FILM FRENZY

FACE THE NATION Edward R. Murrow (David Strathairn) prepares to save America from itself in Good Night, And Good Luck. (Photos: Warner)

By Matt Brunson

GOOD NIGHT, AND GOOD LUCK. (2005)
★★★½ (out of four)
DIRECTED BY George Clooney
STARS David Strathairn, George Clooney

The penultimate performance of the record-breaking Broadway show Good Night, and Good Luck will air live on CNN at 7pm ET Saturday, June 7. Written by George Clooney and Grant Heslov, the play is based on Good Night, and Good Luck., the 2005 film that starred David Strathairn as legendary journalist Edward R. Murrow and Clooney as producer Fred Friendly; for the stage, Clooney himself takes over the role of Murrow. Clooney has stated that while the film was a response to George W. Bush and his Iraq War, the play is a direct response to Donald Trump and his war on American values, free speech, and journalistic integrity.

The stage adaptation has earned mostly positive reviews, but the film version did even better with the hosannas, earning countless raves, numerous citations from critics’ groups, and six Academy Award nominations, including Best Picture, Actor (Strathairn), Director (Clooney), and Original Screenplay.

Like the play, the 2005 film looks at an inspiring moment in U.S. history, when Murrow, more or less backed by an uneasy CBS, did the unthinkable by standing up to Joseph McCarthy, the junior Senator from Wisconsin who was destroying lives left and right by denouncing everyone who didn’t subscribe to his petty politics (liberals, the ACLU, Hollywood) as card-carrying Commie Pinkos. The nation during the 1950s was gripped by a climate of fear, as no one dared speak out against McCarthy or the House Committee on Un-American Activities lest they too be pegged as a Red.

But on one fateful evening in 1954, Murrow’s highly regarded TV show See It Now devoted an episode to sticking it to McCarthy and his terrorist tactics. McCarthy was allowed to defend himself later on the program, but to little avail: The ball had already begun rolling (actually, even before Murrow’s broadcast), and it wasn’t long afterward that the Army-McCarthy hearings, featuring Judge Joseph Welch’s famous smackdown of the Senator (“Have you no sense of decency, sir? At long last, have you left no sense of decency?”), effectively ended McCarthy’s tribunal of terror and, eventually, this shameful period in American history.

Of course, given that far too many complacent Americans don’t care about history repeating itself as long as it doesn’t interfere with their sitcoms, this shameful period resurrected itself during the years of the Bush Jr. administration (and, of course, now during Trump’s twin reigns of fascism and corruption). Yet Clooney — bless his patriotic heart — wasn’t able to resist commenting on the matter, but rather than make awkward declarations from the stage of an Oscar ceremony, he elected to wrap his cautionary tale in the context of an absorbing motion picture.

Filming in crisp black and white, Clooney keeps all the action close to the vest: Rarely does the movie stray from the confines of the CBS studios. At times, the laser-beam focus on both the setting and the situation at hand makes the film feel as if it’s been sealed inside a Ziploc bag: There’s no mention of Richard Nixon, no Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, no Hollywood Ten, certainly no Ronald Reagan, nothing except the grudge match between Murrow and McCarthy. When the movie does wander off to include extraneous moments, they’re odd-fitting: A sequence in which Murrow interviews Liberace about whether the pianist will ever get married comes across as a cheap shot meant to appease today’s “knowing” audiences.

The movie’s stroke of genius, however, is in its masterful integration of actual newsreel footage into the fictionalized framework. No actor was hired to play Joe McCarthy because none was needed: The Senator is entirely represented through archival footage seen on TV screens. Apparently, Clooney felt that no performer could have captured this odious individual, and he may have been right: Watching this oily politician rant and rave from the blocky dimensions of a TV monitor is in itself enough to strike fear into the hearts of upstanding American viewers. (Amusingly, preview audiences thought an actual actor was playing the role and complained he was too far over the top!)

Clooney has his sights set, and the targets are all big game. Like All the President’s Men, the movie celebrates journalistic integrity in the face of political corruption, and like Quiz Show, it foreshadows how this marvelous invention that has the ability to educate millions of Americans simultaneously has instead been dumbed down to placate the lowest common denominator (in the grand scheme of things, it didn’t take long for Edward R. Murrow to be replaced by Fear Factor and Joanie Loves Chachi). And on both fronts, Clooney decries the lack of modern-day heroes who could compare with Murrow and Friendly, media figures who, with the backing of their peers, would be willing and able to take down any and all insidious and dangerous administrations.

Who’s ready to lead the charge? It may not matter. As Clooney’s dazzling film suggests, it may take only one individual to curse the darkness, but it requires a support team to then keep the lights on.