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PLOT: A retelling of the time when legendary newsman Edward R. Murrow, on his CBS show See It Now, engaged in a vicious war of words and ideals with Communist conspiracy jihadist Sen. Joe McCarthy.
Say what you will about George Clooney's politics, all sides must agree that the man has a classic sense of style.
Good Night, And Good Luck, Clooney-the-director's taut look at the on-air war between legendary newsman Edward R. Murrow and U.S. Commie hunter Sen. Joe McCarthy, conveys the '50s America one might imagine from TV, bachelor-pad jazz albums and archived Playboy mags.
It's an era when men dressed sharp to start the day and ended it stylishly rumpled over cocktails. Women in the office had spunk and, with equal ardour, brought coffee and got the Pentagon on the phone.
And everyone smoked. The clouds are virtually a lens-filter in this slickly claustrophic black-and-white film that imprisons itself indoors. These same clouds act as metaphor for paranoia. And paranoia is ultimately what Good Night, And Good Luck is about.
The news is paranoid. A soldier is dishonorably discharged because of rumours his sister and father are Commies. Journalists' careers fade out because of "red" whisperings. A couple in the CBS newsroom (Robert Downey Jr. and Patricia Clarkson) hide their marriage because liaisons are forbidden -- a vibe that darkens as battle lines between McCarthy and Murrow are drawn on Murrow's 60 Minutes-ish CBS show See It Now.
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And through it all one sees the lumpen face of McCarthy. Much has been made of Clooney using old footage of "Tail Gunner Joe" in all his bellicose glory, because an actor would be accused of skewing the portrayal. But McCarthy's thuggish demeanour has worn badly, and placed against Clooney's ideal of '50s urban fashion plates, he looks more than ever like Slobodan Milosevic.
Given his reputation, David Strathairn is everything you expect as Murrow, practically inhabiting him. And Clooney uses his best-pal persona to effect as Murrow's biggest defender, then CBS news boss Fred Friendly.
Meanwhile, Murrow's words are loaded with modern ironies. When he says "dissent is not disloyalty" and "we cannot defend freedom abroad and desert it at home," Iraq and the Patriot Act are elephants in the room.
The film opens and closes with a Murrow speech to the Radio Television News Directors Association, where he blamed TV for "being used to detract, delude, amuse and insulate us." Boy, did that horse ever leave the barn!
That theme is hammered home in the film. In a darkly funny scene, Murrow is made to interview Liberace about his plans for marriage. William Paley (Frank Langella) backs Murrow against McCarthy, but not against ad rates, cancelling See It Now for its unprofitability.
The underlying message, I suppose, is that there will always be McCarthys, but Murrows may be all but extinct.
BOTTOM LINE: Sad and inspiring. Shooting in claustrophobic jazzy, smoky black-and-white, director Clooney puts a grim sheen on a time when rights prevailed in the ongoing tug-of-war between rights and security. He also speaks starkly to journalism's decline. David Strathairn doesn't so much impersonate Murrow as inhabit him.
(This film is rated G)