Good Night And Good Luck

 
George Clooney strikes just the right mood in this factual film of TV reporter Egbert Roscoe Murrow, known better as Edward R. Murrow, and his gutsy battle in the Fifties against the Commie-baiting Senator Joseph McCarthy. McCarthy’s harassment and dishonest tactics were the source of his congressional power and made him the most visible and loudest manifestation of America’s Red Scare.
 
Edward R. Murrow achieved the status of hero in a field that does not generate many heroes, broadcast journalism. He combined in one person an incisive mind that made him a superb writer, a deep voice that had a quality of always sounding like the Voice of Reason personified, a face that was expressive of honesty, and the will and courage to do the right thing even at risk to his career. He also had a position that allowed him the opportunity to martial all these qualities where they could do a substantial good. Had he been missing any of these features, if, for example, he had a voice like Truman Capote's, he could not have inspired in the American people the confidence that he did.
 
David Strathairn (as Murrow), who recently walked off with the award for Best Actor at the Venice Film Festival, projects all of the gravity and dignity of Murrow, as well as an almost tangible sense of tension. The veteran reporter always looks as though he has the weight of the world on his shoulders. Certainly, he seems keenly aware of the stakes here, which involved far more than his own career. Nor did Murrow spare his own profession, condemning it for not living up to its responsibilities in a democracy. In fact, the film opens and closes on an openly critical speech that Murrow delivered at a 1958 convention of radio and TV news directors.
 
Filmed in lovely black and white that blends smoothly with the documentary footage of the McCarthy hearings used in the film, Good Night, and Good Luck also manages a successful merger between gripping entertainment and understated cautionary tale. Clooney’s film maintains its steady focus on Murrow and his colleagues at CBS, thus leaving viewers to form their own opinions about the story’s modern relevance. George Clooney, who has brought his film in at a tight hour and a half, easily succeeds in putting his point across, as well as raising several profound and thought provoking questions about the government system.
 
This movie has picked up six Oscar nominations (and should deservedly do very well on March 5th) including Best Picture, Best Actor in Leading Role (David Strathairn), Best Original Screenplay (George Clooney, Grant Heslov), and Best Director (George Clooney). Good Night and Good Luck is wonderfully made and still very relevant, definitely worth seeing for so many reasons.
 
 
Paul Elliott