One Bright Shining Moment: The Forgotten Summer of George McGovern (2005)

Documentary on Democratic South Dakota Senator George McGovern and his famously failed 1972 bid for the presidency, in which he lost all but one state (Massachusetts) and the District of Columbia to Richard Nixon. McGovern, a famously decent man of true conviction and sincerity, who I had the privilege to briefly meet at a speaking engagement at Boise State University in 2004, is the chief but far from the only taking head in this film which also features the likes of Dick Gregory, Gary Hart, Gloria Steinem, and Gore Vidal among others, and is narrated by Democracy Now's Amy Goodman. The movie covers pretty much all of McGovern's life and carrier up through the 72 campaign, but really doesn't go into his life after that, in which he still had a lot to accomplish (and in fact would live another 40 years). Released in 2005 this film has a lot of the anti George W. Bush / Iraq War background feeding into it, and very near the surface, yet the movie also struck me with its weird inverse parallels to the current presidential campaign, with a corruption plagued establishment figure on one side (Richard Nixon, Hillary Clinton), and a populist who energized a 'forgotten base' and took on his party establishment on the other (McGovern, Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump). ***