Immediately after his death was announced, TV stations hurried to publicize it as if the deceased had been an important political leader or a widely influential rabbi. “Assi Dayan has passed away” heralded the broadcasters in somber tones, their faces reflecting deep sadness. The reports of his death opened the news broadcasts, shunting aside important topics such as the crisis in the talks with the Palestinians and “price-tag” attacks by Jewish extremists against Arabs. Afterward, the TV stations screened excerpts of films that he directed or acted in, and interviews in which he detailed his depressions and quirks, his hospitalizations in psychiatric wards and suicide attempts. The Israeli filmmaker’s life story was brought out in its entirety, without cutting out chapters in his stormy life. Above all, Dayan's heartrending longing for the love of his father, Moshe Dayan, was exposed again and again.

In his own way and in complete contradistinction to his father, Assi Dayan was transformed into a mythological figure. Moshe Dayan, Israel’s defense minister in the Six Day War, symbolized a new, self-confident Israeliness. With his eye patch and military uniform, Moshe Dayan orchestrated Israel’s war victory — its greatest victory to this very day. Through his self-confidence, he mapped out the power of the young State of Israel — and, to an equal degree, the heights of its own arrogance. He was viewed as a war hero by many people in Israel and around the world. Out of all the figures of Israel’s founding generation, Dayan was the one who was transformed into a legend.

Of Moshe Dayan’s three children, Assi attracted the Israelis' attention as if he were crowned as his father's heir. He stood out in his good looks, his amazing resemblance to his father and especially his intense yearning to be close to his father. From a young age, Assi became a movie actor, and wherever he went he was identified as the son of Moshe Dayan. But in contrast to his father, Assi exhibited a different kind of Israeliness: softer, more refined, more vulnerable and always seeking love. As opposed to his father, who was never caught revealing human weakness, Assi displayed his weaknesses in public as if sitting on the psychiatrist’s couch.

At every opportunity, Assi talked about his indefatigable quest for his father’s attention. Assi said his father loved him as a child and even as a teenager until one bitter, miserable day when Moshe Dayan began to withhold his love from Assi and from the rest of the family members. One day, Assi showed his father a book of poetry he had written. Dayan the father read and re-read it, then threw the booklet down. “What do you think?” asked the son of the father in desperate anticipation of the literary verdict. “It’s nonsense!” his father answered. Since then, Assi's soul could find no rest, and he strove to prove to his father that his judgment was incorrect.