The power of the people ... or of TV?

Rating: 8/10 (4 March 2007)

It is interesting to watch this film alongside the more hysterical and consumer-driven 'Network', as both are concerned with the autonomy or otherwise of network news divisions.
'Good Night and Good Luck' centres on the McCarthy trials and the witchhunt against Communist sympathisers in positions of influence and/or power. Few people or occupations which had security or public facing roles were left untouched by these hearings, some of which are presented within the film in archive footage.
Presenter Ed Murrow and his producer Fred Friendly stuck their necks out to start a crusade against McCarthyism, while being castigated as pinko sympathisers by the right-wing media. Their intervention led McCarthy to be investigated by the Senate, and set the cornerstone for in-depth, impartial journalism.
Filmed in black and white, and using several songs of the period to scene-set and balance out the wordy script, 'Good Night and Good Luck' manages to portray a period in time when television was becoming the new opium to the people, capable of influencing and skewing debate and popular opinion.
Like 'Network', it seems that at first freedom of speech is to be sacrificed to the whim of advertisers and corporate sponsors, but Murrow and his staff took a gamble, a huge one, in giving screen time to the issues of civil liberties for the individual.
Clooney's film is tightly written and devoid of any modern camera trickery. It just presents a good, strong story, without gimmicks. In the current vogue for CGI and action, this can only be a good thing. And every performance is textbook perfect. Well worth watching.