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From the numerous ordinary documentaries I've seen on The History
Channel, I can safely assert that compelling material often overcomes
mediocre presentations. That's why so many Holocaust related
documentaries and dramas are so highly regarded despite lazy
filmmaking—just last year's banal The Pianist and The Grey Zone provide ample evidence. Similar arguments could be presented for first time director Ivy Meeropol's Heir to an Execution, which premiered to much acclaim at the 2004 Sundance Film Festival. At times awkward and clunky as homemade movies, this aspect actually becomes one of the documentary's charms—for Meeropol happens to be the granddaughter of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, historic icons for the Cold War and McCarthyism. This is her personal film, recording her quest to discover the humanity behind her grandparents that remains unexplored by historians.
We can thank the Freedom of Information Act for providing the impetus. Inspired by the release of the Venona documents in 1995 and the fact that some essential Rosenberg acquaintances were very old, Ivy decided to chronicle their recollections for posterity. For over twenty years Ivy's father, Michael Meeropol, had sought these documents, hoping to exonerate his parents, publicly decrying governmental duplicity alongside his brother when the National Security Agency and CIA released the 49 Venona documents:
“Nothing in the 49 VENONA documents released by the National Security Agency and the CIA (The Agencies) on July 11 cause us to alter our positions that:
1. our parents Ethel and Julius Rosenberg were not guilty as charged; 2. their conviction was based upon perjured testimony and fabricated evidence; 3. that government agents and agencies orchestrated our parents' frame-up which resulted in their execution. .”
A graduate from Sarah Lawrence College as a creating writing major, Ivy Meeropol has freelanced for a number of newspapers and magazines and penned screenplays Edgewood, The Suffer Club, and Mature Pines. So she's no neophyte to scripting and editing creative work, but she does enlist cinematographer Matthew Akers to record her personal and often emotional journey. A telling scene occurs at the top of the documentary when Ivy heads to the cemetery where Julius and Ethel Rosenberg are buried. Not listed in the directory, she asks the caretaker for the location and is coldly rebuffed—“We don't give out that information.” The abrupt change in attitude at the mere mention of the Rosenberg name supplies clues for what family members must have encountered throughout the past fifty years, as does her visit to a Spy Museum, where her grandparents are vilified in its most prominent exhibit. Is it any wonder that some family members have changed their names to “Roberts” and others have sought to clear the names of their infamous relatives?
Indeed the controversial couple is viewed as the most heinous spies in U.S. history by some and as martyrs by others, and a previous 1975 documentary called Can the Rosenberg Case Be Reopened? questioned the reliability of the evidence and pressed J. Edgar Hoover to open their files for public scrutiny. To her credit, Ivy seeks only to discover—to document whatever occurs as she visits old haunts, family, and other people who knew her grandparents. What she seeks are insights into their character, and what compelled them to take the actions they did.
Although her father and her immediate family had focused on the Rosenberg's nobility and how the government had basically framed them, Ivy actually began to have doubts about their total innocence after examining the Venona documents. Don't expect a definitive explication here in the ambiguous case, but Ivy comes to believe that Julius was involved in some type of Soviet spying (though not of the specific charges that condemned him) and that Ethel likely knew of her husband's activities but remained steadfastly loyal to him.
For years many have believed much the same, and one of the great mysteries has always been why Ethel remained silent even when all she needed to do was make up a name for the FBI to investigate. From the letters that Ivy uncovers, it's clear that Ethel loved her two sons greatly, yet she stoically decided to remain silent along with her husband. Heir to an Execution includes numerous archive photos and footage that provide sufficient backstory for the uninitiated and context for her personal inclusions. Among the highlights: her detective work to locate the home of David Greenglass (a key prosecution witness that has since admitted on 60 Minutes that he lied during the Rosenberg trial), an encounter with Morty Sobell (who served 19 years imprisonment for flatly refusing to share critical testimony), 103 year old Harry Steingart (subtitled for clarity, who tearfully recounts how the Rosenbergs literally saved his life by refusing to name names), and a number of intimate interviews with her father to underscore the pain caused by the complex affair.
Despite a few awkward moments when Ivy herself appears unsure of herself on camera and a few bumpy transitions, this becomes one of the year's most important documentaries, provoking a re-examination of the Rosenberg case in a way that brings a better sense of closure to it. In light of the recent climate of world terrorism and resulting reactionary governmental actions, this film now becomes especially relevant. No matter what you personally believe about the Rosenberg's, no objective viewer can doubt Ivy Meeropol's poignant discovery of her grandparents' humanity and the legacy they have left behind—coloring the ambiguous shades of gray more clearly than ever possible before. |
