The Chris Moeller Archives

The clever-est of the jackal pack

George Clooney's new film, "Good Night, and Good Luck," about the mid-1950s showdown between CBS news reporter Edward R. Murrow and Senator Joseph McCarthy has a quiet power and is compelling from start to finish. It's a bio-pic of sorts, but one that is limited to a time and place. It's not the "Great Man"-style biography that attempts to capsulize an entire life, or searches for formative occurrences in its subject's childhood.

Clooney-- box office idol-turned-producer/director-- has vowed to begin a series of socially- and politically-relevant films, and this, the first picture, indicates that the coming productions will be those of Clooney's specific vision-- independent film in the purest sense. Clooney has enlisted wealthy patrons who share his worldview to help finance the films, which is why you see fellow filmmaker Steven Soderbergh and Dallas Mavericks' owner Mark Cuban listed among the "Good Night" producers. Clooney also grew up the son of 1950s and 60s Cincinnati television broadcaster Nick Clooney so he has a true affinity for the journalistic heroes of that time and of this film.

"Good Night" is very romantic, shot in glorious black and white-- romantic in style and romantic about that entire era of a more principled journalism. Though his moral thesis is accurate, the film is not the indictment of the modern era that I expected to be, nor the one that many critics have accused it of being. It's sophisticated enough to know that quality journalism is not about objectivity, it's about fairness and occasionally having to advocate for a side of the story that's not being advocated. The factors that stifle the news gathering and reporting process today also stifled it then. After watching the film, one gets a fuller impression of Clooney's antagonistic relationship with Bill O'Reilly. He doesn't begrudge the broadcaster his right to muckrake, only his tendency to back the powerful over the powerless.

Senator Joseph McCarthy is too easy a mark for Clooney's journalistic indignations, say some critics, so it's worth pointing out the revisionist public support the red-baiter has received since the debut of this film. One of the Senator's vocal supporters at the time, cited in the film, was William F. Buckley, who is still the editor of perhaps the most influential right-wing periodical in the country, The National Review, and U.S. Representative Steve King of Iowa recently called McCarthy a national hero.

Clooney made a wise decision not to cast the part of McCarthy. While other players in the drama, such as CBS President William Paley and Murrow producer Fred Friendly appear opposite the almost-fabled newsman (Clooney portrays Friendly,) McCarthy is seen only in actual film footage of the era. This was wise because any remotely accurate portrayal of the rampaging McCarthy would have been universally judged as over-the-top. In either event, McCarthy is not the real antagonist of the film. The real enemy is censorship. Alcoa, the sponsor of Murrow's program, "See It Now," had major military holdings, and McCarthy's investigation into Communist "infiltration," at that particular time, targeted, not Hollywood or any radical political organization, but, specifically, the United States Army. Paley also feared the loss of network affiliates still in their infancies, and the loss of broadcasting licenses approved through Congress.

Although other reporters were also standing up to McCarthy by the Spring of 1954, Clooney has chosen to focus his narrative specifically on Murrow and the team at CBS. It was Murrow, after all, who drew the Senator onto national television for a direct rebuttal in front of the American people. In the rebuttal, which appears in its entirety in the film, McCarthy singles out Murrow as "the clever-est of the jackal pack," before questioning the newsman's patriotism, and falsely linking him, years before, to the socialist organization, the International Workers of the World.

I love movies that have the courage to go without music. In "Good Night, and Good Luck" (which, incidentally, was Murrow's standard broadcast endphrase,) there are just a few interludes of jazz music (performed by vocalist Dianne Reeves.) They never track over the Murrow telecasts, however, which is where the real power of the film lies. David Strathairn is an uncanny double for Murrow, despite the fact that I can detect no additional makeup or prosthetic having been added since the actor appeared as Carmela Soprano's paramour in the fifth and most recent season of "The Sopranos." As Murrow, Strathairn's news reports and editorials delivered directly, and with great command, into the eye of the CBS camera are mesmerizing. Clooney and Strathairn have stripped Murrow's craft and this mission down to their barest essentials. It's a captivating and resonant film.

posted by CM @ 11:22 PM