Good Night, and Good Luck.

I've had the "Edward R. Murrow" Collection from CBS for years and have enjoyed watching it's biography of Murrow, the complete Milo Radulovich, McCarthy and Annie Lee Moss shows many times. I'm sure George Clooney must have these as well as he used the actual footage extensively in his fine drama "Good Night and Good Luck". As a previous poster said, by concentrating on what was actually presented, Clooney is able to focus on the ethical issues that were the real substance of the broadcasts, rather than the tragicomic personalities involved. He wants us to see that the same issues are in our lives today, (Clooney has had his own battles with would-be modern McCarthys like Bill O'Reilly), but he isn't going to force the issue. He's doing exactly what Murrow and Friendly did with the McCarthy broadcast: using the actual record to tell the story.

There are minor, but significant embellishments, mostly an impressive cast of actors who can tell us more with one look than an entire speech. Leading the way is David Straithairn as Murrow. Except for possessing a higher pitched voice than the original, he's got his man down cold. I would pick Frank Langella as William Paley, here presented as a man with ideals but who is rooted in the realities of business, the sort of guy who has to make the tough decisions the idealists like Murrow don't have to or want to deal with. Then there is Ray Wise as the vulnerable Don Hollenbeck, who was one of the co-creators of "You Are There", a program this film somewhat resembles. He wound up being "there" when he didn't really want to be.

What really enhances the show is the black and white photography, (actually, according to the notes, it was "The film was shot on color film on a grayscale set, then color-corrected in post" – whatever that means). Not only does it heighten the drama, (magazine photographers, in the days when they had a choice, said "black and white for drama, color for excitement"), but the tremendous resolution seems to bring out each furrow and poor on each person's face, allowing the viewer to see into their souls.

"Good Night, and Good Luck" is the kind of film that has elicited strong opinions in the IMDb forum. In fact, most of the critics point out at the manipulation of the actual events and what they perceive as character assassination of the late Joseph McCarthy and the role he played during the "witch hunt" conducted by the late senator from Wisconsin. Whether these points are right, or wrong, in the minds of the contributors, most seem to disregard the film on that criteria, alone.

In fact, "Good Night, and Good Luck" shows a time in the American past that served as the model in the way television introduced the format in which the news was going to be shown to the country using the emerging technology to keep people informed. As such, CBS under William Paley's leadership, amassed a lot of talent and it became the yardstick in which other news programs were going to be judged against. George Clooney, in his second directorial job, recreates what he and his co-writer, Grant Heslov, thought about that period at the beginning of the era of television news.

The film has a documentary style that serves well to illustrate the story being told. Most of it occurring in the CBS studios in New York during the fifties. The crisp black and white cinematography, by Robert Elswit, gives the movie a nostalgic look to the way things were done in those days. Mr. Clooney has inserted scenes where a black jazz singer interprets some standard songs as though it might have been the next program following the actual news hour, and act as a buffer in the events being presented.

At the center of the story is Edward R. Murrow, the CBS anchor at the time. Mr. Murrow was greatly admired for his contributions during WWII and his broadcasts from London bringing commentaries about the war to America. Mr. Murrow was a giant in the field, most admired by all Americans because his integrity and the way he presented his stories, which ranged from the sublime, to the ridiculous, as it is the case with the interview with Liberace in Sherman Oaks where he asked the entertainer about his future wedding plans.

The strong cast assembled for the film is excellent. David Strathairn, one of our most versatile actors plays the leading role. His take on Murrow's mannerisms and the way he spoke to his audience in front of the camera is captured with great detail. Mr. Strathairn gives a good performance, but one never really knows much about the man in the way the screen play has been written. Yes, one gets the impression of Mr. Murrow's high ethics, but as far as what made him tick, one has to wait for another biopic to find out.

The ensemble cast plays well under Mr. Clooney's direction. Robert Downey Jr., Patricia Clarkson, Ray Wise, Frank Langella, Jeff Daniels, and George Clooney are seen in the newsroom as they portray their models under Mr. Clooney's direction.

The film does not - as some have suggested - unfairly portray McCarthy as a sub-human monster. Its presentation of McCarthy is limited strictly to the thread of the storyline and never does it waver toward name-calling or character assassination. This is particularly striking given that MCarthy was a well-seasoned alcoholic and clearly suffered from a narcissistic personality disorder. He was ripe for parody because his eccentricities were so pronounced, but this film is remarkably even-handed about the Senator's deeds and behavior. There are no allusions either to his peculiar friendship with Roy Cohn, whose notorious homosexual relations with private G. David Schine eventually led to McCarthy's demented charge that the Army was infested with Communists. Some have even suggested that McCarthy was no stranger to gay trysts. All of this could have made for an explosive - and typical - "Hollywood" movie and would indeed have been propagandistic, shallow and simple-minded. Instead Clooney has made an intelligent, cogent, fair-minded film about ethics, high standards and integrity.

Actor/Director George Clooney pays tribute to truth and decency amid distrust and uncertainty in the Communist witchhunts with his recreation of its greatest hero, the newsman of newsmen, Edward R. Murrow, in Good Night, and Good Luck.

In the early 1950's, the Communist scare and the subsequent subversion of citizens' rights was at its apex with blacklists and rampant accusations resulting in ruined lives and careers. Edward R. Murrow (David Strathairn) was the grand master of the news airwaves in the infantile medium of television. With his show's director, Fred Friendly (George Clooney) and his production team, he picks one obscure news item regarding an Air Force serviceman who is dismissed due to unspecified charges. Murrow and CBS essentially take on the US Air Force amid this climate of suspicion and presumed guilt. Later, Murrow's team takes on Senator Joseph McCarthy by making critical comments of the senator's own words and contradictions. McCarthy retaliates with accusations of Murrow's supposed association with un-American groups just as the parent network, CBS, reels under sponsorship pressure and the unpredictable whims of network president William Paley (Frank Langella). As Murrow and his own staff come under tense scrutiny by McCarthy and even CBS, public reaction and the response of the print media come to the forefront.

Nothing can compare to the words that were written and spoken with such conviction and honesty as those uttered by Murrow. The title of the movie is a direct quote that Murrow employed to sign off each week at the close of his interview shows. The filmmakers (including director Clooney and writers Clooney and Grant Heslov) were wise to let the text stand on its own. They also benefit from good performances from a cast headed by Strathairn (L.A. Confidential, A League of Their Own), a journeyman actor who has finally found a core role to call his own, and he makes the most of it. He gets the mannerisms and cadence down quite convincingly, and while Strathairn may not look exactly like Murrow, he has the persona nailed. Frank Langella (Dave) is excellent as the mercurial Paley whose support of Murrow was tenuous at best. Ray Wise (Twin Peaks) registers in what could have been a more defined role as a doomed newsman whose guilt by association triggers some life changing events. Patricia Clarkson (The Station Agent) and Robert Downey Jr. (Chaplin) as secretly married staffers, Joe and Shirley, round out the cast. Ironically, perhaps the best performance can be attributed to McCarthy himself as newsreels offer a fascinating, perverse glance at the infamous politician whose flamboyance and dogged theatrics doomed the careers of many government officials and film or television actors. The duel between Murrow and McCarthy seems like two heavyweights going at it verbally in the public arena.

The cinematography by Robert Elswit (Magnolia) is crisp and starkly lit in black and white to evoke the past. The production design and costumes are consistent with the period. Just the sight of newsmen typing on old style typewriters or production assistants carrying around film reels instead of videotape or discs is amusing. The editing by Stephen Mirrione (Traffic, 21 Grams) is tight and well paced. At times the studio broadcasts of a female blues singer bridges various sequences in theme and mood. The broadcast of a live network news program is staged with realism and with the frenzy and excitement that only live television could bring. One wonders what TV veterans like Sidney Lumet or Robert Altman could have brought to the table.

Murrow's show was kind of a precursor to the current granddaddy of all prime time news shows, 60 Minutes. It was interesting to see that his was not a perfect career having to mix fluffy showbiz interviews with such personalities as Liberace on his Person-to-Person show with legitimate news reports. At 93 minutes, the film surprisingly seems a bit short. You almost feel like this is a big budget episode of the famous You Are There reenactment shows. The story ends almost abruptly as it begins being bookended by a formal event honoring Murrow in 1958.

A couple of things don't quite work in the film. The characters of Joe and Shirley must come to terms with the network's policy forbidding marriage among its coworkers, but this subplot doesn't significantly serve to move the story forward. Clooney shows a workman-like approach to directing the film but it just doesn't grab you as emotionally as you would like. You sit there entranced by the history but are never fully given to the pathos of its characters. Instead, the film becomes almost a quasi-documentary bereft of much feeling.

As previous films have dealt with the Red Scare and blacklists, this film compares favorably with The Front and the great television movie Fear on Trial. Although the Soviet Union was a major threat to the United States during the Cold War, the accusatory enemy from within was perhaps as great a menace. The implications and parallels to today's political climate and the role television has in shaping perception are clearly the point Clooney and gang are trying to make. Murrow's formal speech, which begins and ends the film's story, is itself a prophetic and sobering commentary and indictment of the possibilities of television and foreshadows the future with amazing prescience. It shows that one man made a difference. Such is the testament to a heroic reporter whose integrity this film manages to capture, albeit in a brief history lesson.

Rarely when an actor tries to direct does it work, and when it does you get "character study" without all the supporting scaffold a real filmmaker would provide.

Clooney is a smart man who knows this. So he structures his projects in ways that are well serviced by what he has to give. The last one was an actor playing a character who created a character within. The structure of the thing was all focused on building and exploiting those ambiguities.

Especially clever were the staging devices. Many were novel and a few were particularly striking.

Now this is a more serious, but has the same values. It is after all a character study, and one that deals with these same two worlds. The man when off the camera, and the man on. Fabricated truth as an act by politicians. "Journalism" as way of piercing through those layers.

Two evils, McCarthy and Paley. Clooney's point is that control over the pipeline is what matters in delivering the "real." So he works with some very studied staging. This movie has some of the best staging in recent memory. It must have taken forever to set the angles and lighting. Fortunately these are so powerful that no scene needs more than two setups. This is the way this cinematographer works for PT Andersen too.

The switch in lighting from when Murrow is on the air to just after he goes off is rather thrilling: both are intense, in fact the on-air lighting is stark. But there is a powerful and visible shift from external to internal energy.

If you just saw the script as words on a page, it would seem boring and preachy. It is the staging that makes this thing come alive, that gives a container for the great acting. The only actor who seems off is McCarthy, which is telling.

I have the book Clooney's dad wrote about movies. Fortunately the son has better insights into what works and what doesn't, and has good intuitions about what to attempt.

Ted's Evaluation -- 3 of 3: Worth watching.