the most powering details you covered the film is
and the pilots were not told about the installation of
this system.
Speaker 4 (11:03):
That's correct, it's you know, prior to the Line air crash,
which was the first crash, the pilots were completely unaware
that the system was even on the airplane, which was
also kind of flew in the face of what had
been the normal relationship between Boeing and pilots, which was
(11:25):
to really educate and form pilots about everything training, you know,
make them fully equipped to handle any situation that would happen.
But in this case they in an effort to really
keep this from regulators. Really, what was motivating them is
that if they have a totally new system on the airplane,
(11:46):
then they have to train pilots. And if they have
to train pilots, it cost them a million dollars per
an aircraft, you know, on average to train these pilots.
So they wanted to again it seems, save the money,
and so instead of making people aware that this system
was on the airplane. They made a concerted effort to we're.
Speaker 1 (12:07):
Not even going to tell you about this machine we've installed, which,
if it behaves badly, is going to crash the plane. Yes,
and there's a manual override that they might have been
able to activate. They could have gotten out of it,
I guess if they'd had the training.
Speaker 4 (12:22):
If they had had the training. Except what we also
discover and showcase in the course of this film is
a document that came out in twenty sixteen. It's called
a coordination sheet that shows that if something went wrong
with the system, that the pilots would need to fix
it within ten seconds, otherwise the power of the MCS
(12:45):
system would overtake them if they didn't do it in
ten seconds, and.
Speaker 5 (12:49):
The results would be catastrophic.
Speaker 4 (12:51):
And catastrophic in airplane language means the plane will crash
and everybody will die. So you know, even if the
pilots right. So in the second instance, in the Ethiopian
airplane crash, the pilots were aware of the system, they
did everything right, they did what they were told to do,
and the plane still crashed. So you know, if you
(13:13):
don't and what you have to also remember, and this
is why we also created the kind of the CGI
recreation of what happens in that cockpit is there's this
cacophony of sounds and error alerts that are all contradicting
each other that the pilots are trying to understand and
navigate and figure out. Okay, this is thing where you know,
(13:34):
the altitude is in disagreement, the air speed is in disagreement,
the all systems alert is on the stickshaker is going,
there's all of these alerts coming at them, and then
with that they have to navigate. Okay, well, what this
all means is that I need to do these steps
within ten seconds and otherwise this plane is going to crash.
(13:57):
I mean, I don't want to go on a plane
that is putting pilots in that position. I don't want
to put my children.
Speaker 1 (14:02):
Or fa people are whose job who'd give anything to
save the lives of their passengers. Think of something more
unimaginable than to be on the in the cockpit of
a plane and the plane is behaving and not in
some anomalous way. You see yourself hurtling towards the ground.
It's yeah, nine to eleven. You're the planes going into
the ground and you're sitting there thinking what can you
(14:24):
and you don't know what to do?
Speaker 5 (14:25):
Yeah, right, it's completely funny. You know, maybe they're eating
a turkey sandwich.
Speaker 4 (14:29):
You know, it does not like you're not there sitting
there on total alert for the entire plane ride.
Speaker 1 (14:35):
Well, before we get into the macro of your filmmaking,
one more thing. I think you make it clear in
the film the idea that this is a different Boeing.
At this point, I thought it was fascinating how you
talk about the move to Chicago. They moved the headquarters
to Chicago for the purposes of distancing themselves from the influence, and.
Speaker 3 (14:53):
I thought it was well that the influence was good.
It was a nice battery.
Speaker 1 (14:56):
It was a nice exchange between Union's management, design, technology,
and the corporate And these guys are like, no, no, no,
we don't want to be too close to those guys
in Seattle. So we're going to move to Chicago so
we can make our decisions in this bubble in Chicago.
And it seems like what was a great company that rare,
I mean, multi billion dollar enterprise. It made big, expensive
(15:19):
things that they were very proud of that defined the city,
and everything moves to Chicago, and it seems like that's
part of the problem was once that merger was made
and they moved to Chicago, that cost cutting thing becomes primary.
Speaker 5 (15:32):
I think that's right, you know.
Speaker 4 (15:34):
I think, like you, I love Boeing and what Boeing
stood for in this country, and you know the history
of Boeing, and we really celebrate that in the film
because it's been an extraordinary company for decades. You know,
it helped us get out of World War Two. It
helped build the fighter jets to win that war. It
helped get us.
Speaker 5 (15:53):
To the moon with my uncle Jack.
Speaker 4 (15:55):
I mean, they helped build those engines in the rocket chips.
They helped people be able to travel all over the
world for the first time, you know, with the seven
forty seven and extraordinary accomplishment. So we wanted to celebrate that.
And during those very early years and for many decades,
Boeing did one thing, which was to say, we're going
(16:18):
to prioritize excellence and safety and then the profits will follow.
We're going to make the best planes possible, We're going
to innovate, we're going to do new things and we're
going to think to the future. And then it changed hands,
taken over really. I mean, one person we interviewed said
somehow McDonald douglas bought Boeing with Boeing's money and the
(16:42):
McDonald douglas people were put in charge, and they had
a very different business model, which was very Wall Street
focused and quarterly earnings, you know, And so they made
a series of decision corporate decisions to cut back on
personnel who's whose job it was to ensure safety and
(17:03):
put pressure on the folks who are building the planes
to build them quicker and faster, and when people would
complain about safety, that slows that process down.
Speaker 1 (17:15):
Documentary filmmaker Rory Kennedy. If you enjoy conversations about the
making of documentary films, check out my episode with British
filmmaker Lucy Walker. Her documentary Bring Your Own Brigade is
an in depth look at California wildfires and their effect
on local residents.
Speaker 6 (17:34):
What I want to understand is, well, how are we
stopping it and why are people living in these areas
and building these houses that burn over and over and
over again. Could we do better? So you would think
that when people look at developing an area for housing.
They would think about far safety, but nobody's actually thinking about,
(17:54):
well are they going to be able to ensure these
homes and who's going to pay if these homes burn down.
Speaker 1 (18:00):
To hear more of my conversation with Lucy Walker, go
to Here's the Thing dot org. After the break, Rory
Kennedy and I discussed the filmmakers who have influenced her work.
(18:22):
I'm Alec Baldwin and you're listening to Here's the Thing.
Filmmaker Rory Kennedy has made more than forty documentaries. Her
work has earned an Emmy and several Oscar nominations along
the way. I wanted her to share some of her
process as a filmmaker.
Speaker 4 (18:39):
Well, you know, different people and companies work in different ways.
I'm very hands on as a filmmaker, and I you know,
I love to be doing all the interviews and being
in the edit room, and so I don't take on
a huge number of projects at any given time. And
usually when I decide that I really want to do
a particular project, I really try to make it happen.
(19:03):
I was really committed. I felt like this story was
so important, the downfall story. I think, like so many
other people, I witnessed these two airplanes crashing within five
months of each other, the exact same aircraft. Three hundred
and forty six people died. And you know, I, like
so many other people, fly right, and I felt like,
(19:24):
I want to know what happened, who knew what when,
who is responsible for this? And I want to make
sure that something like this doesn't happen again. But I
also felt that, you know, during the last decades that
America has been really prioritizing corporate interests, right, And so
(19:45):
I think.
Speaker 5 (19:45):
This film than usual.
Speaker 4 (19:47):
I think this film, I hope, rises to something that's
not just about these crashes, which is, you know, as
meaningful as it gets. But I think it touches on
something else, which is the need to regulate, the need
to balance out corporate interests making money, making money, making money,
(20:11):
and the need to balance out with public interest right.
And we've seen corporations like Boeing balances for many decades
and do fantastically well. And I think that when that
gets out of balance, it hurts everybody.
Speaker 3 (20:25):
So when you see.
Speaker 1 (20:26):
Someone like Defasio, the head of the committee, the guy
that was the leading light there in the Congress. Did
he have as much integrity overall as it appears to
be on screen.
Speaker 3 (20:35):
He's fantastic because you know as well as I do.
Speaker 1 (20:38):
You know, where are people in government who care enough
and they want to fight the way we're going. Like
Boeing was a company, you say, well, you understand, you
want people to make money and make profits. Boeing was
doing quite well before. Sure they had a slump when
Douglas took over. But what you find is not only
do people want to make money, they want to make
obscene amounts of money. They want to make an amount
of money that they're looking at you like you're a child, like, well,
(20:59):
you know, now, calm down, sunny, because there's a lot
of money at stake here for us who run and
own the company.
Speaker 3 (21:06):
And my point is is that for me, I'm always
so sad.
Speaker 1 (21:10):
I'm always so impacted by government officials who don't have
the guts to do their job, and the government's job
is to I mean, I watched people in testimony in
hearings and I think to myself, thank God I'm not there,
because I would be looking at the heads of car
companies or ol companies going you don't get it. You
come here, you answer our questions on behalf of the
(21:31):
American people. We have the authority, and I feel like
that authority is not always employed effectively. You said de
Fassio did.
Speaker 3 (21:38):
A good job.
Speaker 4 (21:38):
He's amazing. I mean he and his heart was so
in the right place. But he was also dogged and
he held these folks accountable. And you know when you
see him in those congressional testimonies and chasing down every
single document and you know, putting this report together, which
took years in the making and is incredibly thorough. They
(22:02):
go after Bowing and they hold them accountable, and they're
continuing to go after Boeing.
Speaker 5 (22:08):
So I think there are.
Speaker 4 (22:09):
A lot of extraordinary heroes who are celebrated who are
really on the front lines of this, whether it's Defasio
or Michael Stumo, who's the father of Samuel Stumo who
died in the Ethiopian plane crash and turned from a
victim to really an advocate. And he I mean, I
just got off the phone with him yesterday and he
(22:30):
he's not giving up on this. I mean, Boeing's thrown
a lot of money at these families to get them
to be quiet, and he is not going to be silenced,
and he is continuing to you know, spread the message
that he has very continued concerns about the safety of
the seven thirty seven Acts, the seven eighty seven Dreamliner.
(22:52):
They just announced yesterday the FAA that I mean as
though this should be news, but that the FAA is
going to actually regulate bowing and not let Boeing regulations regulating.
Speaker 1 (23:03):
So, you know, point to watch the film because that's
another interesting point about how when I was studying government
at GW in the seventies, when I went down to
Washington to go to school, and we talked about that,
and we talked about how, you know, departmentalization, how people
are in these departments, like presidents come and go. We're
(23:23):
here civil servants for twenty thirty years, and so here
at the FA we have our own relationships with eight
with airline companies, and they allowed Boeing to self regulate
and self inspect.
Speaker 4 (23:33):
I do think you're right that there's they're not enough
people in government who are advocating. But I guess my
point is is that in this film, you show a
world where advocacy comes from a lot of different perspective.
It comes from the government officials doing the right thing
in this case, Defasio. It also comes from you know,
people who don't think of themselves as advocates but turn
(23:56):
into ad before it's as a result. And then you
know Andy p Store, who's a dogged journalist who chases
down the story and gets us the information. And it's
the combination of all of those people who come together,
and you know, the storytellers, right, So I'm not putting
myself in that category, but we also have to you know,
(24:17):
the Lucy Walkers and yourself, the people who are packaging
these stories and getting them out in the way this
audience digestible to an audience, and so that that translates
hopefully into creating a better world.
Speaker 1 (24:34):
I'm curious for people to understand how documentary films come
to the screen. Bob Drew, he did the trip tick
primary about your uncle. I mean, one of the funniest
things in the world you've ever seen in your life,
Hubert Humphrey walking into like some barn with men sitting
on bails of hay, saying America, we know what it's
(24:54):
got to do. And then you cut to your uncle
walking with his wife in your room. For the people
and people are crying and screaming like it's a Beatles
concert or who's going to win the primary.
Speaker 3 (25:03):
Who were your influences in your filmmaking.
Speaker 4 (25:06):
Well, certainly Bob Drew was, I mean an extraordinary filmmaker.
Penny Baker was a huge influence on me as well.
Barbara Kopple, who you know. The first documentary feature I
made was American Hollow, which was about a family in
eastern Kentucky, and it was really an extraordinary story of
(25:27):
a woman who had thirteen kids and they all lived
off the land, and we kind of spent a year
with them. Certainly influenced by Barbara and her extraordinary work
in Kentucky and Appalachia. So, you know, I think those
early veritay filmmakers have huge influence on the world of
(25:49):
filmmaking today. And then they're just you know, there's just
a flew of incredible filmmakers who are colleagues of mine.
You know Lucy Wallerker you mentioned, I think she's a
fantastic filmmaker. My old partner Liz Garbis, is fantastic. Together
to the company, we're not still together as a company,
(26:09):
but we remain very good friends and advocates for each other.
Speaker 5 (26:15):
Yeah, that's fantastic.
Speaker 4 (26:17):
Yeah, gosh, your so knowledge well, Amy Berg is fantastic.
Speaker 5 (26:21):
RJ.
Speaker 4 (26:21):
Cutler, Davis Guggenheim. I mean there's just Don Porter. I
think that we're surrounded by really talented filmmakers, and I
think there's I think we've all also been influenced, you know.
I think this verite influence has impacted the kinds of
work that we do. But I think we're also influenced
(26:41):
by Hollywood and the films that we're seeing, the narrative
films and the dramatic storytelling, so that we're making films
that keep you a little bit more at the edge
of your seat of what's going to happen next, you know,
and really pull you into the characters and and and
to the plot, to you know, the storytelling. I think
(27:02):
it's very sophisticated these days. I think, you know, you
see it out in the world, and you know, when
you turn on your Netflix account, it's a mix up there.
It's not like, here's the narratives and then go down
deep into your Netflix account to find the documentaries. They're
up center, you know, because people are watching them and
(27:23):
there they're pulled in and I think it's.
Speaker 5 (27:26):
Because they're really great storytellers.
Speaker 1 (27:31):
Filmmaker Rory Kennedy, If you're enjoying this conversation, tell a
friend and be sure to follow Here's the Thing on
the iHeartRadio app, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts.
When we come back, Rory Kennedy talks about the film
of hers that was the hardest for her to make.
(28:00):
I'm Alec Baldwin and you were listening to Here's the Thing.
The Kennedy family has made history, and most of that
while occupying a path from Hyanna Sport, Massachusetts, down to McLean, Virginia,
and yet Rory somehow landed in California.
Speaker 4 (28:17):
Well, my husband Mark, as you know, as a screenwriter
and a writer, and he is also my partner in
writing documentaries, but he has other writing that draws him
out there. So we decided we'd go out there for
a couple of years because at that time, ten or
twelve years ago, the kind of independent film world was
fizzling out here in New York and was sort of
(28:39):
pivoting over the West Coast.
Speaker 5 (28:40):
We fell in love with California.
Speaker 3 (28:42):
Your brother moves that I talked to him on Find
I Go how do you look. He goes, it's great.
I go, oh god, no, no, I said.
Speaker 5 (28:48):
Not you not, you come on out?
Speaker 1 (28:50):
I said, you're you're going out there? I said, I
think Cheryl's great, but there's a lot of other women
out there for you, Bob. And he doesn't have to
be living out there in California, and he loves it.
Speaker 5 (29:00):
He came out there with his EMU, his bird.
Speaker 4 (29:03):
I remember he was trying to figure out a way
to get the bird out there, and I said, well,
you know, I maybe try Richard Plepler. He's got that
HBO plane. So he called Richard and he said, can
I bring my Can you take my bird out? But
he failed to mention that the bird was six feet
high and needed to go with Richard anyway.
Speaker 5 (29:24):
So he said order the bird.
Speaker 4 (29:27):
Came out and then Bobby didn't have a house for
the first couple of weeks, so the bird lived at
my house with Mark Nde blueberries and anyway. There are
lots of stories to tell about Toby the bird.
Speaker 3 (29:38):
And he loves California no too, Yeah.
Speaker 5 (29:41):
Yeah, he loves he loves it out there.
Speaker 1 (29:43):
Now, you did the movie about your mom, and of
course you make a little joke there, But how difficult
it was to recruit your mom?
Speaker 4 (29:51):
Yes, she.
Speaker 1 (29:56):
Was not, she was not a willing subject to be filmed. No,
but eventually she's set down.
Speaker 4 (30:00):
My siblings were very difficult too, by the way. Really well, yes,
they just didn't make it easy.
Speaker 3 (30:06):
They're busy.
Speaker 4 (30:07):
Yeah, No, they just wanted to make it difficult for me,
because why would it Why would they make it easy
when they don't have to know? They were all fantastic,
and including my mother, and they they did answer ultimately
all the questions I asked them. And my mother, I
was just with her yesterday I played backham and with her,
and I mean I was just I was winning the
whole game. My dice were so much better. I played brilliantly,
(30:32):
and then she beat me again. She's ninety four. I
cannot beat that woman playing backham and I'm not a
bad vackham and player.
Speaker 3 (30:38):
I love that. I love that.
Speaker 1 (30:39):
Your mother also, And you know this infly better than
I do. She just in her own wonderful way and
in a truly in a truly marvelous way, she just
doesn't suffer fools at all. And we're playing golf up
there at the golf tournament, and she says to me,
coming golf with me. You're you're gonna be with me,
and you're gonna be with Frank and so and so
and so. And I go, I said, I beg your pardon.
I said, you have to really understand it's important. Could
(31:00):
this I've crossed this with this juncture before, I said,
I'm a miserable golfer.
Speaker 3 (31:03):
Oh, of course you can hit a golf ball. Come on,
come on you.
Speaker 1 (31:06):
I said, no, no, I don't think you really understand. I
need you desperately to listen to carefully what I'm saying. No, no, no, no, no,
please with this is non sets. Come on, you're to
come with me. You're gonna play with me and Frank
and I. As is always the case, I am scared
to do so. I do fairly well. I can drive
the ball. I could I get lucky with the irons.
I can put I can drive iron some terrible We
get to the second of me the third hold your
other t She goes, you're right, you really can golf?
(31:27):
Can you?
Speaker 5 (31:28):
Did you shake you off your tea?
Speaker 4 (31:31):
Get?
Speaker 3 (31:32):
Could we get lou in here?
Speaker 4 (31:33):
Someone?
Speaker 3 (31:33):
Where's the ringer that was following us to fill in
for me.
Speaker 1 (31:36):
Now, one thing I noticed when I worked with the
Kunstler sisters who did disturbing in the Universe about their father,
William Kunstler, And when I was talking to them, it
was I kind of knew this, but it was brought
into sharper focus from me.
Speaker 3 (31:49):
The cost.
Speaker 1 (31:51):
I mean, they told me that they were trying to
retire a debt of like forty thousand, fifty thousand dollars
of debt they owed for archival footage from NBC and
other network news organizations. Is that true for you as well?
Meaning do you find these costs or just I mean,
because I have one belief that old network news organizations
the material should be made free under fair use.
Speaker 3 (32:09):
These are public airways.
Speaker 5 (32:11):
Yeah, well it is.
Speaker 4 (32:13):
It can be astronomical the cost associated with archive. I mean,
we're lucky enough with this film that it was. It
was fully financed by Netflix, who covered those costs for us,
so we're not dead on it. But it can really
make or break a lot of terrific documentaries out there.
I think more people are leaning into fair use, but
(32:34):
there has been a few instances of backlash against that
where people chase them down and demand being paid you know,
particularly for these historical documentaries, it's a real cost.
Speaker 1 (32:48):
It's like people who when I was working more consistently
on the issue of campaign financial form with creative coalition
organizations I worked with years ago in the ninety is,
from disparate sources, we learned that one of the great
enemies of campaign finance reform is the National Association of
Broadcasters because these affiliates in the network TV world. Someone
(33:11):
said to me there are stations in this country that
make seventy percent of their annual budget during one election cycle, right,
and selling political advertising. They do not want to take
the money out of politics, and the NAB, the National
Association BOK is constantly finding campaign finance law changes.
Speaker 3 (33:27):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (33:27):
Well, listen, I so appreciate your work in that air
area too, because I think, you know, when just circling
back to your point about you know, who are these
leaders now like Defasio who are advocating for us. I
think it's it's hard, given the system that we have
to really produce and encourage people who are in it
(33:48):
exclusively for the public interest, right, I mean, that's those
are the types of people who you want to be
driven to politics, as people who are going to make
the world a better place, but instead they're often driven
there because of money, and that's not really the reason
you want people ultimately in that position. So I think
there's a lot still to be done, obviously with campaign
(34:11):
finance reform in this country.
Speaker 1 (34:13):
Which film for you was the most difficult to put
together as a film? What was the biggest challenge?
Speaker 4 (34:19):
Well, I think the hardest one for me was ethel
you know, the stakes were so high and it was
so deeply personal. You know, I had to look through
lots of footage. We're talking about archive footage, you know,
some of which was extraordinary and beautiful and so fun
to see and just you know, gave me a depth
(34:40):
of understanding of my family and my father, who I
never met, you know, just watching him in this footage
and a lot of footage has never been seen before
was a really beautiful experience for me. But it was
also emotionally challenging and difficult, and I you know, I
wanted to ultimately make a film that showed, you know,
(35:04):
the challenges and the difficulties that my mother in particular
went through and.
Speaker 5 (35:09):
Faced, but also.
Speaker 4 (35:12):
You know, to celebrate her because I think that for
so many people in our family with they focus on
Robert Kennedy, John F. Kennedy, Teddy Kennedy, but there's not
as much focus on the women, right and there. You know,
my aunt units started the Special Olympic. She's contributed enormously,
but she hasn't quite gotten that same level of attention
(35:33):
and Nora has my mother and so many people when
they introduce me, they say, oh, this is Robert Kennedy's daughter,
and I'm like, well, my mother actually raised me, and
you know, she played a pretty big part in like
who I am. So part of it was like, I
think she deserves the spotlight at least for a moment, like,
(35:54):
at least to be understood, Yeah, and to help people
understand her contribution because she was also her nature was
to kind of stand behind and not you know, be
the one on the microphone and be the one sort
of at the front line. So anyway, I think just
for me personally, the stakes were higher on that one
and it was more challenging for me.
Speaker 3 (36:15):
What are you working on next?
Speaker 4 (36:17):
I'm working on a couple projects. I've got another film
with Netflix that is about a volcanic eruption that I'm
doing right now. And then I've got a film about
the global refugee crisis that's a big light. Yes, these
are the main ones I'm focused on, and I'm very
excited to, you know, have this film coming out on
(36:38):
Netflix and committed to getting as many eyes on it
as possible.
Speaker 1 (36:44):
Now, Last Days of Vietnam was in twenty fourteen. How
many of these films Ethel was in twenty twelve. I
can't believe that.
Speaker 3 (36:51):
But of these last films, have most of them been
with Netflix?
Speaker 4 (36:55):
Now, this is my first film that I've directed with Netflix.
Last Is was with PBF, a Etho was with HBO,
did a film about Naso with the Discovery Channel.
Speaker 5 (37:06):
Let me just.
Speaker 4 (37:06):
Say, Alec that I have such an admiration and respect
for you. You're such a talented artist, and you've always
committed yourself to making the world a better place, and
you have such a love for people and a heart
that is more open and more generous than anybody I know.
(37:27):
And I just have such deep admiration.
Speaker 5 (37:31):
And respect for you.
Speaker 3 (37:32):
I love for your mom.
Speaker 4 (37:32):
II.
Speaker 5 (37:33):
Will you take care?
Speaker 4 (37:33):
Thank you.
Speaker 3 (37:38):
Rory Kennedy.
Speaker 1 (37:39):
Her documentary Downfall, The Case against Boeing, is available now
on Netflix. This episode was produced by Kathleen Russo, Zach MacNeice,
and Maureen Hobin. Our engineer is Frank Imperio. Here's the
thing that is brought to you by iHeart Radio
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