Good Night, and Good Luck

Released 2005
Stars David Strathairn, Robert Downey Jr., Patricia Clarkson, Ray Wise, Frank Langella, Jeff Daniels, George Clooney
Directed by George Clooney

"Good Night, and Good Luck" is a movie about a group of professional newsmen who with surgical precision remove a cancer from the body politic. They believe in the fundamental American freedoms, and in Sen. Joseph McCarthy they see a man who would destroy those freedoms in the name of defending them. Because McCarthy is a liar and a bully, surrounded by yes-men, recklessly calling his opponents traitors, he commands great power for a time. He destroys others with lies, and then is himself destroyed by the truth.

The instrument of his destruction is Edward R. Murrow, a television journalist above reproach, whose radio broadcasts from London led to a peacetime career as the most famous newsman in the new medium of television. Murrow is offended by McCarthy. He makes bold to say so, and why. He is backed by his producers and reporters, and supported by the leadership of his network, CBS, even though they lose sponsors, and even though McCarthy claims Murrow himself is a member of a subversive organization.

Summary by Roger Ebert

The focus of this movie is different than I expected. I thought it was going to be about McCarthy's rise and fall, but it's really about the CBS news department that helped bring him down. I personally didn't find this side's story as interesting as I think McCarthy's would have been, but it's interesting as a no-frills, backstage document of Murrow's efforts in bringing down an un-American bully who destroyed many people and created a nationwide climate of fear for his own personal gain. The movie has strong parallels to today where we have the Bush administration that has created another climate of fear for their own political gain. I don't believe Bush would have been re-elected (by the slimmest of margins) if his administration had not created the color-coded terror alerts and strategically used them throughout the 2004 campaign. The administration is also similar to McCarthy in the way they routinely accuse their critics of 1) being unpatriotic and 2) providing aid and comfort to our enemies. The White House, including the President and Vice President themselves, even went as far as leaking the name of an undercover CIA agent in an attempt to discredit her husband, who was criticizing the Bush administration's reasons for wanting to invade Iraq. The character in this administration that most closely resembles McCarthy is Karl Rove, but he chooses to pull the puppet strings from the background instead of holding public hearings like McCarthy. All of this resonates (or should) as you watch this movie and realize how little history changes through the generations. The other thing to notice is how little the state of television has changed. The movie is quite effective in arguing about the effects of television programming that's used to lull people to sleep instead of educating them. While this is true, it's also true the general public, including myself, desires mindless entertainment. There's nothing wrong with that, but we should also have news programs like Nightline (we miss you Ted Koppel) and Murrow's See It Now that discuss issues quietly and in depth. Instead, we have blowhards  like Bill O'Reilly shouting at people and disguising it as news. --Bill Alward, May 8, 2006