Good Night and Good Luck

 Good Night, And Good Luck 

The movie we watched during our last class was phenomenal. There were several reasons why I thought that this film was good.

 

          One of the reasons why this film stood out to me was that it was filmed in mostly black and white, it focused strictly on those few months in 1954, it also highlights Edward Murrow, along with his courage, and high standards,  and took place indoors mostly within the CBS headquarters in NY. However, the film has some of its flaws. The film showed nothing about Murrow's early background, or his private life at that time.

 

Based on what I saw in the film, it is safe to say that McCarthy was betrayed as an arrogant, deceitful figure. The film then transitioned to October 1953. Murrow and his news team which includes producer and Fred Friendly, come upon a story from Dexter, which is about the Air Force choosing to discharge lieutenant, Milo Radulovich because his father was accused of communist ties.

Overall, the purpose of “Good Night and Good Luck in my opinion was solely focused on Murrow’s hesitations about the misuse of technology is true in today’s era of informational misrepresentation. The film ends with Murrow's iconic welcome, “Good night, and good luck.” However, as Murrow underlines to his audience at the banquet that bookends the film, the responsibility to demand truth from political turmoil ultimately rests on citizens themselves. Perhaps “good luck” is a nod to this dual responsibility and privilege that individuals possess to demand more from the systems and institutions that surround them.

The film holds great significance because it takes place during the early days of broadcast journalism in the 1950s. It records the real-life conflict between television newsman Edward R. Murrow  and Senator Joseph McCarthy and the Permanent Sub-committee on Investigations (Government Operations Committee). With a desire to report the facts and enlighten the public, Murrow, and his dedicated staff – headed by his producer Fred Friendly (George Clooney) and Joe Wershba (Robert Downey Jr.) in the CBS newsroom resisting corporate and sponsorship pressures to examine the lies and scaremongering tactics perpetrated by McCarthy during his communist ‘witch-hunts.’