GOOD NIGHT, AND GOOD LUCK.
**** out of *****
Reviewed by Shahir Daud

Genres
Commies
Drama
True Story

2005
Directed by
George Clooney
Written by
George Clooney & Grant Heslov
Cast
David Strathairn .... Edward R. Murrow
Patricia Clarkson .... Shirley Wershba
George Clooney .... Fred Friendly
Jeff Daniels .... Sig Mickelson
Robert Downey Jr. .... Joe Wershba
Frank Langella .... William Paley
Alex Borstein .... Natalie
Rose Abdoo .... Millie Lerner
Tate Donovan .... Jesse Zousmer
Reed Diamond .... John Aaron
Matt Ross .... Eddie Scott

It may be McCarthyism's allegory to the modern day Patriot Act and the treatment of prisoners in Guantanamo Bay that makes George Clooney's Good Night, and Good Luck. relevant, but it's his incisive attack on the television news industry that resonates most vividly. In a sobering opening speech, Edward R. Murrow (an absolutely picture perfect David Strathain) suggests that television itself is being used to 'distract, delude, amuse and insulate us'.

Indeed, the very fabric of television news, with its reliance on advertising dollars, and pliable ethical boundaries seems to have come under the spotlight with some ferocity in recent years. While Robert Greenwald's OutFoxed was, at best, a haphazard attack on a right wing media institution, the notion that a news organization may be biased and focussed on entertainment rather than education seems to be taking steam in ways Noam Chomsky and Edward S. Herman would have never imagined.

Yet, former ER star George Clooney's silky smooth sophomore directorial effort (following his exhilarating but somewhat flawed Chuck Barris biopic Confessions of a Dangerous Mind), is a cinematic sleight of hand, sucker punching the polemic in amongst the solemn detail of Edward R. Murrow's onscreen battle with Senator Joseph McCarthy and his crusade against the spread of communism. With an almost fanatical obsession with accuracy (considerably appropriate given the subject matter), Clooney restricts the material to the onscreen exchanges with only a few simple subplots. Murrow's speeches are recreated verbatim and without much editing, while McCarthy's responses are simply replayed from historical footage.

McCarthy's scare-mongering and bullyish tactics may seem old fashioned and absurdly archaic, but you only have to flick on CNN to see the current U.S. administration still using terms like freedom fighters and evildoers. Thankfully, there are a few reporters and journalists like MSNBC's Keith Olberman who take their mantle from Murrow (even quoting him in a recent response to Donald Rumsfield's attack on dissenters).

Like Arthur Miller's The Crucible, Clooney keeps a safe distance from recent events, but nonetheless finds analogous contemporary allegories, which albeit fleeting and only briefly highlighted, make a deep impression.

Shot in crisp black and white, the smoky hallways of the CBS News office is a man's domain, with woman relegated to the back offices. Despite the antiquated patriarchy, there's something alluring about the period. Jazz and cigarette smoke, punctuated by the titter tatter of an army of typewriters in the bad old days of news journalism look sexy without ever fetishizing details.

Clooney may never get over the 'sexiest man alive' image that will perhaps always overshadow his directorial work, but he has twice proven to be a formidable filmmaker and more surprisingly, for a man who may be the poster child of a solipsistic industry, one with something important to say.

Shahir Daud's reviews also appear on Varsity.co.nz and the Lumiere Reader. For this review on the Lumiere Reader click here.

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