FINAL CUT: Good Night Goes Gently

After a productive visit to Bed, Bath & Beyond, the wife and I wandered over to our old friend, the Landmark Century Cinema. The thought that a movie might be nice did cross the mind, and a flick that interested both of us was on the marquee. But having been foiled in our previous attempt to make our pick the back half of a double feature with Sarah Silverman, we were taking no chances. Good Night, and Good Luck starts in half-an-hour? Let’s motor.

Good Night, and Good Luck is the kind of movie I frequently look forward to. Recent history dramatized, a battle over the ideals of America...it’s the kind of thing I can usually only find in TV movies (Home Box Office, everybody, let's hear it), although every now and then a film like Thirteen Days will do the trick. In fact, one such movie, HBO’s Murrow, touched on this very same subject: namely, CBS news anchor Edward R. Murrow’s efforts to expose the underhanded tactics of anti-communist Senator Joseph McCarthy. It’s a thrilling story, a David and Goliath tale.

And Good Night, and Good Luck has next to no interest in telling that story.

A film about Murrow's efforts to expose McCarthy for the bully and exploiter that he was would have to deal with the difficulty of swaying public opinion, and the looming fear of communism that gripped the country and allowed the government to stomp on civil liberties without reproach. Aside from a brief opening scroll to set the scene, Good Night, and Good Luck takes it on faith that our heroes are right, the villain is wrong, and proceeds to lay out a case that we've already been sold.

The first indication that there isn't going to be a battle over McCarthy's tactics is the decision to portray the senator using actual film clips of the man in action. In a way, it's a canny choice, because there is a tendency to believe such an outsized character could not have possibly existed. It's a nice tip of the cap to authenticity. But because McCarthy isn't portrayed, but rather inserted, there's no opportunity for him to assert himself as a character, or for his actions to develop as a threat to Murrow and CBS. He's a paper tiger, and his eventual fate is assured.

To be clear, I'm not saying we have to see "the real Joe McCarthy" for balance or anything like that. He just has no dimension, conveys no danger. In college, I was in a playwriting class with a woman who kept writing dull one-acts based on Bible stories. We tried in vain to convince her that the reason her plays were so boring was that we never for a moment doubted that the good guys would win. There was no threat other than what she told us was a threat. We did not succeed in convincing her. Unfortunately, I think she went on to write this.

Actually, the script was turned out by George Clooney (who also directed and co-starred) and Grant Heslov (who produced), and as much as I respect their efforts, it couldn't have been very hard. The movie consists largely of re-enactments of Murrow's See It Now broadcasts, in which he lays out the case against McCarthy. These re-creations are almost bittersweet in the manner in which Murrow bend over backwards to appear unbiased (for example, begging permission to read from a script). But there's not much telling us what went into these progams. Staffers watch film, and hurriedly run around demanding more time for a clip. But as fasr as what anybody on the news staff is thinking about these shows, that remains a mystery.

There are a couple nods to the interior lives of the characters, but they're surprisingly off-point. A subplot concerning the insecure anchor Don Hollenbeck (a waxy Ray Wise) seems designed to suggest that pressures from right-wing ideologues pushed him to the brink, but the idea is given short shrift. There's also the ongoing pressure felt by two reporters, Joe and Shirley Wershba (Robert Downey, Jr. and Patricia Clarkson, two fine actors underused here), but their biggest worry has nothing to do with communism or witch hunts. No, they're worried that their secret marriage (in violation of network policy) will be discovered. In short, they have nothing whatsoever to do with our main story. The film is deliberately wasting our time.

Faring best is David Strathairn, who is forced to provide all of his characterization of Murrow as subtext to his cool, ready-for-broadcast exterior. The performance is all in the little touches, and Strathairn has those down cold. A wryly raised eyebrow at the conclusion of a broadcast says more about Murrow's state of mind than pages of dialogue. A scene of intense discomfort as he stifles his pride to interview Liberace is amusing, and points to a larger theme the film seems to want to tackle.


And what is theme? If Clooney and Heslov aren't interested in the story of how Murrow nabbed McCarthy, then what is their point? In fact, they appear much more concerned with the tale of how strong reporting was shoved out by paranoid advertisers and fickle audiences. That thesis is made evident in the film's framing device, a speech made by Murrow several years later in which he excoriates the television industry for forsaking the public interest. It's a speech of hollow irony, because the bleak television landscape of 1958 sounds exactly like the one we have in 2006.

The struggle for the soul of news is a plot that Good Night, and Good Luck tells much better, and I think that's because of the presence of a strong antagonist in CBS chairman William S. Paley, played with dry majesty by Frank Langella. (Remember when he was in Dracula? Not relevant here. I'm just saying.) In Paley, we get the antagonist we're missing in McCarthy, because we see what Murrow and producer Fred Friendly (played by Clooney) are up against. Paley supports news, and is proud of the department's achievements. But he also finds himself in situations where he can't afford to be principled, and Langella provides the moral complexity the film needs so badly.

And here's where it all falls apart. The only way Murrow can triumph over Paley, in the minds of an audience, is to see how vitally important it is for him to triumph over McCarthy. The two stories are most definitely intertwined. But with no sense of struggle, no feeling for the smallness of Murrow's David and the hugeness of McCarthy's Goliath, then there are no stakes for the showdown with Paley. It's true, you can't have your cake and eat it, too. But you also can't eat it if you never had it.

I’m still struggling with how disappointed I am in this movie. It's beautifully shot in stark black & white. And the era is captured with great care, not least in the copious amounts of cigarette smoke that fill every frame. (The film lingers for a long time on a cigarette commercial, just in case you missed it.) But in the end, after you take away the spot-on re-creations of significant moments in television history, and you take away the musical numbers by Dianne Reeves serving as commentary, you aren't left with much of a movie. Good Night, and Good Luck relies very heavily on its echoes in current events, but it never takes the time to show them as anything more than coincidences. Edward R. Murrow may be a cassandra for our time, but Clooney and Heslov give him little more to say than that the sky is falling. And when you look up, it's a bright, sunshine-y day.