Rory Kennedy thought her mom would say no.
Kennedy, a documentary filmmaker who brought "American Hollow" (1999) and "Ghosts of Abu Ghraib" (2007) to the Sundance Film Festival, was approached by Sheila Nevins, president of HBO Documentary Films, about making a movie about her mother — Ethel Skakel Kennedy, wife of the late Robert F. Kennedy. (Rory, the 11th of Bobby and Ethel’s children, was born six months after her father was assassinated in 1968.)
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‘Ethel’ screenings
Rory Kennedy’s documentary about her mother, Ethel Skakel Kennedy, debuts at the 2012 Sundance Film Festival.
Friday, Jan. 20, 2 p.m. » The MARC Theatre, Park City
Saturday, Jan. 21, 8:30 a.m. » Library Center Theatre, Park City
Saturday, Jan. 21, 6 p.m. » Sundance Screening Room, Sundance Resort
Thursday, Jan. 26, 9 p.m. » Temple Theatre, Park City
Saturday, Jan. 28, 6:30 p.m. » Rose Wagner Performing Arts Center, Salt Lake City
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"I was, frankly, resistant to doing it, because it’s personal, and I know how uncomfortable my mother is with these things," Rory Kennedy said. When Nevins persisted, Kennedy decided, "I figured my mother would say no, so I’ll just ask her. Then she can say ‘no’ and I don’t have to. So, anyway, I asked her and she said ‘yes.’ "
The results can be seen in "Ethel," which debuts in the Documentary Premieres section of the 2012 Sundance Film Festival Friday, Jan. 20, at 2 p.m. at The MARC Theatre in Park City. The screening will be well-attended: Ethel Kennedy and many of Rory’s other relatives are expected to be in attendance — possibly the largest concentration of Kennedys outside of Hyannisport.
Here is some of my interview with Rory Kennedy:
I did a bit of Google research, and there’s not that much written about your mother, compared to your other relatives. How did that affect your documentary?
Part of the reason I was incentivized to make the movie is that her story is one of the great untold stories, in my opinion. Part of the reason for that is that she’s reticent to do an interview. She hates them. She really hasn’t done anything comprehensive, ever. She did one with Tom Brokaw 30 years ago, and even that was just kind of a snippet. …
I decided early on, because there wasn’t that much written about her, to go into the archival material and see what was there. What I discovered is that she was there, always. She’s in every picture. She might always be in the background, but she showed up. She’s there at the Hoffa hearings. She’s there at the inauguration. She’s there on the campaign trails, all of the campaign trails. She’s the one hosting the parties. She’s just there. To be able to dig up that material and then talk to her about what that was like, and try to share her perspective and my family’s perspective on some of these more historical events, seemed exciting to me.
Did she talk about why she has been so reticent?
I think it’s just not her nature. The film explores that a little bit. She just hates talking about herself. If you did an interview with her right now about this film, all she would do is talk about me. She will do everything possible to deflect anything from herself. And then I do the interview with her in the film, and she won’t answer half the questions. She’d say, "Why are we talking about this? And who could possibly care what I have to say?"
Did that mean you were a bigger, or more visible, part of the movie than you have been before?
I interview her in the film, and almost all my siblings in the film, and narrate the film, and play some sort of background role in the film. Part of the process of making a film is figuring out what it wants to be. My vision of it going in was very different than what I ended up with. I really thought I was going to make more of a film that was about present-day, what my mother is up to. But as I explored this archival [material] further, it was so rich. And I was watching the archival [footage], not only was my mother at everything but my siblings were at everything. So their perspective seemed increasingly important as well.
There have been a number of documentaries about my family, not necessarily about my mother. There is kind of a group of experts, who a lot of folks tap into, who are all extraordinary wonderful people who I obviously had access to. What I could do that was different, and maybe add something new to the equation, was more of an inside-out perspective.
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