Movie Review: Good Night, and Good Luck, Full of Atmosphere

Good night, and Good Luck is George Clooney's recent film on Edward R. Murrow, the CBS newscaster and radio host, who took on Senator McCarthy during the early 1950s when the Senator was catching communists in the US.

The title of the movie is Murrow's famous line that he used to sign-off his show. George Clooney plays the producer of See it Now, the show that Murrow is anchoring. The movie is shot in black and white and is quite atmospheric as a result. It is an intense movie punctuated by three to four jazz songs. After Clooney won this year's best supporting actor Oscar for Syriana, he remarked that he had lost in the director's Oscar for which he was also nominated. May be he was a trifle disappointed.

I think Clooney is using the movie to reflect on today's low standards in journalism, particularly on TV, and to tell the story of the communist witch-hunt.
The movie begins with Murrow's speech at a function in which he is being honoured. In the flashback, Murrow puts on air the story of a solider, who has been unfairly dismissed from the army on the grounds that his father is a communist.

A battle with McCarthy ensues, Murrow goes after McCarthy, the senator hits back and then in the battle between the newsman and the politician, the journalist wins.

Most of the movie is set in the CBS set for the show. It moves alternatively at a hectic and a lazy place. Hectic when the show is on and lazy when the journalists are just sitting together smoking and talking.

Murrow is deeply concerned about the quality of news, a concern that is reflected in his writing for the show, which even by modern standards is quite intellectually challenging. Murrow doesn't want the idiot box to "amuse, insulate and distract". He wants it to "educate and to inspire". Otherwise, he warns that it would be just a box of "wires and lights".

For a glamorous pin-up like Clooney, the star of movies such as Ocean's Eleven, this movie is an unlikely choice. But it's clear that Clooney's heart is in it. He isn't trying to be pretentious. He really believes that the story ought to be told, and in the process makes old-fashioned qualities like integrity look sexy.