Oscar Fever - Good Night and Good Luck

Bit by the oscar bug, I am on a crazy drive to see all the Oscar nominated movies. Completed so far, Crash, Good Night and Good Luck and Brokeback Mountain. So, here are the reviews for these movies.

Good Night and Good Luck

Directed by renowned actor, George Clooney, it tells the story of two journalist's altercation against Joseph McCarthy, an US Senator who was infamous for his drive against communists.

This is not a movie which can be liked by everybody nor is made to please everybody. To enjoy this movie, one should
1) Be an ardent movie fan, with enough appreciation for direction, acting, screenplay and other arts associated with a movie
2) Be knowledgeable about US history, especially about Joe McCarthy and his Red Scare.
3) Be able to enjoy a dialogue-oriented movie with nil or minimal action.

In layman terms, this looks more like a documentary than a movie. Based on true events happening around 1954, the movie is about Ed Murrow, a journalist for CBS who disliked the way Joe McCarthy acted against Communists. Joe McCarthy eploited the prevailing post-war Communist fear and rallied against the communists mercilessly. He would brand people as a communist without evidence and prosecute them. Anyone opposing him would automatically be branded as a communist too. Even then, Ed Murrow started a news show against him, aware of the dangers he would face. Even the channel and sponsors would stand against Ed during this time. How effective his campaign was forms the basis of the movie.

The best part of the movie is that nobody plays Joe McCarthy. Instead actual footages of McCarthy's speech and his rebuttal to Ed Murrow are used. Even the news items of people condemned by McCarthy appear as actual footages. The only actors in the movie are the journalists, channel people and few others. Clooney has blended the footages effectively in the movie. Not to say that the entire movie is in Black and White

The movie basically makes us think (in Ed Murrow's words) about the use of television as a tool to emphasise the reality of the world we live in rather than as an entertainment machine.This is best summaried by a line Murrow's speech when he says about Television, "This instrument can teach, it can illuminate; yes, and it can even inspire, but it can do so only to the extent that humans are determined to use it to those ends. Otherwise it is merely wires and lights in a box"