Robeco Filmdag: Good Night, and Good Luck.

Good Night, And Good Luck. (with full stop) is more than a meticulously made and beautifully acted black & white drama about the confrontation between Communist-hunting senator Joseph E. McCarthy and the rather staid news icon of CBS, Edward R. Murrow. The latter did not imitate his frightened, silent colleagues, but kept on searching for the facts with his ‘See It Now’ programme team. In today’s ‘United States of Amnesia’, as criticaster Gore Vidal refers to his country, an (off-)Hollywood film that holds up a moral mirror in a realistic and modest way to the media and politics is a unique relief, and a warning. The choice to let McCarthy play himself is brilliant: any actor playing him accurately would be accused of over-acting; this much is clear from the archive footage of the fulminating politician. Most of the action is set behind the lively and slightly anarchistic editorial desks, where the number of cigarettes smoked now counts as an historic detail and the general paranoia of the time was kept at bay by camaraderie and sharp dialogues. The film also pays homage to Clooney’s father, who worked for television in the mid-twentieth century; the medium that Murrow suggested threw away its reputation under political and commercial pressure, and is used ‘to distract, delude, amuse and insulate us’. (GT)