Customer Reviews

American Experience: RFK

5 star:		(13)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

I have read just about every book and watched just about every movie that there is regarding Robert Kennedy, and I've got to say that this is, by far, one of the best pieces of work I've yet to see. The movie was brilliantly put together in a way which captures the audience's attention, allows for us to actually *feel* what Robert Kennedy is feeling, to sense the tension during chaotic times, and most importantly, to understand the wonderful man who made a huge difference for America.

This movie is extremely well-balanced, provides excellent insight to the inner mind/heart of Robert Kennedy, and includes many very personal excerpts either via interview or editing of films from Kennedy's life.

If you are looking to pick one movie on Robert Kennedy - this is it. This is THE one you want to watch. After watching this, you will see Robert Kennedy in a way you never have before.

This was one of the most inspiring documentaries about anyone that I have ever seen!

WHAT IT IS:

Real simple - We see Robert K. Kennedy evolve like we all wish we could. We see the raw materials, the obvious potential in him early on and his high moral standards, and then we watch him go through a very fast course in empirical human experience and wisdom - THE HARD WAY!

But somehow he comes through all the adversity a better human being. WOW! His sincerity is absolutely unmistakable in this compelling story of his life.

WHAT IT MEANS TO US:

You be the judge of what it means to you. To me, it shows what could be done, what should be done and most of all that people that are highly capable and competitive don't have to become ruthless and stay that way. RFK certainly proved that point and I find myself admiring him more now than ever. Seeing his life come full circle and grow to truly care about all people is heartwarming.

Unfortunately, after he won the California Primary and had given a speech about the goodness of us as a people, he was assassinated in front of many of his supporters and the world, via television.

ALL IN ALL:

RFK's life is one which can teach us much by example. Though obviously tragic, it is a story of hope and possibilities for us all.

DVD FEATURES:

2 Bonus featurettes: an interview with the film maker plus "If He Had Lived". These give an added frame of reference to an already clear picture of RFK's life and include interviews.

A life packed with details such as Bobby Kennedy's is difficult to squeeze into only 2 hours (for instance, there is no mention of his living in England as a boy when old Joe was ambassador to the Court of St. James or that he had a brief stint in the Navy before going on to Harvard and Law School --serving on the Joseph P Kennedy Jr, the ship named after his fallen older brother). But these events are pale in comparison to the Bobby Kennedy that is presented here. It is honest in that it doesn't try to gloss over the much harder and meaner Bobby who existed prior to November 22, 1963. And post 1963 Bobby is a treat for those of us who love him and realize on a daily basis how unfortunate our country is to have lost him. If you don't know RFK, you will by the time this presentation is over.

I got this for my kids to see. It is really good! The DVD is very heavily b&w and my 13 y.o was not really looking forward to watching it, but the PBS team does a good job of showing the human side of RFK, even in "old black and white". And of course as he gets older the clips turn to color film. I had forgotten what a rock star Bobby was in those days. He was like the Beatles, filling stadiums with people screaming for him. I guess America really wanted him to fill his brother's shoes. And the narrator is explaining all this and then, boom, you know what happens next. It was just shocking for my kids, who came to understand the 60s so much more after seeing this DVD with me. Get it and sit and watch it with your teens.

Next to "RFK in His Own Words" (not yet on DVD, sadly), this is the best documentary on RFK that is out there at the present time. Covers most of the major issues (although the Cuban Missle Crisis segment is a tad too short and it doesn't include his classic South African Speech of 1966 which challenged young people around the world). Hopefully in the future, the latter could be included as a special feature.

But what it has is good. Along with the necessary biographical info, we see an all-too-brief segment on his moving speech at the 1964 Democratinc convention where he paid tribute to his brother. There is also an ultra-rare 1967 "Meet the Press" episode (the wear and age is shown on the videotape) where he pointedly asks his hosts (on his waffling on Vietnam and a 1968 run), "What would you rather me do? Get off the earth?" one could only picture say Howard Dean speaking with that kind of unscripted candor today.

We also see amazing footage of RFK calming the Indianapolis ghetto after MLK's murder (this has been seen before, but not in this much detail), and frantic scenes of his connecting with the residents of Chinatown and Watts. The Chinatown segment shows a previously unseen shot of a temporary scare in the RFK motorcade when fireworks are set off-ironically, he was killed that very night!

Overall, a must see. The features have some good commentary from RFK's associates too. D.W. Griffith once said that one day, film might replace history books in classrooms. I would not want to see that happen, but films like this do a mightly good job!

Reading the chefdevergue review, I'm compelled to ask "How does one get to be a top 1000 reviewer? Should I use more $5 words like 'hagiography'?"

Reading his review, all I can glean is that he hates the Kennedys. Perhaps I'm wrong about this, but I don't understand why he can't distinguish between the deeds of the father and the son, done almost 40 years apart, in measuring the character of Robert Kennedy. I, for one, would not feel it fair if one judged me based on the career and deeds of my father. Or my mother, for that matter.

There's a simple rule of thumb to be followed for all of biographical film: when you really want the scoop, if you desire detail and nuance, read the book. Film doesn't have the time to get into great detail, to be thorough or even fair. All we can hope for from a film is that it will make us feel, it will move or inspire us, or it will, at the very least, entertain us. If the film is of acceptable quality, it will not lie to us, either to glamorize or condemn its subject. If it does not lie but still glamorizes or condemns, the author's message is clear, and often valid.

This film is about power of loss, how it has the strength to move us to greater wisdom and accomplishment. Director David Grubin, who has directed many powerful documentaries for "The American Experience" over the past several years, communicates this message thoughtfully and movingly. I would suspect that even chef would agree with me that JFK's death did have a powerful and positive effect on the rough-edged RFK. Grubin effectively tells the story of RFK to make that case.

This film will resonate with anyone who has suffered a terrible loss.

I have to admit I don't shed a lot of tears at the movies, but I did cry within the first five minutes of this film, as the conventioneers cheered him at the 1964 democratic convention, and he quoted "Romeo and Juliet."

The rest of it, the biographical information about RFK, his bullying and controlling pre-1964 period is, in my opinion, covered much better than chef would lead you to believe. If you are into politics, history, or the 1960s, you will be entertained by the conflict between RFK and LBJ and the way Grubin covers this. But the theme of this film is not that.

I can't discuss this film without mentioning the contribution of Michael Bacon's score. The haunting theme of this, as well as his music for Grubin's 1991 masterpiece "LBJ" make me wonder why we don't have the opportunity to purchase (or even download) the scores for these films. Amazon?

If you are one of those republican-types who feels compelled to trash the Kennedy legacy at every opportunity, take your comfort in chef's review. I don't, so I recommend this film.

There is nothing else to be said about this DVD. Get it and watch in awe. Well put together, very nicely done chronilogically, most topics discussed well (you really can't expect to have everything in a documentary like this), cripes man this is a video eulogy. Watch it, enjoy it like a fine wine.

It is somewhat ironic that at just the time that when presumptive Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama, a recent addition to the Democratic Party pantheon of heroes and heir apparent to the Kennedy legacy, is claiming the nomination of the party that the 40th Anniversary of the assassination of Robert F. Kennedy during the presidential campaign of 1968 is being remembered in some quarters. That event holds much meaning in the political evolution of this writer. The Robert Kennedy campaign of 1968 was the last time that this writer had a serious desire to fight solely on the parliamentary road for progressive political change. So today he too has some remembrances, as well. This documentary from the Public Broadcasting System's American Experience series only adds some visual flashes to those remembrances.

In a commentary in another space I have mentioned that through the tumultuous period leading to the early spring of 1968 that I had done some political somersaults as a result of Bobby Kennedy's early refusal to take on a sitting president, Lyndon Johnson, for the Democratic nomination for the presidency. Moreover, I committed myself early (sometime in late 1967) to the reelection of Lyndon Johnson, as much as I hated his Vietnam War policy. Why? One Richard M. Nixon. I did not give Eugene McCarthy's insurgent campaign even a sniff, although I agreed with his anti-war stance. Why? He could not beat one Richard M. Nixon. When Bobby Kennedy jumped in and Johnson announced that he was not going to run again and I was there the next day. I was a senior in college at the time but I believe I spent hundreds of hours that spring working the campaign either out of Boston, Washington, D.C. or elsewhere. Why? Well, you can guess the obvious by now. He COULD beat one Richard M. Nixon.

It was more than that though, and I will mention more on that below. I took, as many did, his murder hard. It is rather facile now to say that something of my youth, and that of others who I have talked to recently about this event, got left behind with his murder but there you have it. However, to show you the kind of political year that it was for me about a week after his death I was in the Hubert Humphrey campaign office in Boston. Why? You know why by now. And for those who don't it had one name- Richard M. Nixon.

But let us get back to that other, more virtuous, political motive for supporting Bobby Kennedy. It was always, in those days, complicated coming from Massachusetts to separate out the whirlwind effect that the Kennedy family had on us, especially on `shanty' Irish families. On the one hand we wished one of our own well, especially against the WASPs, on the other there was always that innate bitterness (jealousy, if you will) that it was not we who were the ones that were getting ahead. If there is any Irish in your family you know what I am talking about.

To be sure, as a fourteen year old I walked the neighborhood for John Kennedy in 1960 but as I have mentioned elsewhere that was a pro forma thing. Part of the ritual of entry into presidential politics. The Bobby thing was from the heart. Why? It is hard to explain but there was something about the deeply felt sense of Irish fatalism that he projected, especially after the death of his brother, that attracted me to him. But also the ruthless side where he was willing to cut Mayor Daly and every politician like him down or pat them on the back and more, if necessary, to get a little rough justice in the world. In those days I held those qualities, especially in tandem, in high esteem. Hell, I still do, if on a narrower basis.

Okay, that is enough for a trip down memory lane back to the old politically naïve days, or rather opportunistic days. Without detailing the events here the end of 1968 was also a watershed year for changing my belief that an individual candidate rather than ideas and political program were decisive for political organizing. That understanding, furthermore, changed my political appreciation for Bobby Kennedy (and the vices and virtues of the Democratic Party). That is the import of this well-produced (as always) portrayal of the short life and career of Robert Kennedy. If in 1968, with my 1968 political understandings, I stood shoulder to shoulder with Robert Kennedy my political evolution and his political past, as detailed here, changed my perceptions dramatically.

This documentary highlights the close relationship between Robert and his older brother John starting with the Massachusetts United States Senate campaign in 1952 (and that would continue in the 1960 campaign and during John Kennedy's administration right up to the assassination). We are presented here, however, with the `bad' Bobby who was more than willing to join Wisconsin Senator Joseph McCarthy's "red scare" anti-communist campaign and the anti-labor McClellan Committee campaigns against Jimmy Hoffa in particular. There is no love lost between this writer and labor bureaucrats like Hoffa (or his son) but a bedrock position then and today is the need for labor to clean its own house. What purpose does government intervention into the labor movement do except to weaken it? Bobby was on the other side on this one.

Under the John Kennedy Administration Robert, moreover, played a key role in putting a damper on the early civil rights movement in the South (as well as putting a 'tap' on Martin Luther King at the behest of one J. Edgar Hoover), the Bay of Pigs decision and aftermath , the Cuban Missile Crisis confrontation with the Soviet Union and the early escalation, under the rubric of counter-insurgency, in Vietnam. As readily observable, where I had previously downplayed my opposition to some of Bobby's positions I now put a big minus next to it. That is politics.

Finally though, I will frankly admit a lingering `softness' for Bobby. Why? The late political journalist Jack Newfield, one of the inevitable 'talking heads' that people PBS productions, a biographer of Robert Kennedy I believe but in any case a close companion in the mid-1960's and a prior resident of the Bedford- Stuveysant ghetto of New York City, made this comment about a Robert Kennedy response to his question during a tour of that area. Newfield asked Kennedy what he would have become if he had grown up in Bedford-Stuveysant. Bobby responded quickly- "I would either be a juvenile delinquent or a revolutionary". I would like to think that he meant those alternatives seriously. Enough said.

Alright, yes, I am a big RFK fan. But not necessarily a Kennedy fan. That's right--it is actually possible to like an individual Kennedy without being a fanatic about the rest of them! That said, I believe one should be able to see that this brief documentary stands on its own, however you feel about the family. American Experience has shown time and time again, much like the Ken Burns documentaries on a smaller scale, how to showcase a mesmerizing personality.

What is particularly wonderful about this piece is how it follows the arc of Bobby Kennedy's changing belief system: what metamorphasized within him and what solidified. His most remarkable facet, to me, is that for a politician, and one with a reputation for bull-headedness at that, he was not afraid to change his mind, to learn from life and rethink former convictions. It shows a man on a journey within himself,taking a large part of an equally changing country with him until his sudden end.

Agree with his politics or not, Bobby Kennedy was an intelligent, philosophical and driven man. American Experience has once again told an interesting story about an interesting person, and isn't that the best sort of entertainment?

I watched this when it was on PBS last month and thought it was one of the best documentaries I've seen. It left me wondering what happened to politicians like RFK. Why are we consistently stuck with less than stellar candidates for the most important job in the world?