Black and White and Red all over

Rating: 8/10 (9 March 2006)

A brief but engrossing bit of Political-Clooney and his most biting work since Batman and Robin (It was a satire of Hollywood Blockbusterswasn't it?). Needless to say, so here I am doing just that, that it's a period piece about the here and now with Whistler from Sneakers recovering his sight to star as Edward R.Murrow, CBS News Anchor and champion of liberal, anti-neocon sentimentvis a vis 'freedom of speech' as its known nowadays. Sentator McCarthy doubles as the Bush Administration to give us a timely reminder of what fear can do to would-be democracies and the movie is spot-on in laying out its stall with efficient, direct exactitude. This is Steak Pie and Potatoes film-making  lean, no-frills, no bulls*it stuff  satisfying and substantial. It makes it point very convincingly, not least because it doesn't editorialise too much itself so to speak  a neat little mirror to to the choice of Murrow and co. The use of archive material is well considered and plentiful meaning that often whole sequences are shown in full as if to say 'no dramatisation required', while the CBS scenes are restrained and well-judged ultimately the facts, Clooney suggests, speak for themselves and indeed they do  lucidly. The, dare we say, artistic decision to shoot in Black and White is a solid one as it marries the drama with the archive in a fairly seamless fashion and heightens the sense of period. The final lines about Television's role as a means for education rather than crude entertainment is as relevant as ever and although Tocqueville contended that we have absolutely nothing to learn from History whatsoever, I think Clooney safely kicks that one to ground...but would the Frenchman have done Schumacer's movie? Very good then and the best movie about communism since Hesterkefilis' "Chairmam Mao Mao and the Teen Kitten Chorus" (1985)  a must see by the way.