Good Night and Good Luck 



We will not walk in fear, one of another.

For a time in the 1950s this country did just that. Fearful of what we did and said and of the associations we might have had in the past. Ours was a country gripped in an unreasoned terror of how these things might be twisted into a belief by others who might be watching or listening, of somehow you might be aiding or abetting a supposed Communist plot to infiltrate our government, our industries, the very fabric of our lives. We know now that this fear was unwarranted, for there was never any incentive for Communism to succeed in the West; but still the fear existed and was fueled by those in our government for personal and political gain. The greatest practitioner of this was the junior senator from Wisconsin, Joseph McCarthy. Because of his fear-mongering, assisted by others of his ilk, we became a country, skeptical of our neighbors, and fearful of the government itself. Even the news media could be accused of a certain timidity, but not so much a fear of the government as a fear of losing sponsor dollars.

Good Night and Good Luck is a great distillation of these times, from the repressive state of affairs in our society where some corporations forbade their employees from marrying one another, to the martinis and cigarette smoke haze in late night bar scenes. I was quite young during the fifties and really don't recall Edward R. Murrow from a contemporary setting, but have seen enough archival kinoscope copies of See It Now to be familiar with his speech and mannerisms to know that David Strathairn has nailed Murrow. The stoney stare and the constant curling wisp of cigarette smoke from his upheld hand that have become an iconic image of the fifties TV as Elvis' swiveling hips or Liberace's wink to the camera (which knowing what we know today, makes one wonder what meaning may have been in that wink). As an aside, there is a brief clip of Liberace's appearance on See It Now with a somewhat telling exchange that points up the secrets that were kept then.

The story is a now familiar one that begins with a segment of See It Now dealing with the dismissal of an Air Force sergeant (Milo Radulovich) as a security risk because of the political affiliations of his family and leads to a series of feints and confrontations with McCarthy and to the eventual self-destruction of the Senator at the Army-McCarthy hearings and his later censure by the Senate. Along the way, we get a glimpse of the behind-the-scenes machinations that went on at CBS and what it nearly cost Murrow and his producer Fred Friendly (George Clooney). It is fortunate for them and ultimately for us that William S. Paley (Frank Langella) gave them, if not a free hand, at least a little leeway as they went up against the Senator.

It is sad that in the intervening years, the news media has strayed from the ideals of reporting truth, giving the public undistilled data necessary for making informed decisions about our leaders. It was refreshing this past summer to see some of them them grow backbones and question the party-line in the wake of the Katrina disaster. The story the movie tells has a profound relevance today, an age of diminishing personal rights and freedoms and a time when it has become all too apparent that the emperor has no brain. Perhaps some present-day Murrow will step forward to present us with truth over the sound-bite.

The acting was exemplary across the board in this film; the look and feel was black and white perfect fifties; and though it didn't advance the story line, the soundtrack help put the movie over the top for me. A trivia tidbit from the Internet Movie Database -- the band playing in the next studio was Rosemary Clooney's (George Clooney's aunt) and the arrangements were her's. A wonderful fifties soundtrack brought beautifully to life by the band and Dianne Reeves singing.

My only complaint was Clooney's direction (remember, this is only his second turn behind the camera) toward the end of the film was a bit too clipped and rushed. But then McCarthy's end was swift, so maybe it's just as well. This was a movie well worth seeing and owning when it comes out on DVD.


9 out of 10 stars.

IMDB Link

Official Site  

Posted: Thu - November 24, 2005 at 07:45 AM          

©