How “Becoming Katharine Graham” became a film

Moderator Jackie Glover, journalist Lynn Povich, George Kunhardt and Teddy Kunhardt participated in a panel discussion after the Jacob Burns Film Center screening of “Becoming Katharine Graham.” JEFF MORRIS PHOTO

By JEFF MORRIS

You might wonder how two brothers from Westchester, one of whom lives in Bedford and the other in Chappaqua, came to make a definitive biographical film about a woman who was the legendary publisher of the Washington Post. But a much more relevant question is why are two brothers from Westchester, who have been working with their father making multiple award-winning documentaries for over 20 years, not better known — and why aren’t more people familiar with their huge, free archive of interviews, series, films, and educational content?

Kunhardt Films, based in Pleasantville, is run by Peter, Teddy, and George Kunhardt. Their work has won nine Emmy Awards, two Peabody Awards, a DuPont, an IDA, and two NAACP Image Awards. They specialize in “documentaries about the people and ideas that shape American history” — which is actually quite a broad spectrum.

More amazing is the newest division of the Kunhardt Film Foundation, which goes by the name Life Stories. Working from the same body of documentaries and one-on-one interviews, it changes up the earlier description to content that addresses “issues of social justice, history, politics, the arts, and culture by shining the spotlight on relatable human stories of purpose and meaning in times of collective change.” 

That goal may be more relevant now than ever, and their latest film, “Becoming Katharine Graham,” is perhaps more timely now than it might have been when “Kay,” as she was familiarly known, was alive. She passed away in 2001, but her story now evokes nods, gasps and knowing laughter, as it did at a sold-out screening March 24 at the Jacob Burns Film Center in Pleasantville. 

Described as a film that “tells the story of a painfully shy woman’s accidental rise to power and how it changed history, it traces how Graham evolved from a “doormat wife” into a legendary newspaper publisher — the only woman in a world dominated by men. She was President Richard Nixon’s nemesis in publishing the Pentagon Papers and during Watergate; she fought for truth, broke barriers in a sexist world, and won a Pulitzer Prize.

One online reviewer called it “a film that needs to be seen in our current times, showing how important a free press is to democracy, keeping us safe from those who would rather only let one side of the story be told.” 

The story of how the film came to be made could be a film in itself. George Kunhardt told The Recorder that back in 2018, they did a documentary called, “The Newspaperman: The Life and Times of Ben Bradlee.” Bradlee was the editor of the Washington Post when Graham was publisher.

“After we finished and screened the film, Warren Buffett, who we had done a profile on called ‘Becoming Warren Buffett’ for HBO a year before, called us and said he loved the documentary, but a central character was missing from the film, and that was Kay Graham. He implored us to research her, look into her, and if we were ever interested in doing a doc he would love to sit down and give us an interview about his best friend, Kay Graham.”

As it turned out, the interviews with Buffett, who is now 94, became a key part of the new film. Ironically, the same scenario that led to making the film is played out within it, as it is noted that Graham’s role was also entirely left out of the 1976 film “All the President’s Men.”

“We read her book, her personal history, we watched a lot of interviews with her,” said George. “We also had a couple of years prior done ‘Nixon by Nixon: In His Own Words’ for HBO, so we really knew the juicy Nixon tapes. When you couple all those together, plus a doc we did called ‘Gloria: In Her Own Words’ about Gloria Steinem, we knew the Gloria angle as well.” New and older interviews with Steinem also became a key piece of the film.

“We kind of had all the ingredients there to do a documentary about a woman that we think personified moral leadership better than anyone. After reading her book, we fell in love; we interviewed Warren, and then the rest is history. We spent two full years conducting interviews and editing.”

The film seamlessly melds archival footage and stills, news coverage, new and old interviews, scenes from fictionalized movies, and portions of Graham reading the audio book of her own story. The result is a documentary that doesn’t feel like a documentary — a hallmark of what can be seen as the Kunhardt style. Only in retrospect do you realize that it is a documentary that does not have a narrator.

A team effort

“We have a distinct style that we’ve done for many of our films, including ‘Gloria: In Her Own Words,’ ‘Bobby Kennedy: In His Own Words,’ ‘Teddy: In His Own Words,’ ‘JFK: In His Own Words’ — we’ve done a handful of films where the only character that you ever hear is the actual subject matter,” George said. “It’s a very labor intensive process, going through every single piece of archival footage that you can find of them. But it’s very rewarding and refreshing when you distill these people’s words, their own words that they said, and tell their story unfiltered and unabridged.”

The extensive work required is, remarkably, accomplished by what George terms a “dynamite team” — with only about 10 to 12 people involved in the project hands-on full time, with about 15 or 16 comprising the whole organization. That does not include many more who, he says, are brought on for specific jobs and targeted aspects of production, freelance and part time. And he particularly singled out Jill Cowan, their producer and archival researcher on this and many other films, who he said “really knows how to find these gems, and a needle in the haystack, in the archival world.”

George said people have had a tendency, for years and years, to think of documentaries as boring. Now, he says, there’s been a new wave where people are excited by documentaries. “I feel like we and some other producers have started pushing the boundaries in a much more artistic way, and making these feel more like feature films in a way. That’s something we’re very proud of, that we have a creative, stylistic approach that brings in different audiences.”

Kunhardt Films has been through a number of partnerships, and is now embarking on a new adventure. George said they were with PBS for years; they have well over 100 hours of programming there. “From there we left and started working with HBO for 10-12 years. After HBO had their corporate split, we left and went over to Apple for five years. This is actually, after our five year exclusive with Apple, our first to come out of our foundation — a first foray into the unknown, producing it ourselves with no corporate leadership ahead of us.” Initially, “Becoming Katharine Graham” is streaming exclusively on Prime Video, which according to George, had no say in the film’s content.

Without a distributor attached, he said, they now have the freedom to do what they want and not show a film until they feel they can really do the subject justice. Every one of their projects is a long-term process, according to George; each one involves spending the time to build trust with everyone they work with, which is an art in itself. “We try to be courteous and thoughtful when meeting with people,” he said. “I think they also see a unique dynamic of a father and his two sons that work together, and we have a track record that definitely helps. The biggest thing is, we really are just truthful. We allow everyone we do a film on to watch the film before we lock it — just for historical accuracy. We have editorial control of every film. And people we’ve worked with before will vouch for us.”

It is Life Stories of which the Kunhardts are most proud. The nonprofit media organization provides open access to all of its content for communities and classrooms through a curated website and YouTube channel. 

“We think it’s a big idea,” George said. “We’ve never really come out; nobody really knows we’re here. This was the first event at which we’ve mentioned the name Life Stories; it was a big moment for us as an organization, and we  purposely wanted to do it with a very strong local presence, very close to both the Burns and the Bedford Playhouse, and we’ve talked to them about doing something with them as well. We want to be sure Westchester specifically knows that we exist. This is where we grew up; these are our people.”

George said they’ve had 20 million-plus views of their content since they started Life Stories, “100 percent available at no charge to the public. We have a pretty big reach for a nonprofit — honestly, a pretty strong reach for anyone.”

The website, lifestories.org contains interviews, transcripts, series, films and educational content. And, as it says, “Life Stories showcases diverse perspectives and emphasizes the importance of connection in an era when the world needs it most.”