Killed a woman and actually colluded with Russia. He should have been in jail not the Senate. That’s why liberals will ignore as much as they can. Maybe that will open the eys of those associated with the film.
Via Free Beacon:
Actor Jason Clarke, who stars as Senator Ted Kennedy in the new film Chappaquiddick, said liberal cable news programs were ignoring the film about the scandal in which Kennedy abandoned the scene of an accident, leaving his passenger to drown.
Clarke was asked by Deadline Hollywood if politically-themed cable news shows were interested in covering the film. “To my knowledge, the ones on the left unfortunately aren’t really embracing it, but the ones on the right seem to be all over it,” he said.
“Look, we’ve definitely gotten a lot interest from the right from Fox, but the left are not engaging,” he said. “Bill Maher and Rachel Maddow passed on covering the film. I think Chris Mathews is still considering but hasn’t committed, and The New York Times isn’t really entering into a dialogue about it.” Both Maddow and Matthews host MSNBC shows, while Maher hosts a political talk show on HBO.
Clarke noted the Times reticence is ironic, given that it was a Times journalist who broke the 1969 Chappaquiddick story to begin with.
On April 6, a bombshell will hit America’s theaters.
That bombshell comes in the form of an understated, well-made, well-acted film called “Chappaquiddick.” (Full disclosure: They advertise with my podcast.) The film tells the story of Ted Kennedy’s 1969 killing of political aide Mary Jo Kopechne; the Massachusetts Democratic senator drove his car off a bridge and into the Poucha Pond, somehow escaped the overturned vehicle and left Kopechne to drown. She didn’t drown, though. Instead, she reportedly suffocated while waiting for help inside an air bubble while Kennedy waited 10 hours to call for help. The Kennedy family and its associated political allies then worked to cover up the incident. In the end, Teddy was sentenced to a two-month suspended jail sentence for leaving the scene of an accident. The incident prevented Kennedy from running for president in 1972 and 1976, though he attempted a run in 1980 against then-President Jimmy Carter, failing.
So, why is the film important?
It’s important because it doesn’t traffic in rumors and innuendo — there is no attempt to claim that Kopechne was having an affair with Kennedy, or that she was pregnant with his child. It’s important because it doesn’t paint Kennedy as a monster but as a deeply flawed and somewhat pathetic scion of a dark and manipulative family. But most of all, it’s important for two reasons: It’s the first movie to actually tackle a serious Democratic scandal in the history of modern film, and it reminds us that Americans have long been willing to overlook scandal for the sake of political convenience.
First, there’s the historic nature of the film. Here is an incomplete list of the films made about George W. Bush’s administration since his election in 2000, nearly all of them accusatory in tone: “W,” “Fahrenheit 9/11,” “Recount,” “Fair Game” and “Truth.” There has still not been a movie made about former President Bill Clinton’s impeachment (though one is apparently in the works). There’s been no movie about former President Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s internment of the Japanese, former President Lyndon Johnson’s dramatic mishandling of the Vietnam War (though we have had two hagiographies of LBJ, one directed by Rob Reiner, the other starring Bryan Cranston) or former President Woodrow Wilson’s racism and near fascism.
Little known fact, Ted Kennedy was the DNC's Staff Rescue Diver, though he wasn't able to pass the sobriety test until recently.
"...On July 15, 1969 a full seven days after the crash that claimed the life of Mary Jo Kopechne, Ted Kennedy gave a televised statement about the incident. ABC News published a new video of the event yesterday which you can watch below.
There are no reporters present to ask questions, of course. It’s just Kennedy, reading a carefully prepared statement. You can tell as you watch that Kennedy knows his national aspirations are over..."
By a strange coincidence, my family was vacationing on Cape Cod in 1969 when the Chappaquiddick incident occurred.
And so, when he film “Chappaquiddick” opens this week, I’ll be one of the early viewers.
The story is that my mother had decided that my brother and I were old enough to have an “educational enrichment” vacation. Dad dutifully drove us from Silver Spring, Maryland to Boston. After touring the Revolutionary War sites, we moved on to Cape Cod.
Cape Cod was important. Mom cherished all things Jackie. So, off we went.
Being used to the sandy beaches of Ocean City, Maryland, my brother and I was unimpressed by pebbly Cape Cod.
Then Chappaquiddick happened. It had a special meaning for us, as there were Hill staffers in our neighborhood. This was back when staffers had a special metal plate bolted to the bottom of their license plates – they were easy to spot on the street. (Many of them had come from Pennsylvania to seek their fortune in Washington, D.C.)
Then the news broke out about how something went terribly wrong at a bridge at Martha’s Vineyard. Senator Ted Kennedy was involved. His staffer, Mary Jo Kopechne, had died.
We didn’t have a television in our cabin, so we drove to Falmouth and stood with a crowd who were watching Kennedy’s speech through a television store window.
My father had stood in the bitter cold in January 1961 to be at John F. Kennedy’s inaugural. In 1963, my dad and his brother stood in line for hours in the bitter November cold to pay their respects to the assassinated president lying in state in the Capitol.
But that evening in Falmouth, my mother watched Ted Kennedy. She turned to me and hissed: You’re never working for that man.
The glowing Camelot/Kennedy aura had faded to black in the blink of an eye.
Like Mary Jo, my family had Polish roots and was from Pennsylvania. Dad knew we had to move out of the crumbling mining town where I was born. He had said his choices were Cleveland (where he had relatives) or D.C. (no relatives but a better economy). Providentially, my father made the right choice.
In my mother’s mind, the Chappaquiddick incident had no grey areas. Mary Jo was a young woman with a similar background to ours. She had come to D.C., and was taken advantage of by Ted Kennedy. Worse yet, Mary Jo was dead and Mom was certain her death would be hushed up. Mary Jo’s parents were back in Pennsylvania and could be easily manipulated.
Mom knew the ways of those old mining towns — and the people who stayed behind. She believed Mary Jo’s parents would get rolled. Indeed, they were paid $141,000 from the Kennedy family’s insurance company. (That amount is about $936,000 in today’s dollars.)
Today I am pleased how the truth of Chappaquiddick is being revealed via mass media. My mother would be pleased, too, I believe. No grey areas, no television announcers trying to smooth things over for the Kennedys.
Lastly, you may not realize how Ted Kennedy had to have his own institute, as a companion to brother John’s presidential library and museum on the University of Massachusetts Boston campus. Ted’s institute has a spiffy website that includes a timeline of his long Senate career.
But it skips over the year 1969. Now you know why.
JFK won the presidency, but my Uncle lost his election. Years later after my Uncle became a Reagan democrat, he told us what crooks and scum the Kennedy’s were, and that he regretted campaigning for them.
This movie could not have been made while Teddy was alive and still having some political clout. How it escaped Hollywood might make a movie unto itself.
Rate it 4.5/5.
The new film “Chappaquiddick” directed by John Curran and written by Taylor Allen and Andrew Logan opened this weekend. It’s a straightforward examination of the events surrounding the death of Mary Jo Kopechne when Ted Kennedy crashed his car off a bridge on Martha’s Vineyard.
It can be summed up in one word. Brutal.
Let me begin by saying this film is going to do extraordinarily well. First, because it’s a well made film and second because there is tremendous interest in the story. I saw the movie at an out of the way multi-theater cinema in northern Massachusetts. When I arrived for the 4:30 pm matinee, I got the second to last ticket. The next showing at 7:30 pm was already sold out.
The story opens on the weekend of the accident. It sets the stage with a party being thrown for the “Boiler Room Girls” who worked for the recently assassinated Bobby Kennedy. Mary Jo Kopechne explains to a friend that she has no interest in returning to national political work in Washington, DC and is happier working on a mayoral campaign in New Jersey.
Ted Kennedy, who has just participated in a sailboat regatta shows up at the party, toasts all the girls as part of the Kennedy family and quickly finds himself sitting on the couch with Kopechne. They eventually slip away from the party for a drive into American history.
When the infamous crash occurs, the film increases in tempo and the rest of the story is the aftermath. This is where the scandal is only beginning, for it is everything that comes afterwards that reveals the depravity of Kennedy and his team.
Aside from a few flashbacks where Kennedy relives the accident, Mary Jo Jopechne becomes an afterthought. Everything that transpires after her death is about saving Ted Kennedy’s political future and keeping him out of jail.
Two associates who were with him the night of the party, Joe Gargan, a lawyer and “adopted” Kennedy family member and Paul F. Markham, US Attorney for Massachusetts, who is expertly played by stand-up comic Jim Gaffigan. They rely on Kennedy to report the accident but of course, he doesn’t.
Everything Kennedy does in the hours after the accident only makes the situation worse. He is like a child who knows he has done something that will mean real trouble but instead of owning up, continually tries to deny reality or somehow scheme his way out of it.
Once local authorities discover the wreck, Kennedy makes his way to the Edgartown police department where he offers the chief a written statement and is released. He returns to the Kennedy compound in Hyannis. There, he is confronted by Joseph Kennedy Sr., who is played by Hollywood veteran Bruce Dern. By now, the senior Kennedy is in a wheelchair and in failing health. Dern has exactly three lines in the film, yet turns in one of the most powerful performances.
Also waiting for him at the compound is an army of lawyers and political advisers led by Robert McNamara, who is portrayed by Clancy Brown. You may recall Brown as the primary villain in the 1986 movie Highlander and for voicing Mr. Krabs on Spongebob Squarepants. He turns in an excellent performance as McNamara, who directs the political spin campaign from that point.
Kennedy attends the funeral for Kopechne and wears a neck brace against everyone’s advice, a move he ultimately regrets. Shortly after that, it is Kennedy himself who comes up with the idea of making a nationally televised statement about the incident, a concept which is cheered by his advisers.
He toys with the thought of using this address to resign from the senate but ultimately decides to put the onus of that decision on the voters of Massachusetts. It is at this point, that Kennedy finds his way out and it is presented as cynically as it sounds.
Jason Clarke, the actor who plays Kennedy is outstanding. His portrayal of the senator could easily have fallen into the realm of caricature. Instead, Clarke shows us a real man who knows he is doomed. Kate Mara is also excellent as Kopechne and remains memorable, despite little screen time.
Director John Curran deserves credit for telling the unvarnished story. His film career is guaranteed to take off after this project.
Even if you know the whole story, as many Americans do, Chappaquiddick is worth your time and ticket money. I give it four out of five stars. Watch the trailer below:
