Download Good Night, and Good Luck
(drama, history)
In the early 1950's, the threat of Communism created an air of paranoia in the United States and exploiting those fears was Senator 'Joseph McCarthy (II)' (qv) of Wisconsin. However, CBS reporter 'Edward R. Murrow (I)' (qv) and his producer 'Fred W. Friendly' (qv) decided to take a stand and challenge McCarthy and expose him for the fear monger he was. However, their actions took a great personal toll on both men, but they stood by their convictions and helped to bring down one of the most controversial senators in American history.
actors:
| David Strathairn | as Edward R. Murrow |
| Robert Downey Jr. | as Joe Wershba |
| Patricia Clarkson | as Shirley Wershba |
| Ray Wise | as Don Hollenbeck |
| Frank Langella | as William Paley |
| Jeff Daniels | as Sig Mickelson |
| George Clooney | as Fred Friendly |
| Tate Donovan | as Jesse Zousmer |
| Thomas McCarthy | as Palmer Williams |
| Matt Ross | as Eddie Scott |
| Reed Diamond | as John Aaron |
| Robert John Burke | as Charlie Mack |
| Grant Heslov | as Don Hewitt |
| Alex Borstein | as Natalie |
| Rose Abdoo | as Millie Lerner |
George Clooney
rating:7.80
The film is not - as some have suggested - wrongly portray McCarthy
as sub-human monster. His presentation of McCarthy is limited strictly to
thread of history and never hesitate to do so
name calling or character assassination. This is particularly striking given
MCarthy who was a well-seasoned alcoholic and
clearly suffered from a narcissistic personality disorder. He is ripe for parody
because his eccentricities were so pronounced, but this movie is
significantly, even with their hands on the senator of the facts and behaviour. There are neither
allusions to his unusual friendship with Roy Cohn, whose
notorious private homosexual relations with G. David Schin
McCarthy eventually led to the insane accusation that the Army was infested with Communists
. Some have even suggested that McCarthy was not strange to
gay trysts. All this might have made of an explosive - and typical
- "Hollywood" and the film would have been propaganda, shallow
and simply. Instead Clooney has made an intelligent, persuasive,
just mind-film about ethics, high quality and integrity.
The brilliance of George Clooney "Good Night and Good Luck" is in
is very tight (almost claustrophobia-inducing) evocation of early 1950
news of the study with all clean-cut white button-down guys (
the few women tend to get their hands messages sent to) with their horn-rimmed glasses and bottles
of Scotch and his ubiquitous cigarette.
There is a lot of smoke wafting around that becomes the element in
role that these kids, like the water in an aquarium. Clooney
did not need to pound point of origin to show the ad
Kent cigarettes, but I did get a chuckle out of it. The mixture of nicotine and
palpable testosterone boosts the news to his crew
fateful piece by Senator Joe McCarthy who, for all we know beforehand,
may be the cliff on which their lives and careers plunge. Clooney
has impressed me enormously with its ability to maintain this great
whole cast (including himself, not as the "star") in rhythm. I avoided his
"Confessions of a dangerous mind" (my having to fill "
Gong Show" new kid in the seventies), but I look forward to their future efforts
address. D. Strathairn is quietly masterful as Edward R.
Murrow, I look forward to being disappointed when the Academy snubs him
for an Oscar nomination. The comparison between the fight against communism crusade
and then counter-terrorism crusade now is nothing more than
made available to be seen, not as trumpeted to the skies. The line
"dissent is not disloyalty" sums it up clearly.
Given the "Night" does so well, it seems almost churlish of me to mention
some things that does not and probably could have done without disrupting
is artistic confines. I personally would have liked
a sense of how the "Red scare" permeated the population as a whole;
Cedric Belfrage I would recommend the book "The Inquisition in americas" which includes annual
" fever cards "detailing that in 1953 the city of
Moscow, Idaho demanded that the capital of the Soviet Union is the change
name, or when citizens in Wisconsin were asked" What is a communist "
responses included "A thief, I suppose" or "A person who wants war."
1954 a woman has legally changed his name from Allred to
Allgood and a high school in Idaho removed the word "comrade" of the school song.
Sound a little silly? Does anyone remember that "freedom fried" recently? Also
which has been a big bite to chew if "Night" has made the point that
"Tailgunner Joe" was essentially a figurehead.
Himself had little interest in communism until he became a ticket to fame, he got more than
its owner-grabbing tidbits from the American Reichsfuehrer J.
Edgar Hoover (McCarthy was a frequent guest on Hoover's private box at the racecourse
local) and was tolerated by General Eisenhower until
"goes too far" and denounced the army as "Pink." ( "Night"
mentions several real people whose names were besmirched, but not the main
Irving Peress, the "pink dentist, whose family received threatening letters and
telephone calls and rocks through their windows. "Night" just barely
clues to the anti-Semitic background to the phobia,
which culminated in the "public burning" of the Rosenbergs to "give
bomb "on the basis of evidence that laughed in most courts
today.) After McCarthy was allowed to" twist in the wind "and drinks himself to
death, Hoover continued with its police-state activities
other allies, but never heard anything about this until the "Watergate".
Read "The Boss" Athan Theoharis and John S. Cox
for the whole sordid story.
By all means see "Night" that deserves a ton of credit for
get people thinking about this again, if nothing else. By the way, beware of
revisionists like Ann Coulter claiming that McCarthy was validated by
"venon Project," the secret program to intercept and decipher
Soviet diplomatic telegrams. Only a fraction of the cables were decoded
(some only partially) and its meaning is still debated by scholars. (The Soviets appeared to
had two sources within the Manhattan Project,
"Quantum" and "people" who are still unidentified.) Claiming, as
Coulter, that "hundreds of agents of a hostile foreign power is
working for the U.S. government "is the sort of logical leap
much favored by the extreme right…. no matter where it lands.
wish that "Night" had ended with a brief text mentioning Murrow,
a true American hero, died of lung cancer, thus completing the
source of cigarettes. I am sure that would have allowed ruefully that there
also, "the fault lies not within our stars but in ourselves…"
Download Good Night, and Good Luck
See also: Drama: King Kong
See also: David Strathairn in Bourne Ultimatum, The
See also Drama P.S. I Love You
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