The Current Cinema: Good Night Good Luck (2005)

Good Night and Good Luck

Directed by George Clooney. David Straithairn, Jeff Daniels, George Clooney, Alex Borstein, Robert Downey Jr, Patricia Clarkson, Tate Donovan, Frank Langella. Running time: 93 minutes. Released November 4, 2005.

During this current era of pop culture, the mainstream is so fixated on personalities, it often overlooks contributions beyond those parameters. George Clooney is a personality, and while most realize he is an actor, there is probably a relatively small percentage who realize he is also a director and screenwriter of some note.

“Good Night and Good Luck” is based on the actual story of broadcast journalist Edward R. Murrow and his quest to bring down Wisconsin Senator Joseph McCarthy. McCarthy built upon American prejudice and fear, sought out supposed Communists, and disrupted the culture of the post war era. Murrow’s courage at the time was legendary as was McCarthy’s level of dangerous power.

Clooney shoots his film in stark black and white with careful attention to detail. The men are in dark gray jackets with white shirts and black ties. The newsroom deals with actual film. Cigarette smoke is rampant. There is a sense of desperation permeating the tumultuous nature of Murrow’s ideas (especially borne out in Frank Langella’s bravura performance as CBS president William Paley).

Clooney shoots from close-up to medium shot with a rhythmic pace, switching from a stationary camera to a hand-held with flowing precision. He bathes the scenes in dull grays, but never allows his form to mask the substance of his screenplay (co-written with Grant Heslov).

The performances are the final aspect that bring this film to its highest cinematic level. David Straithairn provides the effective no-nonsense manner that informed Murrow’s work. He is guarded, and determined, chagrined at the limitations imposed by his employers and inspired by his own defiance. The cold war hysteria by which he is surrounded seeps into areas of the cynical newsroom, but Murrow oversteps the media politics and exhibits the journalistic courage that did, indeed, take down McCarthy.

One of the most fascinating aspects of “Good Night and Good Luck” is that it doesn’t immediately attack its plot points, but instead carefully shows Murrow’s process, the steps he took, the defiant choices he made. It all works at an optimal level, making this film one of the very best American movies released in the 21st century.

The mainstream public is less interested in Clooney the filmmaker than they are Clooney the personality. But that did not keep “Good Night and Good Luck” from achieving success at that time of its 2005 release. Made for 7 million dollars, it grossed nearly 60 million and was the best reviewed film of its year. One amusing bit of trivia: test screenings just prior to its release had audiences complaining that the actor who played Joseph McCarthy seemed to over-the-top in his performance. No actor was cast in the role of McCarthy. He was shown only in actual archive footage. It was the actual Joseph McCarthy to whom the audience was responding.