George Clooney's new film "Good Night and Good Luck," set in the McCarthy era, depicts a journalistic climate fraught with tension. Free speech has been sidelined by news organizations' fear the government and journalists' fear of being branded communists — a label that killed many careers.
Against this background, "Good Night" tells the story of broadcast journalist Edward R. Murrow's (played by David Strathairn) fight against Senator Joseph McCarthy during the Red Scare. By using his television program as a pulpit, Murrow attempts to curtail the notorious senator's witch-hunt. In opposing McCarthy, Murrow put his reputation and career on the line.
Beyond the dramatic historical backdrop, "Good Night" is notable for director Clooney's simple but innovative direction. Many historical films fail to maintain a sense of authenticity as they portray larger-than-life figures of an era. But Clooney avoids this by splicing in actual news footage coverage of McCarthy. He also shot the movie in black and white to give the film the aesthetic look of the era. It's not the stylized black and white of this year's "Sin City," but a very sterile, monochromatic picture, which helps immerse the viewer in one of America's dark chapters.
Strathairn brings a quiet outrage to Murrow's personality. Nowhere is the actor's fatigued anger more effective than when he is pitching a story about an Air Force pilot who was thrown out of the military because his father read a Serbian newspaper. With his shoulders slouched and his arms at his side, he looks like a man who has reached the end of his patience.
Clooney, however, as the producer of Murrow's show, seems locked into the signature style and old habits that typify most of his cinematic roles. He's the same Clooney we saw in the Ocean's Eleven films and "E.R."; while a passable performance, it never reaches the level of the rest of the cast.
Actor Ray Wise's remarkable performance contributes much to the emotional intensity of the film. Wise plays David Hollenback, a fellow broadcaster who has been torn apart by slanderous reports in the publications of newspaper mogul William Randolph Hearst. Hollenback is called "Pinko" and labeled a communist sympathizer, effectively becoming the paper's whipping boy. Whereas the rest of the characters only fear the looming presence of McCarthy's hysteria, Hollenback is directly affected by it. Wise's performance allows the audience to see how emotionally devastating the Red Scare was to those who were unjustly attacked.
One area in which script is lacking is in the way it incorporates humor into the otherwise serious proceedings. While there are genuinely funny moments of dialog, Clooney falls a bit flat when he tries to use TV footage to show the clash between the '50s and modern culture. Clooney's direction, moreover, is sometimes very slow-paced.
But "Good Night, and Good Luck" is effective in vividly recreating a time long past, a time when broadcast journalism still bared its teeth. It's a film with innovatively simple yet effective direction that feels, for the most part, like a movie from the era depicted. Most of all, it's a powerful story that still feels relevant even today.
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