Review: Good Night, and Good Luck

2005 New York Film Festival

The New York Film Festival opens Friday, September 23 with the U.S. premiere of Good Night, and Good Luck, a film enacting broadcast journalist Edward R. Murrow’s televised criticisms of the McCarthy hearings of 1953-54. Directed by George Clooney, the historical drama is more than a labor of love for the filmmaking actor, who also co-wrote the screenplay and appears in a major supporting role.

David Straithairn won best actor honors at the Venice Film Festival for his immersed portrayal of Murrow, a man often credited with inventing television news reporting with his CBS program See It Now. He leads a talented ensemble that includes Clooney as the show’s co-producer Fred Friendly plus Robert Downey, Jr., Patricia Clarkson, Jeff Daniels and Frank Langella. Joseph McCarthy is only featured through archival footage.

The movie is no more a biopic, however, than The Crucible is about the life of John Proctor and just as that play debuted as a professed allegory for McCarthy’s “witch-hunt” of communists, the senator’s hearings now serve as an undisguised parallel to the Patriot Act and other encroachments of constitutional civil liberties as well as the complacency of today’s broadcast media. During one scene recreating a segment from March 9, 1954, Murrow’s pledge that, “we will not be driven by fear into an age of unreason,” hits most pointedly at the present. Clooney’s intention to anchor his film and his stance on current affairs with this moment is evident in the full quotation’s reprinting in the press notes.

In addition to representing his politics, Clooney’s film works as homage to many personal influences, the most obvious being his newscaster father Nick Clooney. Even before making the connections between then and now, there were plans to do something with Murrow and the dawn of broadcast journalism, a subject that he got into while literally growing up in a TV studio. Another family tribute is made with the soundtrack of songs performed by Diane Reeves including standards previously recorded by the director’s aunt Rosemary Clooney and accompanied by musicians who had worked with the legendary singer.

Good Night, and Good Luck easily fits with Network and The Insider to create a trilogy of films focused on the difficulty of communicating the truth, let alone editorial, via commercial television. This film also bookends the other two by taking place before each of them while being produced after. Many scenes are so similar to aspects of Network and therefore predictable at every turn that if not completely based on true events, it might be thought too influenced by Sidney Lumet’s 1976 picture. Clooney’s film, he says, is so factual that each scene is “double-sourced”, meaning that unlike many of todays true stories, every bit of Good Night, and Good Luck happened. Perhaps a dialogue here or there was written but none of it could be considered made up, every moment crafted through testimonials, memoirs and extensive research into everyone’s notes. Just as Murrow made certain that McCarthy could not find an iota of error in his program, Clooney seems to want the same accuracy in the film. Critics might attack his motivation but not his veracity.

As writer-director-actor of Good Night, and Good Luck, a film that lays out his familial and political devotions, George Clooney has created something as reflective of himself as the literal subjects. Whether perceived as a personal expression or egotistical vanity project, an important film or insignificant yet overstated association, Clooney’s sophomore effort is an accomplished piece of cinema.

Good Night, and Good Luck plays two shows Friday as part of the festival before opening in limited release on October 7.

More fine reading at Blogcritics.org. Scroll down to read comments on this story and/or add one of your own. Support Blogcritics.org by shopping at Amazon.com from this page.