Good Night, and Good Luck

[Ginger]

I was thinking about his fight with Hard Copy. You cannot compare the ethics of Hard Copy to Murrow, but you also cannot say that the rules for one news outlet may not be applied to another. Either everyone gets the right and forum to report on what they consider news, or nobody does.

But George never wanted to take away Hard Copy's right to report on anything. He denounced their tactics and said that he would no longer appear on Paramount's sister show Entertainment Tonight as long as Hard Copy was harassing him, and persuaded his celebrity friends to do the same. After Diana's death, his stance was always about denouncing/boycotting stalkerazzi, not doing anything that interfered with freedom of the press.

[orchidthief]

I'm very liberal... especially when it comes to the protection of the press and the preposterous Red Scare (Communism may not be the answer, but our country's hysteria to anything NOT capitalism is ethnocentric, and seriously, pathetic.)

I just wanna point this out to anyone who has seen this film: Not all liberals are as simpleminded as Clooney.

This is the kinda rhetoric you would teach a kid in elementary school.

[Wol]

orchidthief said:

This is the kinda rhetoric you would teach a kid in elementary school.

And the quality of filmmaking talent you would see at the undergrad level.

[tydomin]

Whew.

Just saw this film this afternoon, and I admire the bravery of sending this one out in the present political climate. I like the cool, jazzy feel it sustains, though it's possible to question the mix of stock footage of actual people (McCarthy) alongside actors playing Murrow, Fred Friendly & Bill Paley. But then it strikes me that for many in the audience, when they see the actual Joe McCarthy, they'll think it's an actor. This is very distant history for the public at large.

What counts is the clear and present parallel between THEN and NOW. And may I add: it is a satisfying, entertaining film, as well.

[Wol]

tydomin said:

But then it strikes me that for many in the audience, when they see the actual Joe McCarthy, they'll think it's an actor.

Hee - you are correct. George said that people have asked him who the actor is that plays McCarthy and that he should be given an Oscar push for Best Supporting Actor!!

[Deleted]

George said that people have asked him who the actor is that plays McCarthy and that he should be given an Oscar push for Best Supporting Actor!!

Off topic but that reminds me of when my friend and I went to see The Insider and he came out of the theater saying "Wow, Mike Wallace has quite a pair of balls to play himself like that." He didn't realize it was Christopher Plummer and I sort of didn't want to correct him.

I really liked GNaGL. I have to admit that I only know the basics about the whole "Red Scare" and most of that relates to the Hollywood side of things so I wasn't sitting there correcting assumptions in my head or getting upset because they left out or changed key information. I enjoyed it as a well-paced film with some interesting parallels with today's situation and great performances (although Clooney underused Patricia Clarkson and Robert Downey Jr., imo).

[heavenwithagun]

tydomin said:

I admire the bravery of sending this one out in the present political climate.

Absolutely.

The film was compact, sylish and made its point, the bravery of those men in that climate and the pressure that was brought to bear on them. If Paley hadn't been so hands-off, our history might be different. But, the bad guys never quit, they are back in spades.

There are no real parallels to the bravery in the news today and I think that Clooney doing this in art form, as opposed to his making speeches, is not really cramming his agenda down our throats, but is equally as brave.

[JeanBean]

Saw it last night and was disappointed. I love George, but he hasn't gotten a good handle on directing/storytelling yet.

For a movie built around an incredibly dramatic situtation, there was almost no drama at all! I didn't get a good sense of the danger they all faced by taking on McCarthy; all of the big news (about the army kid or McCarthy coming on the show or the Senate turning on McCarthy) was delivered in an almost offhanded way; the secondary plots were so weak as to be meaningless.

I'm suprised that most of the press I've read talks about the intent of the film, and not about the entertainment value. If I'd known it was going to be like a PBS special, I probably would still have seen it, but at least I would've been prepared.

[slanderous]

Maybe it's because I know a lot of journos, but I found the dramatic tension palpable in the CBS newsroom. The ones I know all just seize up or make terribly inappropriate jokes when they're facing deadlines or crises, so the CBS newsroom seemed quite familiar. Clooney seemed to me to be framing the film in a lot of tight, claustrophobic shots so the effect was much more subtle than, say, the sort of handicam shots running along a track shakily to show Drama! Drama! Drama! in the Newsroom! Which is a valid directing decision, too, but I thought it worked well for Good Night, and Good Luck to stay away from the frenetic pacing.

[marywebgirl]

I saw this on Saturday and I pretty much agree with everyone here -- OK, but I'd prefer to see a documentary about it than a half ass dramatic interpretation.

I did think it was cute that every time they needed a podunk middle-American city they used Cincinnati. Way to slip the shout-outs in George!