Good Night, and Good Luck. (2005) 10/10
Television journalist Edward R. Murrow (David Straithairn) and producer Fred Friendly (George Clooney) go after Senator Joseph McCarthy.
There are lots and lots of movies “based on a true story.” For the past two years,three of the five Academy Award Best Picture nominees have been fact-based. These movies invariably embellish the truth. They give us back stories that don’t exist, or that are different from the real story in significant ways. Always, a dry story is warmed up, a political story is made somehow personal. Always, until Good Night, and Good Luck.
The story of Murrow’s battle against McCarthyism is stripped bare. We never meet Murrow’s wife, or hear him explain the inner demon that drives him. We never see our main characters at home, or having expository conversations. Only a couple played by Robert Downey Jr. and Patricia Clarkson are given the least little bit of a personal life. Instead, we see the newsroom, the conversations, the editing, the interviews. Murrow’s speeches are virtually all derived from transcripts of what he actually said. To cap off this incredible veracity, McCarthy and some of the McCarthy hearings are real archival footage, not recreations.
Does this sound boring? It isn’t. George Clooney’s deft direction makes it compelling, edge of your seat stuff. Nor is it without opinon. I’ve heard complaints that Good Night, and Good Luck. is a hagiography, but Murrow and Friendly’s characters are not portrayed at all, only their actions. The movie has an opinion, a strong one, but it lets the events themselves tell the story. In fact, the lack of exposition is remarkable; no one explains HUAC (or even tells you what it stands for), or explains who McCarthy is or what he’s been up to. The audience just has to keep up.
What we’re left with is a story remarkably necessary for today; dramatic, thrilling, and inspiring. The direction is smart, and the acting is top-notch. The look of the piece; black and white, with lots of close-ups that study faces with intensity, is striking. It creates a period feel deftly, without mockery. The cast, including Frank Langella, Jeff Daniels, and Ray Wise, has a great naturalism; no one looks like a movie star (except Clooney). Everyone seems to just melt into their characters, so that the juxtaposition of archival footage and acting is seamless.
I have to make special note of the remarkable use of music. Jazz singer Dianne Reeves plays a studio singer. The deft placement of her songs comments on the action. She’s terrific, using Clooney’s aunt’s arrangements, and it’s almost like a musical the way that the songs speak to and about the story.
I can’t recommend GN&GL highly enough. As a mother, I’m so glad to have taken my son to see it. This is an educational movie in exactly the right way; neither condescending nor dry, it is to history lessons as cayenne pepper is to a dash of salt.
