HBO Documentary Shows Ted Kennedy's Controversial Career in Soft Focus

While hideous scandals and devastating tragedies have attended the Kennedy's long and ongoing tenure in Washington, the nation's respect and admiration for the family has likewise proven unshakable. Just as Americans have shown an abiding willingness to forgive the Kennedy brothers' most shameful indiscretions, so too does Peter Kunhardt's film, Teddy: In His Own Words, pardon their public misdeeds. A tender, nostalgic profile of the Camelot clan through the eyes of its youngest member, the documentary plays eerily like a premature eulogy.

With a thick head of hair and a thick Boston accent to match his eight older siblings, Edward Moore Kennedy grew up with an acute awareness of the lofty expectations that would accompany his adulthood. Early in his political career, he came to embody the family's glamour, iconography and more importantly, commitment to public service.

For over four decades, he has been the most visible and influential leader among liberal democrats. In an electric, pulpit-banging speech at the DNC midterm convention in 1978, Senator Kennedy sounded a spirited call for health reform:

As long as I'm a vote and as long as I have a voice in the U.S. senate, it's going to be for the democratic platform plan that provides decent quality health care north and south, east and west, for all Americans as a matter of right and not of privilege.

A stalwart crusader for civil rights, higher minimum wage, lower unemployment rates and health care reform, Ted Kennedy's forty-six year service as nine-time Massachusetts Senator is faithfully chronicled with a privileged library of photographs and painstakingly edited video footage. Kunhardt's HBO documentary, which premiers Monday, July 13 at 9:00PM, is a stirring visual and emotional experience.

To be sure, the film devotes more camera time to breezy, sun-soaked shots of Ted sailing on the cape than to probing the mysterious Chappaquiddick incident. It is a generous tribute. Just after Ted gave Caroline Kennedy away at her wedding, Jackie Kennedy wrote the following in a letter to her brother-in-law:

On you, the carefree youngest brother, fell a burden a hero would beg to be spared. Everyone is going to make it because you are always there with your love.

One of the most touching moments in the film comes when Senator Kennedy looks toward the camera, glassy-eyed, having just read the letter aloud. Choked-up, he says, "That's about as nice as you can get." The film too, in its gentle portrait of the controversial politician, is "about as nice as you can get."

Comments

[gulopartisan]

Ted Kennedy did something shameful (not illegal) forty years ago. Has he none nothing, in those forty years since, that weighs in the balance? Who are these people, with their smug righteousness?

[mychagal]

Gulo,

Seems your missing a few facts. You should look up some legislation. LBJ as senator and Teddy have been the most progressive and productive legislators and are among the finest.

[lboucher]

Oh the Kennedys.... a truly dysfunctional and macabre family. Yet always interesting and provocative to watch from a distance, much like a slow motion train wreck.

[17central]

Excuse ME-- a documentary is meant to document a life and provide insight. In his own words does not mean that there are no filmmakers involved. The idea is to use Kennedy's speeches and recollections to give the viewer a deeper sense of who this man is. I found the review helpful--no need to bash interns with phrases like "Miss Intern" and condescending comments about who understands what a documentary is or is not..

[brazenliberal]

First, reread my post: I neither defined "documentary" nor implied that Ms. Intern did not understand the term. Second, filmmakers were obviously involved. So what? What is relevant is the title - "In His Words" makes it clear that much of the film from comes the subject's standpoint. She should have realized that, instead of making the film sound like a "tender" political ad.
(B) I disliked the phrase "soft focus" - one could infer that Ted AND the filmmakers were not "objective". Worse are her comments "...the film devotes more camera time to breezy, sun-soaked shots of Ted sailing on the cape than to probing the mysterious Chappaquiddick incident." and "...Americans have shown ...an abiding willingness to forgive the Kennedy brothers' most shameful indiscretions...." No, Ms. Intern: many Americans are downright vicious in judging Kennedy solely by the single worst act of his long life.
This film was about Ted's LIFE - not one incident. Please refer to today's post by Gulpartisan: "...Has he none nothing, in those forty years since, that weighs in the balance?" Yes. Some of that is in the film, and its value should not be diminished in reviews.
It is not condescending to disagree strongly. I believe the reviewer made unfair implications about the cinematic integrity of Kennedy and the filmmakers. I could have questioned her own integrity, competence, and bias. Perhaps I gave her the "benefit of the doubt" by noting only her intern status.

[brazenliberal]

Excuse me, Ms. Intern, but I think you missed something. The most likely reason the film shows Ted Kennedy's "controversial career" in "soft focus" is hinted at in the NAME of the FILM: "TEDDY: IN HIS OWN WORDS." I would also like to add that I think his career has been inspiring to all who see society as responsible to, and representing, ALL its citizens in critical areas of their lives (such as employment, civil rights, and health care).
It is Ted's personal life which is more controversial, and largely due to the Kopechne accident. People who dislike him - and believe me, there are many - remember that, though they forget the airplane crash in which he helped save the pilot's life. They remember Ted's problems with alcohol (and Joan's) - as if this were something unusual for members of the Senate! - while forgetting the actual work he has done in the Senate for all these decades. They tend to focus on his "privileged life" and ignore the terrible sadness in this same life, e.g. the deaths of two siblings when he was young, the assassinations of two others, concerns for his disabled sister, and his son's cancer.
Ted is a complicated, fallible man who had a complicated, difficult life. When he tries to tell it in "his own words", it is unfair to describe it as if he should have done a hatchet job on himself in order to make the film acceptable to his enemies.

[wnaegele]

True, Teddy is the libs' favorite sot...

[Clavis]

What is a "lib"? What kind of person relies on nicknames and slurs?

[wnaegele]

I'll wait for Mary Jo Kopechne's review...

[viewfromuphere]

name was raised at the second post.......what took so long???

at least the guy didn't send 4000 plus of his fellow Americans off to a disruptable war, ill planned war..

you want to keep playing this game....

[rektruax]

You got a long wait...

[17central]

Fair warning but as a flat out sucker for all things Kennedy, I'll still be tuning in.