Irish Film Institute -GOOD NIGHT, AND GOOD LUCK

GOOD NIGHT, AND GOOD LUCK

Director: GEORGE CLOONEY

93 minutes| U.S.A.-France-U.K.-Japan| 2005| Black and White| 35mm


George Clooney is an actor who uses his box-office pull to help finance projects close to his heart. Such is the case here: a reconstruction of the principled public stand taken by TV presenter and journalist Ed Murrow against Senator McCarthy in 1954 which contributed to the latter’s fall from grace. The newsroom reconstruction is skilfully integrated with contemporary newsreel that will culminate in Joseph N. Welch’s classic rebuke to the Senator, ‘Have you no sense of decency, sir?’ (Welch was to be rewarded for that with the role of the Judge in Preminger’s Anatomy of a Murder.) David Strathairn is superb as Murrow, suggesting a rock-like integrity behind the dry and civilised demeanour. A reminder of a fearful time when moral courage was at a premium, the film’s observations on the sanctity of habeas corpus, the responsibilities of television journalism, and the battle between media ethics and commerce seem more relevant than ever.<

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