Good Night, and Good Luck.

Beautifully photgraphed, this movie. The imagery, the lighting, very obviously an homage to the studio films of the 40s and 50s. It's visually rooted in the era it takes place in, which I dig. The visuals pack a punch, but the story doesn't hit hard enough. I don't want to sound crude, but for a film made with the intention of riling people up about the current state of the media, it's not visceral enough to really deliver the gut punch it ought to. The actual original source footage of McCarthy and his ridiculous crusade are the most agitating things in the film, but removed of Edward R. Murrow's actual broadcasts, the stuff that should hit hard doesn't manage to as much as it should. Which isn't to say David Straitharn doesn't deliver a great performance as Murrow, just that I don't see why he had to. I saw the original Murrow broadcasts within the context of a documentary a few months ago and remember that hitting much harder than this film. The film is so centered around the news room, and single-minded in its location and focus that it fails to evoke the feeling that Murrow is at war, too peaceful and incidental to give the central conflict any real tension.

While the visuals of the film are firmly rooted in a more classical style, the camera itself switches between more static image to movements very reminiscent of the American cinema of the 60s and 70s, which I think is a good launching point, at least in terms of intent, for the film, but it immediately brings to mind All the President's Men for me, which renders the film fairly unnecessary. That movie says a lot of the same things this film does about the ideal purpose of our media, and does so more effectively.

So far, I prefer the subject matter of Good Night, and Good Luck. in the form of a documentary and in the form of a movie from the 70s. Both, while not entirely esoteric, certainly not a part of the mainstream at this point. So the next conclusion I come to, then, is that Clooney, while aware of the fact that this is well-worn territory, felt strongly enough about saying what he's saying in this film that he made it as a sort of populist exercise, knowing full well that a lot of people don't want to watch old movies or documentaries. But then why shoot this in alienating black and white? Am I just talking nonsense at this point? I feel as if I might be coming off as shallow or dismissive right now, possibly even ignorant, but these were some of the things that occurred to me as I was watching this film and I figure I ought to put them down here.

I also didn't really see the point of the subplot of the married couple.

It's unfortunate that, despite its lofty ambitions, Good Night, and Good Luck. is just a moderately enjoyable, yet disappointingly insubstantial and unnecessary, film.