One Bright Shining
Moment – The Forgotten Summer Of George McGovern (Documentary)
Picture: C+
Sound: C+ Extras: B- Documentary: B
George McGovern was poised to become The President of the
United States back in 1972 until some forces within his own Democratic Party, a
few major errors on his end and then-clever maneuvering by The Nixon
Administration ended what was seen at one point as a show-in for the
office. Stephen Vittoria’s One
Bright Shining Moment – The Forgotten Summer Of George McGovern (2005)
weaves rarely-seen footage (in some cases because McGovern and the
possibilities he offered are too disturbing for certain extreme-minded persons
on both sides of the political landscape) with new interviews and a solid
chronology that paints just how much opposition Nixon had and how together
McGovern himself was.
Unfortunately, he built much of his campaign on ending the
war, something he never dreamed Nixon would do a few days before the election
and did. Like H. Ross Perot, he picked
a Vice Presidential candidate who seemed to have very solid character, but
personal problems that made him unable to handle the stress of such a high
stress job. When I finished the long
125 minutes program, I felt McGovern let his success and good nature get in the
way of being thorough about other’s qualifications. The dream clouded vital knowledge and responsibility. Instead, we only remember Watergate, Vietnam
and Nixon’s resignation at the time and McGovern is just the Democrat that
lost.
The documentary assumes he would have had a great
presidency, put the country in the best direction, preserved democracy and kept
us a great superpower that benefited the most citizens. Though I think he could have been a success
and even had two decent terms in office, assuming al that is a bit much and the
program never covers whether Jimmy Carter did as well or would have done as
well. It seems to imply that Carter
somehow was not as much a “people’s candidate” in a way that implies some kind
of socialism/communism-lite on the part of McGovern. The result is a sometimes lopsided and even confused work. Neo-Conservatives began their think tanks
soon after McGovern lost and could have still produced Reagan for the 1980
campaign.
To go out on a limb, that means no Iran-Contra Affair
would have been tried because you would not have had Carter in the middle of
his first and only term. Would the
Republicans have recruited someone else besides Reagan to run? Would the Democrats have then run Carter for
the first time? He proved formidable
enough against Ford, who would never have been president if Nixon had been a
one-termer. In some strange way, the
Nixon fiasco was a long-term benefit to the Republicans. If McGovern did not flub the VP choice,
would his participation in picking a successor meet with the same bad
fate? The fact is that Democrats after
LBJ have had a predictable vulnerability that happened again with Al Gore and
John Kerry, showing a pattern history that will continue to repeat itself until
the more sensible Clinton-side (the one Gore disowned for idiotic reasons to
ugly to go into here) or a more together, progressive side takes over
again. The One Bright Shining Moment
here is one that is sadly over for good and may have been undermined by poor
judgment by a good man, plus some key support that might have been too far left
to be any real help in the long term.
This work captures the end of an era that barely was.
The 1.33 X 1 image is a mix of old NTSC video footage, old
film, stills and new tapings that are always interesting to watch. Nicely edited, whether you like (or agree
with) what you see or not, there are always surprises in the older clips. Some of the footage has not aged well, but
is in tact enough to see it did happen.
The Dolby Digital 2.0 is simple stereo at best, though much of the older
audio is monophonic to a point where it cannot be upgraded. Very clear is the bold voiceover work by Amy
Goodman, who has plenty to say. Though
this is not technically the best work we have seen in this current cycle of
documentaries, it is more competent than most and never becomes silly as the
likes of The Hunting Of The President (reviewed elsewhere on this site)
unnecessarily and disturbingly did.
Extras include six trailers for First Run DVDs, including one for this
one, plus deleted scenes, Amy Goodman interview and a Vietnam Storyteller
segment that gives a brief-but-detailed history about the involvement of just
about every major superpower and it interference with that segment of Indo China.
- Nicholas Sheffo
