Film Review: Good Night, and Good Luck

[major_clanger]

Good Night, and Good Luck (2005).

Short - only ninety minutes, and it feels less - and presented in black and white to match the extensive use of archive footage, Good Night, and Good Luck is a powerful account of how veteran CBS broadcaster Edward R Murrow took on Senator Joe McCarthy and, to a lesser extent, the commercial and political anxieties of his own network bosses. Although there is never any actual on-screen confrontation between the two, with Murrow's critical report on McCarthy being followed by archive footage of McCarthy's disastrous attempt at a rebuttal, the tension is nonetheless palpable. David Strathairn conveys Murrow's anger at the compromises he sees the new medium of television making; his feelings not only provide the bedrock of his integrity, but seem to push his determination into arrogance as he tells CBS chief executive Bill Paley that the news department is what defines CBS. Whilst taking a few liberties with timing - CBS News's sponsors did not pull out until a year after the McCarthy exposé - it still provides an enthralling account of one of broadcast news's great journalistic triumphs.