Idiot Box???

David Strathairn as chain-smoking Ed Murrow

[In an earlier Tamil post, I said that I wanted write about two good movies. Finally got time to do the first one.]

I like George Clooney. Be it his groovy voice, groovier three Oceans or the grooviest Syriana, he simply rocks. Then came Good Night and Good Luck.

I actually stumbled onto this great movie when doing - what else? Googling :-)

The movie is directed by George Clooney and gives us a glimpse of the McCarthy days in the 1950s America through the eyes of an intrepid journalist.

Edward Murrow is a television broadcaster who tackles touchy subject after touchy subject on his flagship programme "See it Now" on CBS (An extension of Hear it Now, his earlier radio programme).

What did Senator Joseph McCarthy do?

He practically whipped the whole of the US into paranoia by claiming that the US Government and other agencies were infiltrated by Communists and Soviet spies.

Now, it is a moot point on whether being a communist is a good thing or not; but in those days of early Cold War, if you are labelled a commie in the USA, then you are pretty much done in. It is a pity that people almost believed that every communist is a spy and vice versa.

Innocents were labelled communists because of their subscriptions to Serbian newspaper; because their only 'crime' was to have a name that matches with a member of American Communist Party or even better still: Senator McCarthy thought that you are a communist!!

Well, Murrow and his fearless team then take on the senator through their programme; of course as in the case of any government, pressures are applied; the sponsorship of the programme gets withdrawn; the CBS head-honcho develops cold feet - you know the drill!

But Murrow furrows on.

Finally, in a path-breaking episode, Murrow, after ripping McCarthy, broadcasts such a plea for freedom and fearlessness that I was moved to tears.

He says:

We will not walk in fear, one of another. We will not be driven by fear into an age of unreason if we dig deep in our history and remember we are not descended from fearful men ... who feared ... to defend causes which were unpopular .... The actions of the junior senator from Wisconsin have caused alarm and dismay ... and whose fault is that? Not really his; he didn't create this situation of fear; he merely exploited it, and rather successfully. Cassius was right, "The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, but in ourselves."

What follows there after is, as the cliche goes, history, with McCarthy falling from grace etc etc.

The movie is in black & white (So, can't watch with the kids; they think that b&w is so passe!). There are a lot of footage of Sen. McCarthy which, I found out later, are the real ones & hence the producers decided to film the movie in b&w!!

David Strathairn as Edward Murrow is fantastic. You have seen in him in a number of movies including Bourne Ultimatum, as a hapless head of some crazy organization within CIA! By the way, that movie has a fabulous hand-to-hand fight sequence within an apartment/bathroom in a Tangiers housing block...digressing as usual...

His measured acting coupled with a very tight screenplay makes the movie a joy to watch. The movie also gives sufficient interludes (not boring though!) for you to chew on the morals that are in question.

One interesting sidetrack is when two of the producers in Murrow's team are actually married but have hidden that from CBS, lest they lose their jobs! When the McCarthy situation becomes so tight that people start worrying looking at shadows, the 'secret' pair have a quick chat. When the husband, Joseph Wershba, says that one of the two has to quit, his wife comes back promptly, "Sure, we're gonna miss you around here, Joe!", to which our man says "I'll go and pack my things!" Talk about women's emancipation!!!

The entire film is book-ended by an Ed Murrow speech where he extols the virtues of television and how commercial pressures make the big (and read as greedy!) corporations to bend the truth, where needed.

It may be that the present system, with no modifications and no experiments, can survive. Perhaps the money-making machine has some kind of built-in perpetual motion, but I do not think so. To a very considerable extent the media of mass communications in a given country reflect the political, economic and social climate in which they flourish. That is the reason ours differ from the British and French, or the Russian and Chinese. We are currently wealthy, fat, comfortable and complacent. We have currently a built-in allergy to unpleasant or disturbing information. Our mass media reflect this. But unless we get up off our fat surpluses and recognize that television in the main is being used to distract, delude, amuse and insulate us, then television and those who finance it, those who look at it and those who work at it, may see a totally different picture too late...

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. There is a great and perhaps decisive battle to be fought against ignorance, intolerance and indifference. This weapon of television could be useful.

News channels of India, are you watching?!!?

A must watch on DVD.

PS1: You can read the entire speech of Ed Murrow here. A bit long; but worth it.

PS2: Blogger formatting sucks today; don't know why? The paragraphing is not upto the mark, inspite of a number of . Apologies.