Rory Kennedy Tells about the Last Days in Vietnam

Category: Television and Streaming

RoryRory Kennedy is an award-winning filmmaker whose resume includes five Emmy nominations with one win in 2007 for “Outstanding Nonfiction Special” Ghosts of Abu Ghraib. She has many nominations and awards from a variety of film festivals, and her latest film, Last Days in Vietnam, has been nominated for an Academy Award.

 

“My brother [Chris] says I do two types of films: depressing and really depressing,” Rory Kennedy told journalists recently. “I disagree with him because I find them very hopeful.” Kennedy’s latest film chronicles the final days and hours of Americans in Vietnam before the communists took over Saigon and the country fell. For Ms. Kennedy, Last Days in Vietnam highlights American heroes and courage, and includes lessons to learn from the past.

 

“When we premiered this film in Washington, D.C., it was the night that Obama gave his ISIS address. And there was a great article in The New Yorker saying that Obama should see this film because there are so many parallels between what happened during these final days and what’s happening today.” Ms. Kennedy explained.

 

“It’s been such a great honor for me to tell this story and share this story with Americans, because I think it’s really an opportunity to adjust our perception of this war just a little bit, that there were Americans and the film tells the story of the abandonment – the American abandonment of the Vietnamese,” Kennedy explained. “That is the story. But within that context, there are these extraordinary acts of courage on the part of these Americans.” She said those who have seen the film when it played in film festivals and in theaters “feel proud to be American and to be a part of this effort of these individuals who did the right thing in this wave of history moving against them. It’s just an honor to tell the story.”

 

The film itself is remarkable and for those who lived through the final days of South Vietnam, the memories it brings back are intense. For those who were too young to remember or were not born at the end of the war, this is a story that isn’t taught in schools. Even those who remember many of the images shown in this film will see and learn more and understand events that occurred during the final hours of American presence in Saigon and the empathy, courage, and sensitivity of the Americans.

 

Several specific stories are highlighted in this film, including that of the USS Kirk. When helicopters were being used to shuttle South Vietnamese to safety before the communists arrived, the Kirk played an important role. While the American fleet was in the South China Seas loading the evacuees, the USS Kirk was there to monitor the situation and keep the fleet safe. However, many Vietnamese pilots loaded their families and friends onto other helicopters and started flying them to safety. The Kirk hosted many of them, but once a chopper landed, there was no room for another, so after each landing the helicopter would be pushed over the side of the Kirk to make room for the next group of refugees. This is just one amazing story told in the documentary.

 

The scene of a Vietnamese ship being re-flagged with the American flag in order to dock in a safe port is also memorable and very poignant.

 

For Rory, “Vietnam, I would say, was very much part of my consciousness from a very young age, and I’ve always been fascinated with Vietnam. My father, Robert Kennedy, ran his last campaign in 1968 really because he wanted us to get out of Vietnam. And I would say that was absolutely the primary reason, if not the sole reason, that he jumped into that campaign.”

 

Kennedy didn’t want to rehash stories about the war that have been told over and over again. But she said the stories she tells in this film are, in most cases, completely new to Americans. “And that’s been one of the striking things over the course of the last year, showing it at film festivals and at community screenings with PBS, that people say, ‘I can’t believe we don’t know this story.’ It’s such an extraordinary story and such an important story. And historians, politicians, people who have studied the Vietnam War don’t know what happened, and don’t know these events. And I was really struck by that. It’s a dramatic story, and it’s an important story, and it’s hugely relevant.”

 

Having the film air on PBS is something that, for the filmmaker, is a great opportunity to have people see the film and learn what happened those final days.

 

Last Days in Vietnam is available for free streaming on PBS station websites February 5-7 and will air on PBS’ American Experience April 28, 2015.

 

About the Author

Francine Brokaw has been covering all aspects of the entertainment business for 20 years. She also writes about technology and has been a travel writer for the past 12 years. She has been published in national and international newspapers and magazines as well as internet websites. She has written her own book, Beyond the Red Carpet The World of Entertainment Journalists, from Sourced Media Books.

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