Washed out witch-hunt
Good Night, and Good Luck is cut and dry and incomplete
Laura Blakley, Staff
Courtesy of Warner Independent Films.
Good Night, and Good Luck
Directed by George Clooney
Now Playing
3 / 5
In the late 1940s to mid-1950s, the post Cold War United States found itself still terrified by the prospect of Communists within its borders and infiltrating the government and ultimately undermining the country.
Senator Joseph McCarthy is infamous for his work in “exposing” hundreds of Communists, particularly in the television and film industry, extracting confessions in front of the Senate committee by making false assertions about the activities of the accused, claiming they were members of Communist clubs and using the false confessions of people previously indicted to accuse more people. It may be difficult to get a feel for what this was like, but Good Night, and Good Luck gives an account from the point of view of some of the familiar faces of the time.
George Clooney directs this smooth film, which is based on the life of Edward R. Murrow (played by David Strathairn), a CBS news anchor who dared to protest the actions of McCarthy and his Communist witch-hunt at a time when few people openly questioned the actions of the U.S. Senate. Such a thing was seen as being unpatriotic. Murrow had to bide his time until he could find an effective way to show McCarthy contradicting himself or conducting the court in an unconstitutional manner.
Due to pressure from McCarthy, Milo Radulovich, a veteran of the Second World War, was dismissed without trial as a security risk because of his relationship with his father and sister, who were seen as left-wing sympathizers. Hearing of this, Murrow and his team stepped in to show the world what McCarthy had done through an exposé during CBS’s half-hour weekly show, See It Now; it used actual footage of McCarthy contradicting himself and those he was investigating.
Filmed in black and white, Good Night, and Good Luck provided an easy segue to the clips of McCarthy himself, so that no actor could be accused of overdoing the part. The supporting cast was full of familiar actors: Alex Borstein, Jeff Daniels, Robert Downey Jr. and the director himself (Clooney) played Fred Friendly, the producer who would one day become the president of CBS.
The movie itself was great, elegant, sad and sweet. But the film was a little too black and white. Clooney never showed the immediacy or importance of the controversy. The characters would say things like “We’ve got to be careful, or they might start talking about us like that.” What was never shown was why it was such a big deal. So they think you’re a Communist? So what? Murrow’s best advice to his accused friend, Don Hollenbeck (Ray Wise), was simply, “Then don’t read the papers,” which doesn’t seem to have that much effect on one’s livelihood or family life.
The story was cut and dry in its presentation, showing the good guys sticking up for the accused. The film showed people working in a television studio to put together a story, reviewing Senate hearing footage and going over interviews, and talking about what the sponsors would think. The audience saw no internal debate and no personal sacrifice that had to be made in order to show the public that what McCarthy was doing was violating their rights.
It’s likely most of us see what McCarthy did as unconstitutional, but there were people out there who believed that McCarthy was doing the right thing. In Good Night, the anchor simply walked in and said, “You’re wrong.” He didn’t lose his job and didn’t worry about Communists attacking him and his family.
A story based on actual events is one thing, but a fairy tale that reduces people to two-dimensional caricatures of themselves means it’s no longer honest. As a film that stands alone, merely a story being told, Good Night, and Good Luck is beautifully executed. But if this film was meant to tell us what perils and paranoia the news media faced back in the infancy of broadcast journalism, it only succeeded in telling half the story.
