Word: murrow
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Edward R. Murrow had a great voice--a sincere and authoritative baritone. His speech was formal and literate. He was a liberal in the great American tradition--less an ideologue than a champion of fair play and common decency. The first thought you have, watching Good Night, and Good Luck in the age of Limbaugh and O'Reilly, is one of intense nostalgia. By the standards of modern television--or even television in his time--Ed Murrow was an imposing figure...
Disappointingly, director George Clooney's movie about Murrow is, at best, unimposing. Focusing on Murrow's conflict with Senator Joseph McCarthy, whose campaign against an alleged domestic communist conspiracy redefined (at least until recently) political cynicism in the U.S., Murrow (well enough played by David Strathairn) becomes in the film a chain smoker in a suit, making pretty, unexceptionable speeches in support of the First Amendment. They are unshadowed by doubt or fear or, indeed, any sense of what made Murrow and his producer, Fred Friendly (whom Clooney plays), such virtuously embattled figures. The movie's appeal...
...Good Night, and Good Luck” proceeds to treat that malady by bombarding viewers with the strongest dose of unsettling history that Clooney can fit into 93 minutes. The anxious tone intensifies as the film flashes back to 1953, where Murrow and his colleagues at CBS have just been pressured into signing loyalty oaths in order to keep their jobs...
...that is, except the superhuman Murrow, who uses his position as the face of CBS’ popular “See it Now” news broadcast to air McCarthy’s abuses to millions of viewers. His fastidiously fact-checked exposes are rewarded by all-too-familiar accusations of bias, but as played by Strathairn, Murrow is far too hard-boiled to crack under such intimidation tactics...
...newsroom presents a considerably more noble alternate reality, though an equally chaotic one. Its reporters are constantly being hassled by intruders—managerial types with their eyes on the bottom line, jingoistic pundits, and dunderheaded military commanders who demand to review footage before it is broadcast. Watching Murrow and producer Fred W. Friendly (played by Clooney) fearlessly rebuff these would-be defilers of the fourth estate is enough to make a college journalist break a sweat...