Good Night, and Good Luck

[Howard Schumann]

I am starting a new thread on this since the archived one seemed pretty old. Here is my review.

GOOD NIGHT, AND GOOD LUCK

Directed by George Clooney (2005)

"No one man can terrorize a whole nation unless we are all his accomplices." - Edward R. Murrow

Framed by a 1958 speech to broadcast executives in which he warned that the media was losing its soul to commercial interests, George Clooney's Good Night, and Good Luck shows the candor of CBS-TV newsman Edward R. Murrow and, by implication, how it has gone missing in today's media journalism. Clooney attempts to recreate the political and social climate of the early 1950s when red baiting and security madness generated by the Korean and Cold Wars dominated the headlines by dramatizing Murrow's conflict with the Senator Joseph R. McCarthy, the notorious anti-Communist crusader from Wisconsin. The film is shot in black and white with a hand-held camera and has a 50s feel with an all-male, all-white television studio, jazz interludes, heavy cigarette smoking and Scotch drinking, and Liberace, in an interview, forced by convention to lie about his marriage plans.

Good Night, and Good Luck concentrates on two broadcasts: one dealing with Milo Radulovich, an Air Force Reserve weatherman who had been discharged from the service after his father and sister were accused of Communist ties; the other challenging Senator McCarthy on "See It Now". David Strathairn in an Oscar-nominated performance as the beleaguered reporter, captures Murrow's mannerisms: his clipped cadences, his chain smoking habits, and his no nonsense delivery but does not project much warmth and the film, for all its timeliness and potential for high drama, feels strangely flat.

Murrow took on McCarthy after the Junior Senator accused him of being on the Soviet payroll because of his participation in a summer exchange program in Moscow during the thirties. Murrow retaliated with a "See It Now" broadcast about the Senator's tactics in which McCarthy plays himself through the use of archival film clips. He then invited McCarthy to respond which he did several weeks later but instead of answering Murrow's charges, he continued to attack the newsman as a dupe of Communists. The rebuttal made it clear that McCarthy was a bully who had no respect for individual rights or the guarantees of the U.S. Constitution and approval ratings for the series of shows ran as high as ten to one in favor of Murrow. These broadcasts, however, brought Murrow and his producer Fred Friendly (George Clooney) into conflict with CBS President William Paley (Frank Langella) and eventually cost him his regularly weekly TV spot.

The film zeroes in on these two programs but does not mention the context in which the events took place. For those in need of a reminder, in 1949, President Truman initiated a program that required a loyalty investigation of every person entering civilian employment in the executive branch of the Federal Government, the Rosenberg's were executed for espionage, suspected subversives were questioned before The House Un-American Activities Committee beginning in 1947, and Senator Pat McCarran further trampled on constitutional rights with his Internal Security Act of 1950. By omitting these details, the film suggests that McCarthy created the climate of fear, rather than exploiting it for his own personal gain.

The film also implies that Murrow was the David who slew Goliath but the truth is more complex. There were many others who spoke out against McCarthy long before Murrow such as Professor Henry Steele Commager of Columbia, New York Post editor James Wechsler, and Democratic Presidential candidate Adlai Stevenson who said in 1952, "The whole notion of loyalty inquisitions is a national characteristic of the police state, not of democracy and pointed out the dangers of "phony patriots", "ill-informed censors" and "self-appointed thought police". While Murrow did stand up to McCarthy, it was pretty late in the game and, while it took considerable courage, did not make much of a dent in McCarthy's armor. It was left to McCarthy himself to self-destruct with an ill-advised attack on Eisenhower (who had never challenged McCarthy) and the U.S. Army.

Where Good Night, and Good Luck does succeed is in making us painfully aware that the forthright journalism personified by Murrow has gone the way of the hula-hoop. In his expose of McCarthy, Murrow challenged America to distinguish between dissent and disloyalty, a distinction that is more relevant than ever today. He said, "We will not walk in fear, one of another. We will not be driven by fear into an age of unreason if we dig deep in our history and doctrine and remember that we are not descended from fearful men, not from men who feared to write, to speak, to associate and to defend causes which were for the moment unpopular. We can deny our heritage and our history, but we cannot escape responsibility for the result. There is no way for a citizen of the Republic to abdicate his responsibility." That statement should be required reading in today's corporate media boardrooms.

GRADE: B+

[Chris Knipp]

It's true that of course Murrow's challenge to McCarthy came late in the game. It's by artistic license, I think -- and the film is very condensed, clearly stylized; I think you take it too solemly as a report on events, when it's more a commentary on them -- that Clooney focuses on Murrow's squaring off against the odious senator. However you are, as always, accurate about surrounding events, and if the film doesn't work as well for you as it does for some of us, so be it. What is made clear more or less in the film but that you seem to overlook, is that however minor Murrow's role in the downfall of McCarthy, this was a moment that brought down Murrow himself, because his power at CBS was greatly reduced as a result of the events dealt with in Good Night, and Good Luck. It is true that McCarren got things rolling, and MdCarthy simply exploited them, but he exploited them on a dramatic and unprecedented scale, and it's not for nothing that the whole period is referred to as "the McCarthy era" or "McCarthyism." In your effort to show the film as historically inaccurate, you distort some of the facts yourself. But it may be that you are as much a stickler for those as I am for truth to great literary works when adapted (so often inaccurately) on film, so I can sympathize.

Something went wrong in your text in the third line of your last paragraph.

I had forgotten that Commager used to be at Columbia. He moved on to Amherst in 1956 and was there when I got there and I saw and heard him regularly there. He was a remarkable man, as brilliant as he was forthright, and independent spirit and an extraordinary mind.

I don't agree that the film "feels strangely flat." On the contrary, it sparkles. Perhaps you were too focused on its unfaithfulness to the whole historical picture to see how well made it is. And if Strathairn is dry, so was Murrow, very much so. Strathairn isn't a carbon copy, nobody could be, but the dryness is perfectly accurate, and the period feel, you y ourself acknowledge, is spot-on throughout. Your contextualizing of the period is well done, and needed for those who haven't read anything about the period or the film otherwise, but you have undervalued one of the year's best, damning it with faint praise. Furthermore, this new post of yours ignores the existing thread. But since you think that is archived and "feels old," I'll re-post my own review of Good Night, and Good Luck below.

[Chris Knipp]

George Clooney: Good Night, and Good Luck (USA 2005). 90 mi9nutes. Warnder Independent release. Shown at the New York Film Festiva, Lincoln Center, September 23, 2005.

Elegant and intelligent

In his amusing first film Confessions of a Dangerous Mind, which was scripted by master of illusion Charlie Kaufman, George Clooney -- whose own dad is a long-time TV anchorman -- dramatized the fanciful autobiography of kooky Seventies game show host Chuck Barris. This time he films real events, focusing on the conflict between much respected ultra-solemn CBS TV commentator and veteran newsman Edward R. Murrow and the dark prince of early Fifties communist-scare witch-hunting, Senator Joseph McCarthy. In the film, Murrow defends navy pilot Lt. Milo Radulovich, who's been kicked out as a security threat without being told the charges, and the pilot is reinstated. McCarthy, seen here only on actual vintage TV footage, accuses Murrow of being a communist sympathiser and Murrow rebuts. McCarthy is subsequently sued by the army and censored by the Senate so again Murrow has won the battle; but he loses the war, because CBS, then headed by the regal William S. Paley, soon phases Murrow out. The film looks very elegant with its rich black and white (blending with archival footage for McCarthy) heavily weighted to close-ups interspersed with jazz song interludes sung onscreen by Dianne Reeves. The cast is led by an appropriately buttoned-down and chain-smoking David Strathairn as Murrow, with the director himself as Murrow's producer and right-hand man, Fred W. Friendly. The period atmosphere is spot-on. The overall effect is dry and a little self-important, and the result is a rather limited picture of the red-baiting period for viewers unacquainted with the overall history, but this is nonetheless one of the most intelligent and politically serious American pictures of recent years. Clooney's an amazing fellow, handsome, urbane, and witty, he's got brains and taste and commitment. There's hope in such a man's being as well placed as Clooney is, and promise in his future collaboration with Steven Soderbergh in their new joint production company, Section Eight.

[Howard Schumann]

Originally posted by Chris Knipp
It's true that of course Murrow's challenge to McCarthy came late in the game. It's by artistic license, I think -- and the film is very condensed, clearly stylized; I think you take it too solemly as a report on events, when it's more a commentary on them -- that Clooney focuses on Murrow's squaring off against the odious senator. However you are, as always, accurate about surrounding events, and if the film doesn't work as well for you as it does for some of us, so be it. What is made clear more or less in the film but that you seem to overlook, is that however minor Murrow's role in the downfall of McCarthy, this was a moment that brought down Murrow himself, because his power at CBS was greatly reduced as a result of the events dealt with in Good Night, and Good Luck. It is true that McCarren got things rolling, and MdCarthy simply exploited them, but he exploited them on a dramatic and unprecedented scale, and it's not for nothing that the whole period is referred to as "the McCarthy era" or "McCarthyism." In your effort to show the film as historically inaccurate, you distort some of the facts yourself. But it may be that you are as much a stickler for those as I am for truth to great literary works when adapted (so often inaccurately) on film, so I can sympathize.

Something went wrong in your text in the third line of your last paragraph.

I had forgotten that Commager used to be at Columbia. He moved on to Amherst in 1956 and was there when I got there and I saw and heard him regularly there. He was a remarkable man, as brilliant as he was forthright, and independent spirit and an extraordinary mind.

I don't agree that the film "feels strangely flat." On the contrary, it sparkles. Perhaps you were too focused on its unfaithfulness to the whole historical picture to see how well made it is. And if Strathairn is dry, so was Murrow, very much so. Strathairn isn't a carbon copy, nobody could be, but the dryness is perfectly accurate, and the period feel, you y ourself acknowledge, is spot-on throughout. Your contextualizing of the period is well done, and needed for those who haven't read anything about the period or the film otherwise, but you have undervalued one of the year's best, damning it with faint praise. Furthermore, this new post of yours ignores the existing thread. But since you think that is archived and "feels old," I'll re-post my own review of Good Night, and Good Luck below.

This is one we will have to disagree on. I don't think the film is historically inaccurate. It just doesn't put everything into a context that would allow a modern audience to really understand what was going on. By the way, what facts have I distorted?

I'm not saying that McCarthy wasn't powerful. He was, but he wasn't just a lone nut as the film seems to suggest. He had a lot of support and was a product of the times. He actually was gearing himself up for a Presidential campaign in 1956 until he self destructed by taking on the Army and indirectly the President.

By the way, I thought the use of a clip of Ike talking about the right of Habeas Corpus at the end was particularly hollow since he never said a mumbling word to challenge Tail-Gunner Joe. He even went so far as to delete a reference to General George Marchall, a McCarthy target, in a campaign speech in Wisconsin in 1952.

You have made some valid points and I agree it is a fine film but is there anything we get from this film that couldn't have been understood even better if we watched the Murrow tapes on DVD?
Perhaps my problem is that I remember the original which was highly dramatic and confrontational. None of that high drama seemed to be captured in this film.

[Chris Knipp]

You didn't have to quote me at such length, I just wrote those things a bove....but thanks. I think if you read what I wrote originally, I largely agree with your criticisms, I just state them more briefly, and put a more positive spin on the movie.;

I thik we are lucky to have this moive, and we should be encouraging. IT is reaching a mainstream audience, it is artistic, and really tapes of McCarthy are not going to play as important role or reach as wide an audience. I want to encourage things like this, as I want to encourage things like Syriana -- both of which happen to involve Clooney, that's why I think he's been of such a positive value in Hollywood, and I want to say positive things about him every chance I can get. I'm sorry he and Soderbergh are going to dissolve Section Eight because it was taking too much of their time; I hope they will continue with such projects. That such stuff can be made aqnd is visible. There have been other progressives in Hollytwood, needless to say, but they have been mostly writers, and Clooney is huge. He is very charismatic and visible; this is important. The Oscars look good to me this year, though I'd rather certain ones won than others, but just getting nominations for things like Capote and Good Night and Good Luck and Brokeback Mountain is a big plus for the climate of Hollywood. I think it's very important when there are openings in the mainstream for more political, more sensitive work.

It may be valuable for kids to know who McCarthy and Murrow are, even if they don't get the wholel context; this is a generation that may not quite know what the Vietnam war was, so ......the imporant thing is to know SOMETHING about the period and the repression and standing up to it, in the context of today.

[Howard Schumann]

I agree. It's important that films like this reach a wide audience. My only problem is that having done that, it could have been even better and more powerful.