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RFK, a new biography of Robert Kennedy written and directed by David Grubin for American Experience, takes as its theme lines from Aeschylus that Kennedy could recite from memory: "He who learns must suffer." RFK is a tragedy in two acts. In Part One: The Garish Son, Robert Kennedy devotes himself to his glamorous brother John, suppressing his own ambitions for the sake of the Kennedy name. In Part Two: The Awful Grace of God, after an assassin's bullet takes his brother's life, RFK is bereft, not only of the brother he loved, but a role that had given meaning to his life. Plunged into unremitting pain and grief, he struggles to find his own voice. His suffering helps him empathize with impoverished Americans and others who are marginalized and disenfranchised - African-Americans, Hispanics, Native Americans. Just as he has begun to discover his own identity and move beyond the shadow of his brother, he, too, is assassinated - cut off in his prime as he was still changing and growing.
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