I just returned from the opening night of One Bright Shining Moment
:The Forgotten Summer of George McGovern. This documentary was beautifully made by director Stephen Vittoria who spoke afterward along with Senator McGovern.
Having long been an admirer of Senator McGovern’s it was an evening of expectations fulfilled. The film concentrates on 1968-1972, then zeroes in on 1972, the year of the election and covers the campaign, primaries, convention and election. Along the way many are interviewed, including Gore Vidal, Howard Zinn, Gloria Steinem, Dick Gregory, Gary Hart, Warren Beatty and Ron Kovic. They flesh out the era and it is easy to see so many parallels between 2005 and 1972 which is one of many reasons I wholeheartedly recommend this film.
The film has a multitude of great film clips as well and many contemporary images interwoven which (as Vittorio explained in the discussion afterward) makes it just as much a political essay as a documentary. The multitude of images of Nixon, Agnew, Kissinger etc. bring the point home again that Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Ashcroft, Rice and Powell are their natural descendants, same games but with a Republican Congress that won’t ever let them be investigated independently.
We see the Democratic Regime of 1972 fully mobilized against a liberal Democrat getting the nod. It took an amazing groundswell of regular Americans of all stripes to destroy the Back Room at the Convention. The Iowans and those in New Hampshire gave the encouragement McGoverrn needed to raise the funds for the nomination victory over the lead candidate Muskie. Hubert Humphrey’s dirty dealings later in the campaign were heartbreaking to see but a reminder of what the centrist candidate will do with the Party’s encouragement. McGovern ran an incredibly clean campaign and the Dems were desperate for a true alternative to Nixon and what he represented.
There was an hour long discussion afterward and the Senator answered many questions. When asked about Democrats he admired he mentioned Dick Durbin, Mark Warner (although said he had never met him personally) and Senator Russell Feingold (which I was delighted to hear). He said he thought America would be ready to elect a Jewish man in 2008 and only out of politeness did I not interject that we did, as Vice-President in 2000.
He is an amazingly humble and centered man and I must say I was so pleased to spend an hour listening to him, as well as the 2 hours before seeing all those aspects of his life. He did not mince words of criticism for the war in Iraq, for the present Administration, Abu Ghraib and the insane spiraling deficit. No matter what his criticism though, he had many nice things to say about the Republicans who helped him raise the many millions to combat world hunger and feed schoolchildren around the world. He is a class act who also readily criticized himself (the Eagleton pick, his ‘worst vote’ on Gulf of Tonkin etc).
If Senator McGovern was 60 years old and presently in the Senate saying what he is now, we could very well be touting him for 2008. This time we wouldn’t have the Union vote represented by George ‘War Hawk’ Meany who denied support for the Senator with one of the best pro-union records just because McGovern wanted to stop the Vietnam War. An interesting question is would a Democratic candidate in 2008 lose the Union vote because he vowed to end the Iraq War?
The film is playing in NYC, then going to Minneapolis and Los Angeles, and hopefully onward from there. If it doesn’t come to your city or area in the next few months, keep a lookout for it in its video afterlife.
