Powerful Fictionalized B/W Biography of Edward R.Murrow vs. McCarthyism

Rating: 9/10 (22 October 2009)

"Good Night and Good Luck" (2005) is what movie makers should call a fictionalized biography; but its form is that of a documentary biography. Within this film of ideas, written by George Clooney and Grant Heslov, the opponent of honest news professional Edward R. Murrow and his team, Senator Joseph McCarthy, is seen within and quoted only from video news sources and documented speeches and utterances. The choice of black-and-white photography was made here, owing no doubt to a desire to incorporate period 1950s footage, but I argue this also works dramatically as do the period makeup, hairstyles, clothing, sets and properties to help establish an historical era, its communications, power sources, lighting and restrictions. But this is a film is about responsibility in non-fiction, the honor and regulations that men establish and earn or transgress. The storyline of the film can, I assert, be briefly stated; but it is a more complex achievement than at first it appears to be. The junior senator from Wisconsin, Joseph McCarthy, a neocon of the 1950s,era, is conducting a campaign under the aegis of anti-Communism. His witch hunt, founded on the false premise of a massive infiltration of the U.S. government by pro-Communist pr-Russian sympathizers, makes it dangerous for anyone to assail the man and his anti- concept; anyone opposing him is also then smeared by the Senator as being pro-communist , not anti-McCarthy nor anti McCarthyist tactics. Against the desires of public television monopoly 'tsar' William Paley, but with his reluctant consent, leading reporter Edward R. Murrow begins to reveal McCarthy through honest reporting of his falsehoods, lies, fraud, smears, invented data and fear-mongering. In the end, a major clash of the two is seen to be inevitable. The film I found to be impressive in its seriousness, its picture of the fear sown among men in the news business mirroring that in the minds of nation's populace at large. Listening to fine jazz singer Diana Reeves, smoking cigarettes, drinking after work., the newsmen of CBS TV at work are made a microcosm of the nation as a whole; they, the supposed guardians of independent-minded information reporting, are as endangered by McCarthyist tactics, disinformation and abuses as are the citizens of U.S. then--or in any other era. It is the universality of the threat in this film posed by non-objective nonfiction purveying that gives the film its unusual condensed force; false advertising of cigarettes, limited interviews such as one with then closet-gay pianist Liberace, deleterious effects on hiring and promotion decisions, works of fictions and news, voting and business conduct and lives are used by the authors to zero in on cost of unrealism to a nation of the endangered. Waldo Sanchez's departments of hair and makeup, costume head Louise Frogley, set decorator Jan Pascale Art Director Christa Munro and Production Designer Jim Bissell and cinematographer Robert Elswit all contribute to a surprisingly powerful and unified look and feel of an eariier era, one many other directors and production teams have not captured I believe half so well. Director and co-star George Clooney had tried black-and-white productions before; his success here seems to be based on those strong experiments. He acquits himself well as Fred Friendly; David Strathaim lacks some emotional impact, but is beautifully-trained and suitably serious as the great Murrow. As William Paley, 'tsar' of CBS, Frank Langella is able to be by turns courageous and himself frightened; no one else in the cast is given a lengthy part but the roles are adequately played or better in every case by my standards. A telling story point is that two members of the CBS team are secretly married, against corporate policy; and this is used against them in time, presumably in the name of objectivity in news, even as the network's head sells out not only Murrrow but American journalism to the forces that since the 1950s have filtered what U.S.ers are permitted to see and hear through "postmodernist" anti-realist ideas, attitudes and practices. No critic worth listening to can report on this film I assert without recognizing that Murrow's final speech in the film, a strong warning against allowing pragmatic pretensions to replace individual ethics, applies even more to minds in our deregulated and anti-rights era than it did to those in Murrow's earlier period. This is a film, for the reasons cited, perhaps to be watched over and over. The movie deserved best picture and best adapted screenplay awards. Mr. Clooney deserves our deep thanks I assert for having the courage and vision to have made such a film, especially during the neocon regime of George W. Bush.