From the Archives: Rory Kennedy Puts The Spotlight on Boeing

Rory Kennedy is a documentary filmmaker and the youngest child of Ethel andhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U. S._SenatorRobert 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 latest film, “Downfall: The Case Against Boeing,” on the two tragic Boeing 737 Max passenger jet crashes, is now streaming on Netflix. Originally aired March 29, 2022 See omnystudio.com/listener https://omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

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• 2:04Alec Baldwin?

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• 3:01Alec Baldwin?

  This is Alec Baldwin, and you're listening to Here's the Thing from iHeart Radio. 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. Kennedy. But as she will tell us during our conversation, she's also one of the great Kennedy women. Instead of following her forebears 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 to challenging issues like poverty, addiction, and mental illness.

• 3:45Alec Baldwin?

  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 2018 and 19. Rory Kennedy and I talk about her remarkable upbringing and how the people she's encountered in her life have influenced her trajectory.

• 4:09Speaker 07

  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. I grew up, you know, the youngest of 11 and in a, obviously, 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? And we had such a, the honor of meeting, whether it was, you know, presidents or congressmen and senators, or people like Nelson Mandela and Desmond Tutu, you know, who were in our homes.

• 4:53Speaker 07

  And also, some of the great athletes and, you know, NASA astronauts. I mean, so, I think 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.

• 5:11Alec Baldwin?

  Now, but 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, let's say some aspect of a story, there's a very kind of scandalizing, tawdry...

• 5:31Speaker 07

  Right.

• 5:32Alec Baldwin?

  Do you shy away from that because of the way you guys have been attacked from time to time?

• 5:35Speaker 07

  I think I have certain sensitivities. For example, with Downfall, the case against Boeing, there's 346 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 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...

• 6:19Speaker 07

  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 MCAS 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 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 in moments like that. I think the types of films I choose generally tend to be political in nature and tend to,

• 7:00Speaker 07

  you know, I, I hope when people watch these films, whether it's this or a film about Vietnam, the final days of the war, a film about Abu Ghraib, that we learn from them and we learn from watching these stories and, and hopefully make better choices moving forward, right? So I think the choices of the films I make are certainly impacted by the family I grew up in.

• 7:25Alec Baldwin?

  It's interesting that you mentioned that, and this is only tangential, but I remember being invited years ago, Clinton was in the White House, I was invited to the White House to a screening of the movie The Paper by Ronnie 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. It was your mom.

• 7:51Speaker 07

  Right.

• 7:52Alec Baldwin?

  It was your mom.

• 7:53Speaker 07

  So, you know, there's trauma.

• 7:54Alec Baldwin?

  Who said to me to this day, it's, she's not prepared for that, even though it sounds.

• 7:58Speaker 07

  Yeah, so there's trauma related to that, for sure.

• 8:01Alec Baldwin?

  Big time. Now, to get to the film, so I watched this film, obviously, and I was mesmerized. Congratulations, by the way. I mean, you came to the Hamptons Film Festival. Every year, a film of yours comes and we all look at each other and we're like, can we really invite her again? Are we bringing Rory out to East Hampton again? I mean, is it enough enough? I mean, how much more can we shine her up here? But we loved your film about your mom, we're going to get to that later, 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 the spirit of what's happening and, and understanding that, those moments, you did a great job. Now, this film made me angry.

• 8:44Alec Baldwin?

  This film I was pissed off because only one guy I think is criminally charged, correct?

• 8:50Speaker 07

  That's correct.

• 8:51Alec Baldwin?

  And that we identify that person?

• 8:52Speaker 07

  Mark Fortner.

• 8:54Alec Baldwin?

  And he was in charge of what at Boeing?

• 8:56Speaker 07

  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 scapegoated 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 MCAS system away from the regulators, and that's documented, and there's proof of that, and so they followed up with that, but, you know, Congressman DeFazio, for example, led the congressional investigation into what happened, the biggest investigation in the Infrastructure and Transportation Committee's history, and he concluded that

• 9:37Speaker 07

  this was really top-down, right, that the top group in management at Boeing was very aware of the MCAS 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 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, Mullenberg walked away with...

• 10:15Alec Baldwin?

  The head of Boeing?

• 10:15Speaker 07

  The head of Boeing.

• 10:16Alec Baldwin?

  Sixty-something million.

• 10:17Speaker 07

  Sixty-two million dollars, so, you know, I think after you've kind of watched the film and really understand 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.

• 10:40Alec Baldwin?

  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 blanks here, 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 with the pride of not just Seattle, but the United States aviation industry, and then the things start to go down for them, so they want to play catch-up and they want to produce a lower-cost, more fuel-efficient, I think was the goal, of the seven...

• 11:13Speaker 07

  737 Max.

• 11:14Alec Baldwin?

  737 Max, gotta get the word Max in there, the 737 Max, fuel efficiency was the goal, and then a part of this was the development of this system, which was to help to, so they don't make too steep a climb, a system takes 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, correct?

• 11:35Speaker 07

  Well, yeah, that's correct, there was, 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 sensor on the side of the airplane, like a weather vane, and so if that sensor was damaged, which happens often, gets hit by a 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 needed to

• 12:20Speaker 07

  push the nose down, but it wasn't at that angle, it was, you know, 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.

• 12:32Alec Baldwin?

  Probably the most harrowing details you cover in the film is, and the pilots were not told about the installation of this system.

• 12:39Speaker 07

  That's correct. It's, you know, prior to the Lion Air crash, which was the, 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 to really educate and inform pilots about everything.

• 13:05Alec Baldwin?

  Training.

• 13:06Speaker 07

  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, then they have to train pilots. And if they have to train pilots, it costs them a million dollars per an aircraft, you know, on average, to, to train these pilots. So they wanted to, again, it seems, save the money. And so instead of making people aware that the system was on the airplane, they made a concerted effort to-

• 13:43Alec Baldwin?

  We're not even going to tell you about this machine we've installed, which, if it behaves badly, is going to crash the plane.

• 13:50Speaker 07

  Yes.

• 13:51Alec Baldwin?

  And there's a manual override that they might have been able to activate. They could have gotten out of it, I guess, if that, if they'd had the training.

• 13:58Speaker 07

  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 2016. 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 10 seconds. Otherwise, the power of the MCAS system would overtake them if they didn't do it in 10 seconds, and the results would be catastrophic. And catastrophic, in airplane language, means the plane will crash and everybody will die. So, you know, even if-

• 14:34Alec Baldwin?

  Which happened twice.

• 14:36Speaker 07

  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 don't, and what you have to also remember, and this is why we also created 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 saying where, you know, the altitude is in disagreement, the airspeed is in disagreement, the all-systems

• 15:16Speaker 07

  alert is on, the stick shaker 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 10 seconds, and otherwise, this plane is going to crash. 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 or my family.

• 15:39Alec Baldwin?

  Innocent people, whose job, who'd give anything to save the lives of their passengers, think of something more unimaginable than to be on the cockpit of a plane, and the plane is behaving in not in some anomalous way, you see yourself hurtling toward the ground.

• 15:56Speaker 07

  Yeah.

• 15:57Alec Baldwin?

  It's like 9/11.

• 15:58Speaker 07

  Yeah.

• 15:59Alec Baldwin?

  Here the plane's going into the ground, and you're sitting there thinking, what can, and you don't know what to do.

• 16:02Speaker 07

  Yeah, right.

• 16:03Alec Baldwin?

  It's completely foreign.

• 16:04Speaker 07

  And, you know, maybe they're eating a turkey sandwich.

• 16:06Alec Baldwin?

  Right.

• 16:07Speaker 07

  You know, it's not like, you're not there, sitting there, on total alert for the entire plane ride.

• 16:11Alec Baldwin?

  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 I thought to myself, well, the influence was good, it was a nice battery, it was a nice exchange between unions, management, design, the 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,

• 16:52Alec Baldwin?

  multi-billion dollar enterprise that made big, expensive things that they were very proud of, that defined a 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.

• 17:08Speaker 07

  I think that's right. You know, 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 II, it helped build the fighter jets to win that war, it helped get us to the moon with my Uncle Jack. I mean, they helped build those engines and the rocket ships. They helped people be able to travel all over the world for the first time, you know, with the 747, an extraordinary accomplishment. So, we wanted to celebrate that and during those very early years and for many decades, Boeing did one thing, which

• 17:53Speaker 07

  was to say, "We're going to prioritize excellence and safety, and then the profits will follow. We're going to make the best planes possible."

• 18:02Alec Baldwin?

  And they did.

• 18:03Speaker 07

  We're going to innovate.

• 18:04Alec Baldwin?

  And it worked.

• 18:04Speaker 07

  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 McDonnell Douglas bought Boeing with Boeing's money and the McDonnell 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've made a series of decisions, corporate decisions, to cut back on personnel whose job it was to ensure safety and put pressure on the folks who were building the planes to build them quicker and faster. And when people would complain about safety, that slows that process down.

• 18:51Alec Baldwin?

  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. What I wanted 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 fire safety. But nobody's actually thinking about, well, are they going to be able to insure these homes? And who's going to pay if these homes burn down?

• 19:36Alec Baldwin?

  To hear more of my conversation with Lucy Walker, go to hereisthething.org. After the break, Rory Kennedy and I discuss the filmmakers who have influenced her work.

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• 20:26Speaker 03

  Hi, I'm Jenna Oshkowitz. You might know me from Glee. This is At the Table, the food allergy podcast, a show about food, connection, and what it really looks like to live with food allergies. Each episode, we hear stories from real people like Daniel. People would always think I was lactose intolerant, so I just kind of shortened my explanation. I'm deathly allergic in a big way that defined a lot of my childhood. And while there are challenges, there are moments that remind you you're not alone. One of the best guys that I dated, he made a point to memorize all my food allergies. So join us and hear their stories and more because living with food allergies isn't just about what you can't eat. It's about still having your seat at the table. Brought

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• 21:26Alec Baldwin?

  I'm Alec Baldwin and you're listening to Here's the Thing. Filmmaker Rory Kennedy has made more than 40 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.

• 21:43Speaker 07

  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. 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, 346 people died. And, you know, I, like so many other people, fly, right? And I felt like I want to know

• 22:28Speaker 07

  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 I think this film-

• 22:50Alec Baldwin?

  More than usual.

• 22:51Speaker 07

  I think this film, I hope, rises-

• 22:56Speaker 07

  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, and the need to balance that with public interest, right? And we've seen corporations like Boeing balance those for many decades and do fantastically well. And I think that when that gets out of balance, it hurts everybody.

• 23:29Alec Baldwin?

  So when you see someone like DeFazio, 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?

• 23:39Speaker 07

  He's fantastic.

• 23:40Alec Baldwin?

  Yeah, because you know as well as I do, 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 see, 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, you know, now calm down, Sonny, because there's a lot of money at stake here for us who run and own the company. And my point is, is that for me, I'm always so sad. 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've, I've, I've watched people in testimony, in

• 24:25Alec Baldwin?

  hearings, and I think to myself, thank God I'm not there, because I would be looking at the heads of car companies or oil companies going, you don't get it. You come here, you answer our questions on behalf of the American people. We have the authority. And I feel like that authority is not always employed effectively. You said DeFazio did a good job.

• 24:42Speaker 07

  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 go after Boeing and they hold them accountable and they're continuing to go after Boeing. So I think there are a lot of extraordinary heroes who are celebrated, who are really on the front lines of this, whether it's DeFazio or Michael Stumo, who's the father

• 25:22Speaker 07

  of Samya 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, 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.

• 25:40Alec Baldwin?

  Shut up.

• 25:40Speaker 07

  And he is not going to be silenced and he is continuing to, you know, spread the message that, that this, that he has very continued concerns about the safety of the 737 MAX. The 787 Dreamliner, they just announced yesterday, the FAA, that, I mean, as though this should be news, but that the FAA is going to actually regulate Boeing and not let Boeing regulate itself.

• 26:06Alec Baldwin?

  Self-regulate, yeah.

• 26:07Speaker 07

  So, you know, progress.

• 26:08Alec Baldwin?

  Which is a 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 there 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 here as civil servants for 20, 30 years, and so here at the FAA, we have our own relationships with airline companies. And they allowed Boeing to self-regulate and self-inspect.

• 26:37Speaker 07

  I do think you're right that there's, there are 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 perspectives. It comes from the government officials doing the right thing, in this case, DeFazio. It also comes from, you know, people who don't think of themselves as advocates, but turn into advocates as a result. And then, you know, Andy Pistor, 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 story. Storytellers, right? So I'm not putting myself in that category, but we also have to, you know, the Lucy Walkers

• 27:22Speaker 07

  and yourself, the people who are packaging these stories and getting them out in a way that's digestible to an audience. And so that translates, hopefully, into creating a better world.

• 27:37Alec Baldwin?

  I'm curious for people to understand how documentary films come to the screen. Bob Drew, he did the triptych 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 bales of hay, saying, "America, we know what it's got to do." And then they cut to your uncle walking in with his wife into a room full of people, and people are crying and screaming like it's a Beatles concert. Oh, who's going to win the primary? Who were your influences in your filmmaking?

• 28:09Speaker 07

  Well, certainly Bob Drew was, I mean, an extraordinary filmmaker. Penny Baker was a huge influence on me as well. Barbara Koppel, 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 this woman who had 13 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 verite filmmakers have huge influence on the world of filmmaking today.

• 28:54Speaker 07

  And then they're just, you know, there's just a slew of incredible filmmakers who are colleagues of mine. You know, Lucy Walker, you mentioned, I think she's a fantastic filmmaker. My old partner, Liz Garbus, is fantastic.

• 29:10Alec Baldwin?

  You're not working, still working together as a company?

• 29:11Speaker 07

  We're not still together as a company, but we remain very good friends and advocates for each other.

• 29:17Alec Baldwin?

  I love the Costello film.

• 29:19Speaker 07

  Yeah, that's fantastic. Yeah, gosh, you are so knowledgeable. Amy Berg is fantastic, R.J. 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 by Hollywood and the films that we're seeing, the narrative films.

• 29:49Alec Baldwin?

  Recreations.

• 29:50Speaker 07

  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 to the plot and to, you know, the storytelling. I think 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.

• 30:26Alec Baldwin?

  They're not in the closet anymore.

• 30:28Speaker 07

  They're pulled in and I think it's because they're really great storytellers.

• 30:35Alec Baldwin?

  Filmmaker Rory Kennedy. If you're enjoying this conversation, tell a friend and be sure to follow Here's the Thing on the iHeart Radio 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.

• 31:01Alec Baldwin?

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• 31:57Speaker 03

  And while there are challenges, there are moments that remind you you're not alone. One of the best guys that I dated, he made a point to memorize all my food allergies. So join us and hear their stories and more, because living with food allergies isn't just about what you can't eat, it's about still having your seat at the table. Brought to you by Genentech and Novartis. Listen to At the Table, the food allergy podcast, on America's number one podcast network, iHeart. Follow At the Table and start listening on the free iHeart radio app today.

• 32:31Alec Baldwin?

  I'm Alec Baldwin, and you're listening to Here's the Thing. The Kennedy family has made history, and most of that while occupying a path from Hyannis Port, Massachusetts, down to McLean, Virginia. And yet Rory somehow landed in California.

• 32:47Speaker 07

  Well, my husband, Mark, as you know, is 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, 10 or 12 years ago, the kind of independent film world was fizzling out here in New York and was sort of pivoting over the West Coast. We fell in love with California.

• 33:12Alec Baldwin?

  Your brother moved, I talked to him on the phone, I go, how do you like it? He goes, it's great. I go, oh, God, no, no. I said, not you, not you.

• 33:20Speaker 07

  Come on, Alec.

• 33:21Alec Baldwin?

  I said, you're going, you're going out there. I said, man, I think Cheryl's great, but there's a lot of other women out there for you, Bob. It doesn't have to be living out there in California, and he loves it.

• 33:30Speaker 07

  Yeah, he came out there with his emu. His bird, I remember I, he, 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 we 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, so he sent the bird out.

• 33:56Alec Baldwin?

  What does the bird want in the catering order?

• 33:57Speaker 07

  The, the bird came out and, and, and then Bobby didn't have a house for the first couple of weeks, so the bird lived at my house with Mark. Need blueberries and anyway, there are lots of stories to tell about Toby the bird.

• 34:09Alec Baldwin?

  And he loves California though, too. Bob loves it.

• 34:12Speaker 07

  Yeah, he loves, he loves it out there.

• 34:14Alec Baldwin?

  Now, you did the movie about your mom and of course, you make a little joke there about how difficult it was to recruit your mom.

• 34:21Speaker 07

  Yes. She was not easy.

• 34:26Alec Baldwin?

  She was not, she was not a willing subject to be filmed.

• 34:29Speaker 07

  No.

• 34:30Alec Baldwin?

  But eventually she settled down.

• 34:31Speaker 07

  My siblings were very difficult too, by the way.

• 34:34Alec Baldwin?

  Really?

• 34:34Speaker 07

  Well, yes, they just didn't make it easy.

• 34:37Alec Baldwin?

  They're too busy.

• 34:38Speaker 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? No, 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 backgammon with her and I, I mean, I was just, I was winning the whole game. My dice were so much better. I played brilliantly and then she beat me again. She's 94. I cannot beat that woman playing backgammon and I'm not a bad backgammon player.

• 35:09Alec Baldwin?

  I love, I love that your mother also, and you know this infinitely better than I do, she just, in her own wonderful way, 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, at the golf tournament and she says to me, come and golf with me. You're gonna, 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 because this, I've crossed this, this juncture before. I said, I'm a miserable golfer. You know, of course you can hit a golf ball. Come on, come on, you're gonna, I said, no, no, I don't think you really understand. I need you desperately to listen to carefully what I'm saying. I go, no, no, no, no, please, this is nonsense. Come on, you're gonna come with me, you're gonna play with me and Frank and I, as is always the case, I am scared to death, so I do fairly well. I can drive the ball. I could, I, I get lucky with the iron. I can putt and I can drive irons, I'm terrible.

• 35:54Alec Baldwin?

  We get to the second or maybe the third hole and your mother turns to me, she goes, you're right, you really can golf, can you?

• 35:59Speaker 07

  Did she kick you off your tee?

• 36:02Alec Baldwin?

  Can we get Lou in here, someone? Where's the ringer that was following us to fill in for me? Now, one thing I noticed when I worked with the Kuntzler sisters, who did Disturbing the Universe about their father, William Kuntzler. And when I was talking to them, it was, I kind of knew this, but it was brought into sharper focus for me. The cost, I mean, they told me that they were trying to retire a debt of like $40,000 or $50,000 of debt they owed for archival footage from NBC and other network news organizations. Is that true for you as well? I mean, do you find these costs are just? I mean, because I, for one, believe that all network news organizations, the material should be made free under fair use. These are public airwaves.

• 36:41Speaker 07

  Yeah. Yeah. Well, it is, 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, 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 there has been a few instances of backlash against that, where, where people chase them down and demand being paid. You know, particularly for these historical documentaries, it's, it's a real cost.

• 37:18Alec Baldwin?

  It's like people who, when I was working more consistently on the issue of campaign finance reform with Creative Coalition organizations I worked with years ago in the 90s, from disparate sources, we learned that the, one of the great enemies of campaign finance reform is the National Association of Broadcasters. Because these affiliates in the network TV world, someone said to me, there are stations in this country that make 70% of their annual budget during one election cycle.

• 37:47Speaker 07

  Right.

• 37:48Alec Baldwin?

  In selling political advertising. They do not want to take the money out of politics. And the NAB, the National Association of Broadcasters, is constantly fighting campaign finance law changes.

• 37:57Speaker 07

  Yeah, well, listen, I so appreciate your work in that area too, because I think, you know, when, just circling back to your point about, you know, who are these leaders now, like DeFazio, 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 exclusively for the public interest, right? I mean, those are the types of people who you want to be driven to politics, is 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.

• 38:38Speaker 07

  So I think there's a lot still to be done, obviously, with campaign finance reform in this country.

• 38:44Alec Baldwin?

  Which film, for you, was the most difficult to put together as a film? What was the biggest challenge?

• 38:49Speaker 07

  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 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 that's never been seen before, was a really beautiful experience for me, but it was also emotionally challenging and difficult.

• 39:30Speaker 07

  And, you know, I wanted to ultimately make a film that showed, you know, the challenges and the difficulties that my mother in particular went through and faced, but also, you know, to celebrate her, because I think that for so many people in our family, they focus on Robert Kennedy, John F. Kennedy, Teddy Kennedy, but there's not as much focus on the women, right? And my Aunt Eunice started the Special Olympics, she's contributed enormously, but she hasn't quite gotten that same level of attention, and nor 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

• 40:15Speaker 07

  part in, like, who I am. So part of it was like, I think she deserves the spotlight, at least for a moment, like, at least-

• 40:25Alec Baldwin?

  To be understood.

• 40:26Speaker 07

  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.

• 40:46Alec Baldwin?

  What are you working on next?

• 40:47Speaker 07

  I'm working on a couple of 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.

• 41:01Alec Baldwin?

  Something light and frothy.

• 41:02Speaker 07

  Yes. These are the main ones I'm focused on and I'm very excited to have this film coming out on Netflix and I'm committed to getting as many eyes on it as possible.

• 41:14Alec Baldwin?

  Now, Last Days of Vietnam was in 2014. How many of these films, Ethel was in 2012, I can't believe that, but of these last films, have most of them been with Netflix?

• 41:25Speaker 07

  No, this is my first film that I've directed with Netflix. Last Days was with PBS, Ethel was with HBO, did a film about NASA with the Discovery Channel. Let me just say, Alec, that I have such 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. And I just have such deep admiration and respect for you.

• 42:02Alec Baldwin?

  Give my love to your mom.

• 42:03Speaker 07

  I will. You take care. Thank you.

• 42:06Alec Baldwin?

  Rory Kennedy. Her documentary Downfall: The Case Against Boeing is available now on Netflix. This episode was produced by Kathleen Russo, Zach McNeese, and Maureen Hoban. Our engineer is Frank Imperial. Here's the thing is brought to you by iHeart Radio.

• 42:48Speaker 03

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• 45:21Speaker 00

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