First posted on the 'Alex's Weblog' page

Good Night, and Good luck

10-18-2005 10:06:09 AM

Posted by: Alex Marshall

At age 46, I’m old enough now to have experienced some things that are part of history. This feels a little weird, but it’s also a nice thing, I realize. One of those things is in this case a person, namely Fred Friendly, the former producer of CBS news, former producer and partner of Edward. R. Murrow, and former professor of journalism at Columbia Journalism School, my alma mater. Friendly, who died about ten years ago, was in his last few years at the school when I was there in 1987 and 1988. He was a big, larger than life man, who consistently challenged the class in his “Media and Society” class to look at the big picture and to not dodge the responsibility one has to make the world a better place. He took a liking to me because I asked direct impertinent questions, and that made me feel special.

I mention all this because I saw the movie, “Good Night, and Good Luck” last night, which is about Fred Friendly and Edward R. Murrow and their decision to take on Joe McCarthy in 1954. George Clooney plays Friendly, and Edward Straighthairn(sp) plays Murrow. I expected to find the movie a little hoaky, because I know a lot about this episode and the characters, and so I thought I would find the movie superficial and overly simplified. Instead, I found it excellent. The movie is in black and white, and they really did a good job of making you feel like you are back in the 1950s, when everyone smoked and the style of the times, at least in historical memory, seemed more black and white. They also treated the subject with a great deal of complexity and subtlety and told me several things I didn’t know. They got into the dynamics of CBS news, and showed how Murrow’s famous show attacking McCarthy grew out of an earlier show that took on the case of an army man who was being persecuted because of some relatives that were lefties. The show really made me feel for the first time what it might have been like to be around in that era, where there was this constant suspicion of friends and colleagues, and everyone felt the need to prove that they were not “soft” on Communism. Probably intentionally, this atmosphere of fear and distrust reminded me of what exists now around the subject of terrorism. I’m prompted to think that we as a society are prone to these paroxysms of paranoia and hysteria. Of course, terrorism does exist as a threat, as did nuclear war in the 1950s. But the movie prompts me to think that we can’t use that as an excuse for losing our center of balance and our favored values. I recommend the movie. George Clooney, who looked nothing like the Fred Friendly I knew, directed. The actor who played Murrow, Edward whathisname, just nailed him. You got this sense of this thoughtful man under an intense amount of pressure who among other things, smoked himself to death. (Murrow died of lung cancer in the early 1960s.) The movie uses lots of old footage that is mixed in well with the recreated stuff. Check it out. And my hat goes off to Mr. Clooney.

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