Good Night, and Good Luck

goodnightandgoodluck

George Clooney directs a docudrama about Edward R. Murrow taking on Sen. Joseph McCarthy and his communist hearings during the mid-1950’s.

The entire movie is in black-and-white, which makes it very pretty to view. It also makes a nice effect with the massive amount of smoking that happens to the newsroom. Almost all of the movie takes place in the CBS newsroom. It is very fast-paced when they are not live on the air with the news show. When it comes to Edward R. Murrow giving his comments on his See It Now show, everything stops and focuses on his face with the smoke billowing up behind him. A good portion of the movie is listening to him talk, yet it isn’t boring. The actor playing Murrow, David Strathairn, is very compelling when he is talking.

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What he is talking about is Sen. Joseph McCarthy holding his hearing about possible un-patriotic Americans. I have never understood the big scare of communism. How are people with different ideas of how a government is run really threatening a land that is based on people from all walks of life and thoughts? This movie reminded me of Arthur Miller writing The Crucible during the McCarthy hearings to show a parallel in hysteria between the hearings and Salem witch trials. With this movie, you can see the parallel between the hearings and the hysteria that some politicians are trying to raise amongst Americans with terrorism today.

Anyone that spoke out against McCarthy was branded a potential communist and put on a “list”. It took a lot of guts for Murrow to put himself out there and go against what McCarthy was doing, to prove that the people he was calling communists were not. When he started doing it, others in the newspapers agreed with him. Then there were others that called him a “bleeding heart” and part of the Communist party. It was almost like watching Bill O’Reilly and some politicians with their random statements not based in any facts.

What I thought was cool, and worked well with the black-and-white of the movie, was that there wasn’t an actor hired to play McCarthy. Old footage of him was used, so you were able to hear all his own stupidness coming from his mouth. None of it was skewed by “acting”.

Beyond all of that, I didn’t find the movie completely stellar. I thought it was good. I also thought it was interesting with how it paralleled with so much that is going on today, but it didn’t really change or open my mind to anything that I didn’t already know with politicians, McCarthy, or media. It might with other people. I’m glad I saw it, but I don’t feel the need to see it again.

Grade: B+

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