Good Night, and Good Luck
AroView: An astutely-judged freezeframe of an important symbolic moment in 20th century American history, when CBS television presenter Edward Murrow (played here by David Strathairn) took on the infamously muckraking US senator Joseph McCarthy in the Cold War 1950s.
Shooting in lustrous black-and-white, director George Clooney concentrates mainly on the backroom network debates and paranoia, as Murrow prepares his challenge to McCarthy’s ‘witchhunt’ for suspected Communists, goaded and advised by his more cautious colleagues. Injecting a touch of genuine menace is the use of actual 1953 newsreels of McCarthy in action as he publicly demolishes his various victims in true ‘kangaroo court’ fashion. It’s an elegant treatise on moral courage and an effective riposte to the pervading shallowness of contemporary media.
Cast
David Strathairn , George Clooney , Patricia Clarkson , Jeff Daniels , Robert Downey Jnr. , Frank Langella
Director
Language
English
Country
USA
Studio
Icon
