Frank Marshall has directed and produced some handsome documentaries in his time, among them: They’ll Love Me When I’m Dead, The Armstrong Lie, and The Bee Gees: How Can You Mend a Broken Heart. His trail of hits seems set to continue with Rather, the compelling story of the man who always went digging for the compelling story in the career, life, and person who is Dan Rather.
Making a name for himself and learning his craft in radio, Rather would soon come on board when the advent of televised news reports became the order of the day. From that time forward, this man who described journalism as his calling, became one of the central figures of the American news media, covering everything from the birth of the civil rights movement, the assassination of JFK, the Watergate scandal. Dan Rather was the man who replaced the legendary Walter Cronkite as the face and the voice of CBS Evening News.
But the constant search for truth can make a man a target, and indeed, this film doesn’t shy away from the savaging he met with, both physically and emotionally, as he took on both political leaders and ideals in a quest to present the facts.
After joining the newly founded 60 Minutes in 1968, Rather would never wait around for a story. He was Johnny-on-the-spot as the bullets flew over his head in the Vietnam War, as the crowds of protestors flooded convention hall in Chicago in 1968, as Chinese students starved themselves in 1989 in Tiananmen Square, and Dan Rather was ever a reporter at the forefront.
“Dan Rather was the man who replaced the legendary Walter Cronkite as the face and the voice of CBS Evening News.”
“I’d much rather wear out than rust out,” they quoted Rather as saying. Indeed, in 2006, after 44 years, he left CBS and headed to AXS TV, a cable network owned by Mark Cuban, and continued pumping out our long news shows before moving over to The Big Interview with Dan Rather in 2013, and in 2016, he started another incarnation of his show, SiriusXM Radio.
This film has family, friends, peers and colleagues share their feelings and memories. Even old man Dan, now in his nineties, talks briefly, but passionately and succinctly, about the search for truth, making enemies, but always working hard, striving for excellence.
Rather, the man and the movie are equally impressive time capsules of a world drifting ever further into the past. Still, the man’s dedication to his work, family, and country is unshakable. A trusted voice for generations of viewers, and even now with millions of followers on social media, Dan Rather continues to reflect on the world he has watched go through one crisis and triumph in equal measure.
Dan Rather, for a time, used to sign off with a single word. Courage. In the end, that’s what Rather proffers to everyone of us, dedicated to the proposition that the good watchdog barks at all things suspiciously. “Courage is being afraid, but going on anyhow.” That’s the secret it seems, when you immerse yourself in the life of the last of the great anchormen, Dan Rather.
"…the compelling story of the man who always went digging for the compelling story"
