Ray Pride

"Good Night, and Good Luck." is a perfect, small thumbprint, a modest venture that adroitly captures a flickering moment of courage by a clutch of broadcast journalists against the backdrop of the most fearsome abuses of 1950s governmental power, notably incorporating extensive archival footage of Wisconsin Senator Joseph "I have here in my hand a list of 205 people" McCarthy.

Director and co-writer, co-star, co-producer George Clooney grew up the son of a television broadcaster whose hero was Edward R. Murrow, the CBS broadcaster who gained gravitas from his 1940s radio broadcasts from the London Blitz and took on the powerful in his 1950s series, "See It Now." Clooney and co-writer Grant Heslov worked as much as possible from the historical record, multiplying sourcing content so that their black-and-white venture could not be called "revisionist." Bleating bullies who work from contempt, lies and heedless fabrication, fifty years on, remain a dime a dozen, such as the bullying entertainer Anne Coulter, a stalwart defender of McCarthy, his tactics and many other things authoritarian (along with advocating the murder of journalists). This sleek, accomplished slice of reconstructed history, focusing on the preparation for a handful of television shows, is canny about co-workers' facades in the office, but also about what journalists and artists ought to do.

David Straitharn is a marvelous actor, and his rich habitation of Murrow through professional gestures alone--almost none of the film's figures have even a flicker of a personal life indicated--is one of the year's most richly imagined. (One of the others is Philip Seymour Hoffman's Capote, in another journalism-oriented tragedy also opening this week.) Talking to Straitharn recently, I noted some journalists wanted the "politics" of "Good Night..." to be explicit, rather than a story being told. "Somebody's already said it's `a liberal feel-good movie.' But what's amazing is that Edward R. Murrow wrote two-fifths of this film!" Straitharn says, laughing. As an example of when an artist shouldn't have to explain, he jokes, "I just painted a painting about `Guernica.'" The 56-year-old actor believes Clooney's intent was primarily to capture a historical instant that fascinated him.

"Good Night..." is framed by a speech Murrow gave in 1958 to the Radio and Television Director's Association. "What he was saying, it's uncanny. `We cannot defend freedom abroad by denying it at home'; `We will not walk in fear of one another'; `It will be a dark day in American broadcasting when those who have the most money dictate the discussion in the marketplace of ideas.' All of these things he was [predicting] have sort of come to pass," Straitharn says.

There's one scowling close-up of McCarthy's aide, Roy Cohn, scowling that freezes the blood. And any of the shots of McCarthy, wheezing, wheedling are fearsome as well, but McCarthy has his defenders today. "Yeah," Straitharn says, looking sad, "'He was a great American and Edward R. Murrow was a traitor.'"

Straitharn's performance is not an impersonation. He's captured the cadences, the righteousness without being theatrical or stentorian. It wasn't bullying, it was, "I've seen something, but within boundaries, I am offended, sir." "It's right for you to bring that up," he tells me, "because that was the most important thing to effect, that underneath this very professional objective and clear, corroborated presentation of what was happening was what I think, and this is just musing, started in London and after he went to Birkenau [concentration camp]. When he came back to the States after the war, there was a sea change in his soul. That drove him through the fifties and into the McCarthy thing. You see all these pictures of him before, beautifully styled and dressed, out there smiling in society. And then the pictures of him when he came back... he was often called `The Prince of Doom' around CBS studios, or `The Man Who Wears the Crown of Thorns.' It was just that this guy was... angsted-out!"

There are a number of shots, at the end of scenes, where the camera is low on Straitharn, a traditional "hero" perspective--we are small and look up at the gods--but once the television camera is off, there's a beat that's held consistently. I wonder how two actors, a director who's an actor directing an actor, talks about what goes on in that silent moment. He doesn't seem fearful but he doesn't seem stoic. It's not a "Woe-is-me, oh I fucked this up," there's something in between.

"That's funny. I know what you mean," Straitharn says. "George would leave the camera going. A lot. At the end of a lot of the scenes knowing that he could find something. He probably learned that not only from watching his own stuff over the years and other directors who he's respected and admired. But I think he knows that actors don't stop if allowed. `Cut!' is `cut' sometimes but the scene is never over in this film."

"Good Night, and Good Luck." opens Friday.

(2005-10-18)

Also by Ray Pride

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Determined to prove she's not just another pretty set of hipbones, Keira Knightley is game and glittering at the center of Tony Scott's "Domino"
(2005-10-11)

Old Kentucky home
Constructed around several large set pieces, Cameron Crowe again tinkers with tone in "Elizabethtown"
(2005-10-11)

Tip of the Week
For those who love their work, I recommend it heartily
(2005-10-04)

Bruised
David Cronenberg makes the kind of smart movies that make me stupid-happy, but all the explication in the world is not making every person I know happy after they've gone to "A History of Violence" on my recommendation
(2005-10-04)

The picture gets small
(2005-10-04)

Oliver's Twist
(2005-09-27)

Tip of the Week
(2005-09-27)

Tip of the Week
(2005-09-20)

Family way
(2005-09-20)

Arms and the Man
(2005-09-13)

Tip of the Week
(2005-09-13)

Sympathy for the possessed
(2005-09-06)

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