Our Heroic Ancestors Adjure Us to Live Up to Their Example

Rating: 8/10 (24 November 2005)

There's a great scene toward the end of "Saving Private Ryan." A dying World War Two soldier grabs a young person and commands, "Earn this." All those heroic World War Two era American soldiers who died defeating fascism and making our lives possible -- we owe it to them, "Saving Private Ryan" insists, to appreciate their sacrifice, and make the most of our lives.
I left "Good Night and Good Luck" feeling chastised. George Clooney took actual film footage and transcripts from another era and made them speak directly to us today. "Habeus corpus." "National security." "Civil Liberties." "Terror." All these words ring with great resonance today.
Clooney draws obvious parallels between the 1950s Cold War on Communism and the current War on Terror.
US Senator Joe McCarthy plays himself, in old film footage. He comes across as so deeply sleazy, oily, and unhinged that the viewer feels superior -- how could those simple-minded folk from the 1950s have taken this character seriously? His protégé, a sort of "Mini Me," Roy Cohn, also shows up in film footage, and is as grotesque as and even more patently evil than McCarthy.
One pauses and considers how film clips of George Bush will look to future audiences.
David Strathairn plays journalist Edward R. Murrow, as he, anchoring "See It Now," his show on CBS-TV, takes time out from smirky and sexually suggestive questions aimed at celebrity interviews with the likes of Liberace, to expose Joe McCarthy for what he is -- a lying demagogue and fear monger.
Strathairn gives one of the single most powerful performances I've ever seen in a movie. I surrendered all my attention and heeded Straithairn / Murrow's every word and gesture.
Strathairn achieves great stature here. He is in the same class as Gary Cooper in "High Noon" and Gregory Peck in "To Kill a Mockingbird." His performance is Oscar-worthy, even in a year of fine performances.
Director Clooney films in black and white, to mirror the televised images he interweaves with his dramatizations. Clooney's black and white is elegant as an Ansel Adams' photo. If you like gazing at classy vintage clothing and suave behavior photographed in beautiful images, this film can satisfy you on that level alone.
The film's lead characters smoke almost all the time (except George Clooney as Fred Friendly; how did Friendly, a non-smoker in real life, ever survive in that atmosphere? Viewers might nearly become ill just staring at all that smoking). The smoke is beautifully photographed; efforts to deglamorize smoking take several steps backward in this movie.
It's ironic; Murrow crusaded for worthy causes, but by promoting smoking through his own example (studies show that children, exposed to screen images of smoking, are more likely to adopt the habit), Murrow did terrible harm.
Reactions to this film often split between two extremes. One extreme insists that Communism was not a threat to America, and that McCarthy was the greatest threat imaginable.
Another extreme insists, just as shrilly, that Communism was a terrible threat, and McCarthy was not such a bad guy.
Both extremes are wrong, of course. Communists Stalin and Mao murdered many more people than the fascists, Hitler and Mussolini. The souls of the victims of Kolyma and Tuol Sleng weigh as much as the souls of the victims of Auschwitz and Dachau, though, of course, for a variety of reasons, many people who are hyper-aware of Auschwitz and Dachau have never heard of Kolyma and Tuol Sleng, or would as soon deny their horror.
And Communism was a threat to America, and Communist spies were, as well. As was McCarthyism.
Extremists on both sides did not do the search for truth any good.
These extreme reactions are mirrored today. Some insist that Jihad is no threat to America, and that George Bush and the War on Terror are frauds.
Others insist that George Bush must not be questioned, and that Jihad is a threat.
Of course, again, both extremes are wrong. Jihad is a threat, and George Bush must be questioned.