THE MINUTE YOU WALKED IN THE JOINT, I CAN SEE YOU WERE A MAN OF DISTINCTION


Good Night, and Good Luck is by far the best film we've seen since we got here.

You might want to know what it's all about and I will start off by telling you what it's not about.

The setting is the United States in 1953, specifically in the tv newsroom of CBS, at a time when tv broadcasting was in its infancy and responsible, investigative reporting was being given birth to. Everything about it was trying to define itself, and consequently, was up for grabs. The legendary figure, Edward Murrow, anchor of the popular news broadcast, See it Now, and his team of dedicated crew, were on a lone crusade of setting the standard on television documentation, young and new in their careers but ever so clear on their aims and motives nonetheless.

So was it about broadcast journalism? Well, I'd say that was the medium but no, that's not it.

Central to the plot is the US political arena at the time which was beset with confusion and paranoia as everybody was fair game to then Senator Joseph McCarthy of Wisconsin, in his campaign to rid the country of communists. Murrow did a story on the plight of one US Air Force reservist who, he suspected, was declared guilty without trial for being a security risk and was thus kicked out of service. Having done this, it couldn't have been possible for Murrow to make himself more conspicuous to McCarthy and this, of course, had repercussions affecting not only himself but his colleagues, the network and their sponsors as well. A war between the two men ensues, embelished with carefully measured albeit strongly potent words veering close to character defamation. It was interesting to see how each man kept their vitriols in check vis a vis sending unmistakable statements of challenge to prove each other's account erroneous. A few battles were won and victories celebrated. These, however, did not end the war.

So was this about politics, or at least a demonstration on how people in the government can very easily play with public consciousness? Not really. If we were talking about baking a cake, this would have been merely the icing.

Personally, I think 'Good Night, and Good Luck' is a movie about coming out clean, of keeping no ghosts in the closet, and of having a clear grasp of what one believes in and of not mincing words to get that conviction across. It's about not cowering when the going gets tough, about going out on a limb for the battles one chooses to fight, and of not letting personal loyalties get in the way of one's ability, and propensity, to do the right thing.

It's about integrity.

I could end here, except I need to talk about the cinematography. Production designer, Jim Bissell and Director of Photography, Robert Elswit did an amazing job in setting the film at the time and place it was purported to have occurred. I don't think they resorted to anything radically innovative... film it in black and white, have the men and women wear clothes of the era's fashion, rig up the whole set in either wood, leather or chrome, make everybody smoke everywhere everytime, play dixieland jazz in the background, cut the men's hair short and clean and make every lady sport a perm and you have it, the 1950s in situ. I was half-expecting Humphrey Bogart's face to flash on the screen until George Clooney and Robert Downey, Jr. came in and I realized this was a film cut in my generation. It was that real.

Like I said, it was about integrity.