Key Highlights
- Netflix’s four-part documentary Dynasty: The Murdochs explores the family’s tumultuous history.
- Piers Morgan and Rupert Murdoch are under a searching spotlight in the documentary.
- The documentary features rare access to James Murdoch and extensive use of never-before-seen documents.
- Garbus’s account offers resolution to the saga, unlike previous documentaries like The Rise of the Murdoch Dynasty.
The Murdochs: A Family Empire Falls Apart
Netflix’s four-part documentary Dynasty: The Murdochs delves into the complex and often sordid history of one of America’s most powerful families. Directed by Liz Garbus, who previously made acclaimed documentaries like Harry & Meghan, the series provides a stark look at the internal conflicts and external pressures that have defined the Murdoch dynasty.
A Family Business Turned Gladiatorial Arena
Central to the documentary is the extraordinary number of people who spent decades either working for or writing about the Murdochs. Thousands of pages of documents, emails, and text messages never before seen on TV paint a portrait of a ruthless patriarch – recently turned 95 – who raised his four eldest children less as family members than as gladiators, pitting them against each other for his affection and his empire.
Resolving the Saga
The documentary offers resolution to the saga that has been unfolding over decades. It follows Rupert Murdoch’s earliest empire-building to the final reckoning. The series unfurls with a sense of inevitability, much like HBO’s Succession, which it is based on and pays homage to.
Uncovering the Sleaze
Gabrielle Sherman, a journalist who has spent years chronicling the family’s history, notes that Rupert said his dream was to build a family business. However, as Garbus’s account shows, what he built was a business that destroyed his family. The documentary does particularly well in letting the sleaze breathe, giving full rein to the salaciousness running through Murdoch’s tabloid operation.
The phone-hacking passages are chilling as former reporters recall their methods with palpable relish. One such incident involves Paul McMullan, a reporter followed around Los Angeles by a News of the World reporter during the paper’s dark arts heyday after the actor had been arrested for being caught with sex worker Divine Brown in 1995.
The Commercial Pressure
By 2017, the streaming wars had redrawn the map entirely. Fox did not have the heft to go up against Netflix, Amazon, Apple, and Disney’s sale that followed opened a schism in the family that would never close. Rupert Murdoch’s tacit admission that the world had moved faster than he had is woven into the series with the same sardonic wit as Succession.
“Rupert said his dream was to build a family business,” says journalist Gabriel Sherman. “What he built was a business that destroyed his family.” The documentary’s pyrrhic climax underscores this sentiment, showing how the family’s legacy is one of destruction and disarray rather than the cohesive business empire Murdoch envisioned.
Overall, Dynasty: The Murdochs provides a comprehensive look at one of America’s most powerful families.
While it may not offer any new revelations, it does a masterful job in bringing together all the pieces to tell the story of the Murdochs’ rise and fall. It is a must-watch for anyone interested in understanding the complexities of modern journalism and family business.
