Goodnight, and Good Luck
To really appreciate Goodnight, and Good Luck one needs to see the trailer that accompanies it on the DVD. The trailer is one of those special, historical artifacts that could represent our era’s zeitgeist in the future. A spirit that Edward R. Murrow, the film’s protagonist, foresaw and publicly admonished. Sadly, he lost. Extravagance beat-out insight. The perfect example is the trailer, which almost self-explodes for attention. Something, fortunately, the movie does not do, which provides hope for a more sophisticated cinema.
Goodnight, and Good Luck recreatesthe historical showdown between Edward R. Murrow (David Strathairn) and Joseph McCarthy, whose volcanic accusations almost paralyzed a nation in Pompeian fear. Despite threats from the military, McCarthy’s thugs, and even its own management, the CBS news team exposed McCarthy’s unconstitutional accusations. By helping to bring down McCarthy, Murrow changed the course of history, yet he was later pushed off prime time, because his show was not generating as much advertisement capital as a game show.
The movie has obvious relevance to our current media and political situations. Clooney is outspoken about his politics, and cannot help but include a little personal dirt on McCarthy: the senator actually interrupted his honeymoon to attend to his inquisition. The film might be polemical, but Clooney dramatizes it well. We see the weight of actual decisions play out on the CBS crew’s faces. Clooney and Grant Heslov’s screenplay is economical and poignant and the acting meets its challenge, both merit an A.
The great theme of the movie is the power of TV. How it can create fear or courage, isolate or bring people together, help them escape their troubles or confront them. The film neatly splits these diametrical tendencies into two camps: the former, the entertainment side of news lead by Frank Langella (William Paley), the CBS CEO, and the latter, the information side lead by Murrow. The battle between the two demonstrates the never-ending struggle for dominance, which has been happening since the advent of TV, and sadly, it is unnecessary to say who is in the lead. Yet, the film slings a rock at the entertainment industry by simply being a provocative, well thought out and directed film that requires no thrills outside of true civic drama.
Clooney made some admirably daring decisions in making this film. He chose to shoot in black and white and to film almost entirely inside the CBS station. He also gave dialogue precedence and minimized the camerawork. Because of this, critics have compared the film to theatre, yet I want to point out that the camera is used cinematically. There are compositions and perspectives reminiscent of Citizen Cane, and a variety of cuts in which the dialogue and visuals overlap in ways evocative of the characters’ thoughts and feelings. The camerawork is simply more subtle than usual. It, alongside the jazz soundtrack, creates a strong sense of time and place. A time when people were more literate, and you could in fact hear poetry and Shakespeare quoted on the TV. Clooney does not idealize the past. Instead, he compares it to our present, and we find our current mainstream media lacking in wit, eloquence and even a little integrity.
The DVD has three special features. There is the blockbuster trailer, which is more fitting for the Perfect Storm, than the actual movie. A “behind the scenes” type documentary, which is a throwaway, since Clooney and Heslov repeat all its interesting points in their running commentary, which is informative and entertaining. Clooney is witty. Heslov and he provide a brief history lesson and some insight into the creative process. The DVD package is as Spartan as the film, and tellingly, neither leaves us wanting.
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