Good Night, and Good Luck. (2005)
Edward R. Murrow: David Strathairn
Fred Friendly: George Clooney
Don Hollenbeck: Ray Wise
Joe Wershba: Robert Downey, Jr.
Shirley Wershba: Patricia Clarkson
William Paley: Frank Langella
Sig Mickelson: Jeff Daniels
Natalie: Alex Borstein
Warner Independent Pictures presents a film co-written and directed by George Clooney. Co-written by Grant Heslov.
Running Time: 93 minutes
Rated PG for mild thematic elements and brief language.
Release Date: October 14, 2005 (nationwide)
Review Date: May 6, 2006
-------------------------------------------------------
While many people embrace their televisions as tools of simply entertainment, Edward R. Murrow and those who worked with him on the television program See It Now, were attempting to use the device for something more. According to Murrow himself, without using television as an educational device it's just flickering lights and wires in a box.
Good Night, and Good Luck is a very tight-nit view of, mainly, the employment of those involved with the See It Now program. Outside of the Wershbas - who are in the midst of hiding their marriage, because it's against company policy - we know very little of the personal lives of these people. We simply know that they, through Murrow sitting and speaking in front of a television camera, have the goal to bring down Senator Joseph McCarthy's manhunt for communists.
For those who have attended one meeting, read one newspaper, or even known someone who has done that much, they could be in McCarthy's scope to be a communist. But the film isn't so much about McCarthy as it is about those who work on See It Now trying to bring down McCarthy using their half-hour a week. After all, the only time that we are really allowed to leave the CBS studios is when the crew goes out for a scotch. Because there's never a bad time for a scotch.
As this was before my time, I know very little of Edward R. Murrow, but there was no doubt in my mind that I was seeing him in David Strathairn's performance. If there are two things that Good Night, and Good Luck takes the cake in, it's that it's convincing and very fascinating. I have not been drawn into a film this much in years. If not for the difference between the quality of the stock footage shown - including all footage of Senator McCarthy (who, technically, plays himself) - and the visual quality of the acting, it would be very easy to confuse this as a documentary. Black and white was certainly the way to go.
The one question I would ask George Clooney about this film, however, is the importance of the cigarette. Everyone smokes in this movie, and frequently. There is hardly a scene where the smoke of a cigarette doesn't billow throughout the air. I'm sure there is some self-accredited film genius out there - perhaps one who has taught one of the dull film classes I have taken - that could explain the importance of the cigarette in Good Night, and Good Luck. Or have I just seen so many movies that I am starting to believe all of the mumbo jumbo of every little nuiance being crucial to the plot of great films.
Back on track ... As I stated before, Murrow asked that the television be used not just as a device of entertainment but as a device of information. Good Night, and Good Luck provides both and provides them consistently. This is most definitely one of the best pictures of 2005.
**** (out of ****)