Good Night, Great Film

"Good Night, and Good Luck" portrays that bleak time in America’s history when a Wisconsin senator steamrolled his way into the history books on falsehoods and rumor. By allowing us to see the events through the eyes and experiences of a limited group, the film brings a fresh quality to a story that, while only several decades removed, has already been told countless times. Rather than tell the story amidst ordinary American citizens, writers George Clooney and Grant Heslov choose to use broadcast journalism as its protagonist.

David Strathairn plays Edward R. Murrow as a man seeking to bring credibility, legitimacy and integrity to his role as a journalist. He is single-minded in his determination to seek out the truth, and considers dissent and disagreement to be the mark of a patriot. Strathairn’s every quality –voice, diction, posture, facial movements – turn him into a broadcast journalist. Likewise, George Clooney imbues Fred Friendly with an energy and a frenzy that complements Murrow’s more stoic, simmering fire.

As director, Clooney has enough confidence in his actors to fill the film with close-ups. The actor’s faces and their expressions seem to dictate the composition of the frame. There is little quick-cut editing in this film. True to the era which it describes, the film contains many longer shots, but Clooney modernizes the look with wonderful, sweeping pans. He uses the frame fully, finding beauty as much in close-ups as on long shots where the actors and the action seem likely to burst out of the frame.

"Good Night, and Good Luck" is not a fast-paced film. It is not likely to dazzle the viewer. Rather, its more labored pace and black and white photography allow the viewer to be slowly immersed in the atmosphere of fear and trepidation in which the characters live. Certainly, the film leads to questions about current events and the journalists who cover those events. The story lends itself easily to such a discussion, especially since McCarthyism has already been transplanted on various eras before and after its own time.