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<\/a><\/p>\nIn the best American film about telling the truth under pressure since The Insider<\/em>, George Clooney proves here that he\u2019s not just another celebrity who fancies himself a director. He\u2019s in the early stages of what looks like a very impressive career, and he\u2019s obviously learned a lot about what goes on behind the cameras of great films.<\/p>\nGood Night and Good Luck <\/em><\/strong>is a tightly constructed, efficient film that knows exactly what it wants to be and do, and it does it impressively.<\/p>\nIt is, in a way, a horror movie.<\/p>\n
As Edward R. Murrow and his CBS news team decide to take the evidence they have and broadcast challenges to Senator Joe McCarthy\u2019s disturbing hunt for communists, they are \u201cbeset on all sides\u201d (as Jules would say) by attempts to intimidate them and endeavors to destroy their investigation. \u201cThe terror is here in this room,\u201d Murrow says to his associates (played by fine actors including Clooney, Patricia Clarkson, Robert Downey Jr., and Ray \u201cLaura Palmer\u2019s Dad\u201d Wise.)<\/p>\n
And you can feel that terror. It\u2019s like watching one of the Aliens<\/em> movies\u2026 you just keep waiting for that sinister beast to come bursting out of somebody\u2019s chest, or through somebody\u2019s television, or through some newsman\u2019s microphone, to silence him before the truth gets out. (That\u2019s also the theme of The Constant Gardener <\/em>and Serenity<\/em>, by the way. Seems to be the prevalent theme of this big screen year.)<\/p>\nHere, Clooney gives David Strathairn the best role he\u2019s ever had to play, and he\u2019ll be on the short list for Oscar nominations\u2026 or should be. I\u2019ve loved Strathairn since director John Sayles began insisting upon his greatness in film after film, and in 1992, Strathairn starred in several of the year\u2019s memorable films (Passion Fish, Bob Roberts, A League of Their Own, Sneakers<\/em>). My favorite performance of his came in Sayle\u2019s underrated drama Limbo<\/em>, where he played a fisherman haunted by an accident at sea years before. Here, he plays a man whose meticulous care about \u201cgetting the facts straight\u201d is reflected in his meticulously professional appearance and clinical delivery of bold news reports. As the pressure heats up, you watch the engines of his head kick into high gear, even though he remains studious and focused. It\u2019s all in the eyes, which seem to be scanning newsprint at all times, weighing the odds against them, weighing the risks, weighing the cost of such truth-telling. If you were going into a war, you\u2019d want a guy like that as your commander.<\/p>\nWhen I write my full review, I\u2019m not going to be able to get through it without many references to The Insider<\/em>\u2013the two films would make a knockout double feature. Both are about telling the truth, but also about the danger of having news reports influenced by corporate interests.(Peter Chattaway pointed out that one of the characters, Don Hewitt, is in both films\u2013Don Hewitt of CBS News was a young man during the events of this film, an old man during the tobacco scandal of Michael Mann\u2019s film.)<\/p>\nBut I also want to point out that Good Night and Good Luck<\/em> isn\u2019t so much a work of imagination as it is a \u201chistorical re-enactment\u201d\u2026 a document to remind us of our own recent history. Clooney does a good job of keeping us focused on a piece of history without steering it too obviously as a commentary on current events. Thus, the film is going to last.<\/p>\nBut I wonder if it\u2019s almost too narrowly focused. The 90 minutes fly past, and I don\u2019t exactly find myself wanting more, but my friend Danny Walter, an aspiring screenwriter himself, pointed out that an awful lot of the movie was spent showing historical footage or recreations of historical events surrounding the McCarthy hearings, and he wanted something more\u2026 more storytelling, I guess. This is the opposite of an Oliver Stone movie about history. There are no colorful characters or compelling subplots. We get the feeling that these newspeople distinguished themselves by doing the job, the whole job, and nothing but the job. And that rings true. The buzzing mayhem of those offices echo the choreography in an emergency room\u2026 an interesting dynamic, considering Clooney\u2019s history with \u201cE.R.\u201d<\/p>\n
Still, this is easily one of the best times I\u2019ve had in a theater this year, and I won\u2019t flinch if it gets Oscar attention. At the same time, I\u2019m also going to be watching to see what journalists who are familiar with the McCarthy hearings say about its accuracy in representing those events, since I\u2019m ashamed at how little I know about what really went on there.<\/p>\n
Here\u2019s a story from NPR\u2019s Daniel Schorr, who was around during these events and remembers them clearly. He\u2019s impressed with Clooney\u2019s work.<\/a><\/p>\n(Thanks, Darrel Manson, for the link to the NPR story.)<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
In the best American film about telling the truth under pressure since The Insider, George Clooney proves here that he\u2019s not just another celebrity who fancies himself a director. He\u2019s in the early stages of what looks like a very impressive career, and he\u2019s obviously learned a lot about what goes on behind the cameras […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1051,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[1722,1721,1720],"class_list":["post-11722","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog","tag-david-strathairn","tag-george-clooney","tag-good-night-and-good-luck"],"yoast_head":"\n
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