Good Night, and Good Luck

George Clooney, USA, 2005
3 out of 4 stars

A film like this raises inevitable difficulties when one sets out to evaluate it, and it is safe to say that these difficulties have been well covered by the criticism that has already been written regarding Clooney’s agit-prop resurrection of the newsman who, we are told, took down McCarthy and therefore left a lesson to us all, media people and common people alike, that we are clearly not living up to in the age of Bush II.

First, there is the question of whether this even really counts as a film. I would say yes, but just barely, and clearly filmmaking for its own sake was not key to Clooney’s agenda. It’s tempting then to ask what, exactly, this film is supposed to do. So-called intellectuals such as myself don’t really need to be educated on who McCarthy was. Perhaps I needed some education on Ed Murrow, the primary figure here, but amusingly, that has already been provided by the significant media coverage of the film. Of course, this coverage would not exist without the making of the film itself, and that leads me to conclude that the main reason that this is a motion picture is that, due to the medium, it therefore demands more attention than a book or, dare I say it, a television special, either of which might have been more appropriate for conveying this “lesson,” especially considering how much archival footage is used and how long the film spends showing us some of it.

Finally, then, we must consider how the “ignorant” would respond to such a film. I vaguely remember my roommate, who is not the brightest pulp in the package, being unsure as to what time period the damn thing took place in, but on the other hand, the undergraduate class that I watched most of it with (in my role as “projectionist”) seemed to get involved in the thing, cheering at some of Murrow’s more provocative lines.

And sure, I imagine we could have gotten the benefit of these choice tidbits from archival footage of Murrow’s show itself, but it goes back to the question of “would anyone have watched it in that case, even in a classroom?” I think the answer is no, and I have to admit that, for some reason, the film actually is pretty entertaining. It is a slight but also hard-hitting propaganda piece that has the benefit of being on the side of truth, more or less. So yeah, I recommend it, even if I’m somewhat bemused by it.

Source: Warner DVD
23 April, 6:37 PM