This portrait of TV anchorman Ed Murrow, an idol of director Clooney’s journo father, fails as biopic, political thriller or bratpack movie, although it contains elements of all three genres.

The biopic element is perhaps the strongest thread, with Ed Murrow making the opening and closing addresses, but he is too sinister and cypherlike to gain the audience's sympathy. True the ‘en brosse’ black hair and dark piercing eyes help to distinguish his otherwise weaselly features from a clone-collection news team. Aside from the dated eponymous catch phrase that ends each of his pompous on-air pronouncements, there is nothing remarkable about his flinty persona. In fact, the whole film is seriously underwritten, failing to provide most characters with any kind of back story or even small talk. Even the studio manager is the actor chosen by Woody Allen for the ‘Purple Rose of Cairo’ because of his blandness.

The black and white setting, suits and ties and regulation hair cuts don’t help, but when Clooney claims in interview that people didn’t talk so much in those days it rings hollow. ‘Ocean’s Eleven’ and even ‘Robin Hood’, which this film calls to mind, took the trouble to individualise gang members, so we cared when they got shot. Given all these men have to lose are their jobs by challenging Senator Mc Carthy set on ferreting out the Reds, it just seems lazy.

Which brings me to the elephant in the studio. For all the talk about civil liberty – about which there isn’t a lot, and certainly nothing that could be termed discussion – all the team are keen to establish their squeaky clean non-pinko political past. The one who doesn’t resigns. Nobody, now or at any time suggests there may be some merit in left-wing political views. It’s about as likely as a present-day newsgroup sitting down to discuss the merits of Islam. Whilst this film typifies the Hollywood male-bonding genre (my private word for it is much ruder) in brushing aside the issues so as not to detract from the hero-worship,just one challenger in the pack would have added much-needed conflict.These characters have so few lines their scripts must have resembled those of their counterparts in ‘Apollo 13’, ie ’Clap!’ and ‘Cheer!’

In this respect, as in so may others, it compares badly, with another film which dealt with the McCarthy trials, 'Reds' (1981), and which was also written and directed by its star, Warren Beatty. In that film the cast, including strong women actors Diane Keaton and Maureen Stapleton, allowed us some insight into what it was like to stand up and be counted for challenging political bigotry, instead of just sniping from well-defined sidelines.

The film is said to ‘look good’ and it’s true the claustrophobic atmosphere of the studio in glossy black and white does much to make up for the lack of dialogue, with shots of the boss wandering around after hours or ditto Murrow burning the midnight cigarettes and slaving over a typewriter. There is some attempt at the start of the film to create the atmosphere of last-minute panic before a live broadcast , but that soon disappears in a relentless slow montage of talking head who exchange meaningful, mainly scared,glances rather than words.

The only redeeming feature of this film was the random jazz interludes, half a dozen superb renderings of apposite numbers like ‘I’ve got my eyes on you’ Come to think of it, if the whole cast took dancing lessons and they engaged a choreographer, this could have made a half-way decent musical. Dennis Potter could have worked wonders.

Wow Sheila

I seldom read a review where I vehemently disagree with almost every word, especially from someone whose views I often share or at least understand. Too much disagreement to know where to start so at least WW readers get a good spread of views on this one.

Agreeing to disagree and valuing the process is pretty much what this film is all about I guess.

regards

Z

I've certainly read more respectful reviews than the one I wrote. One in 'The Journalist',for instance, although written by an NUJ stalwart rather than a film critic, was informative about the CBS role and took the line that the 'golden age' of TV reporting in the 50s was in stark contrast with the today's 'craven' press attitudes.

Look forward to reading your piece.

Sheila

Hey Sheila

Already posted.

Regards

Z

Sorry, I hadn't seen it - another feature of this ghetto-ised group, like not being able to edit pieces, is that there is no alerting of new postings. Grrrrrrrr. I have complained with many a foreful argument to the man in charge but it was a waste of time. He/they are convinced that reviewing should have the same status as comments on member's work. Come to think of it, even they get notified.

Yes, now I have read your piece I see where you are coming from. I think you confuse worthiness of intention with filmic excellence and a lot of your review is not a review at all but a personal statement about how much you agree with the sentiments expressed in the film.

It is surprising that you see these men positively glowing with honest integrity and zeal whilst I complain they are so lacking in personlity they seem like ciphers, even cowardly in their shifty desire to distance themselves from any hint of leaning leftwards. I think that's what I found most offensive about the film, and why I refer to the much more pioneering honesty, to my mind, of 'Reds'.

Yes, you may have a point when you claim that maybe Americans feel their political views have to be expressed through Hollywood, although it's a doubtful premise. I wouldn't want to align myself with George Clooney's views, because of the complete lack of any kind of real political discussion in this film.

In any case, overt politicising makes for bad film as a rule, viz Mao's propoganda films in the early days of the Cultural Revolution in China. A good way to reach the illiterate masses, maybe, and no doubt at the time very worthy in both aim and message, but, like the film under discussion, full of impossibly virtuous heroes and big bad enemies. Some reviewers comment that using edited original footage of McCarthy at the HUAC hearing shows him in a bad light, sweating and scratching, for instance, in contrast with the well-scrubbed team at CBS, and I have no doubt this was intentional. It is a well-known ploy of propoganda films. It doesn't flatter the intelligence of the viewer.

Sheila

Fascinating to read two such different responses (both considered, intelligent, analytical and politically aware)! Sure you're both talking about the same film?

Frances

Frances, it does make you wonder, doesn't it?

Maybe my remarks wouldn't have been quite so 'opposite' oif I'd been merely responding to Zettel's review - for which omission I have already, and if I may say so, nimbly, shifted responsibility.

We certainly view the film's politics differently, although Zettel is impressed by the journos' brave stance, whereas I'm offended by the lack of serious discussion about anything. These men are so in thrall to their spokespeerson they don't even discuss baseball in the bar. That aside, was quite impressed by size of the shots of 'Scotch' they were drinking. (Shouldn't it have been bourbon?)

I think I'd align myself with the view taken by John Patterson in today's Guardian Guide, in an article in which he makes a tongue-in-cheek nomination for George Clooney as President:

'there's no evidence that he's anything but an old-fashioned American centrist'.

In other words, he is staying right out of any serious political discussion in any of his films. So I won't be rushing to 'Syriana' for anything remotely progressive - although, since I got my Unlimited ticket warmed up I may well rush to it anyway.

Frances, it occurs to me you that if you are curious you could see it yourself and then make a contribution to the debate. Look forward to it.

Sheila

I will if I can, Sheila! I used to go the cinema a lot when I lived in London, but now residing in the middle of nowhere, I generally have to wait for the local film club showings in the village hall - as a result I don't see much, which is a pity.

F

Oh no! The Middle of Nowhere! Well, then you'll just have to live vicariously through our reviews. I often do that myself- after all, even in London I can't get to see everything I'd want to. I'm just back from 'Capote', which I enjoyed very much, so maybe Zettel won't like it. Strangely enough, there's a discussion about it on Radio 4 as I write this.

Thank you for your kind comments.

Sheila

Hey Sheila

I'd like to think a bit more about the points you raise. Trying to find a way of responding that won't put WW available memory under stress. I find the 'hits' on this forum useful feedback and it does seem as if you have caught people's mood on this one by about 2 - 1. Which is interesting. (Or maybe yours is just better written, which is something I must think about - people vote with their clicks). I'm sure we write what we think anyway. (Sounds like a familiar theme).

One thing: it makes some difference how one feels about the intentions behind this movie. And I am as wary as anyone of getting tied to anyone's coat-tails, especially perhaps Mr Clooney. (Mind you there are worse political offences in contemporary America than being an old-fashioned centrist).

After 20 years in the oil industry I know a little bit about that subject so I approach 'Syriana' with some caution - not least because of its damn silly title.

Last thing for now: we have agreed broadly, with important variations in emphasis, on a large number of films before GNAGL so why should you imagine I would not like Capote? Simply because you do? You don't know me but from almost every word I've ever written on WW you should know me better than that.

regards

Z

No, I just thought it would be amusing if we turned out to have opposite views on this one as well. I just read Cosmo Landesman on the train and he seem to dislike the film 'Capote' on the grounds that he is a nasty character. Maybe he feels sensitive because Capote is a writer.It's no reflection on Casmo, though. A friend said at lunch, 'Oh, all writers are horrible.' but there's Harper Lee in there to redress the balance a little bit and show it is not absolutely necessary to be so exploitive.

I am looking forward to 'Syriania', too, but the release date is March 3rd so will just have to be patient.

Sheila

Hey Sheila

Motivation. Two things we probably agree on: 1. There is no such thing as the ‘right’ view of a film. So I have no interest in trying to show I’m right and you’re wrong. Doesn’t make sense. 2. An honest assessment of a film needs no justification.

As reviewers, critics, we have offered WW readers something they will rarely get in the general print media – two honest, diametrically opposed views of the same film. Since the days of critics like Pauline Kael, George Melly and Dilys Powell, distinctive voices in film reviews have I believe become hard to find. Press reviews tend to be samey and industry Mags like Time Out and especially Empire, tend to be a bit close to the industry for comfort. Especially as they rely on interviews with stars etc to fill pages. I am beginning to recognise your ‘voice’ and I hope mine is distinctive too. This is a writers’ web site after all and improving our writing is part of the objective. I am not aware of reviewers debating responses to films in the media, so maybe this forum is offering something else worthwhile.

There are parts of your review I just don’t understand and others that of course we disagree on. Sinatra’s ratpack movies were vanity projects, only the first of which, Oceans 11 was watchable. ‘Bratpack’ was always a bit of journalistic laziness and the only parallel with the ratpack was being lionised for behaving badly in public. The only ‘bratpack’ movie I can think of as a ‘genre’ piece is ‘Young Guns’ where the audience were encouraged into the cinema simply by the names and notoriety of the young actors in it a la Sinatra and his chums.

I see absolutely nothing in GNAGL that relates it in any way to the Bratpack as a group or the vanity, celebrity-based movies they made.

GNAGL is not, and does not try in any way to be a Biopic. Of whom? Murrow? We learn nothing of his life outside the studio, or anyone else for that matter and precious little of events before and after the critical McCarthy period which the film is about. Only if this were a biopic would your criticisms hold. To criticise a film for failing to achieve something it never remotely set out to do seems a bit harsh.

‘Political thriller’ sort of works but only in the sense that say ‘All The President’s Men’ was a political thrilller. I would regard films like ‘In The Line of Fire’ ‘Absolute Power’ ‘Manchurian Candidate’ say as political thrillers – they have the right plotted, narrative thriller structure. GNAGL and indeed ATPM if we must pigeonhole them, surely are simply dramas about politics each based to a degree on real events. This only matters for the same reason as above – if GNAGL was remotely trying to be a political thriller in the sense I suggest, then of course it comes up short. It has no real plot, contrived narrative twists etc.

I don’t really care how we categorise films, most generic films are formulaic anyway. But you set up expectations in your readers in your first paragraph which you then unpack into what for me amounts to complaining that a fox makes a lousy eagle because it can’t fly and has the wrong number of legs.

Whatever else GNAGL may be and whatever cynicism you have about Clooney’s intentions, I know of no critic who doubts that this is a serious movie, with a serious intent, about an important issue. Sorry but I think that makes your last paragraph, a nicely written, amusing, but totally unjustified cheap shot.

If GNAGL is “underwritten” then it is so in the same way as Brokeback Mountain is ‘underwritten’ i.e. its essential aesthetic is cinematic. BM’s extraordinary achievement is to achieve a sense of emotional depth with very few words especially about emotions. True to its characters and their setting. GNAGL achieves something even harder – it chrysalises, distils, ideas of courage, honour and personal and political principle, almost entirely cinematically. But its rigorous discipline and care with the words is does use makes them precise, powerful and inspirational.

This film isn’t about the rights and wrongs of any particular political ideology – it is about every American citizen’s right (and by extension, ours) to hold any views or beliefs they choose without being pilloried, disadvantaged or discrimated against because of them. It is about their fundamental First Amendment right to freedom of thought and the free expression of it. And McCarthy’s hate campaign of fear and lies, which at least 2 million people in Britain and many more millions in Bush’s America, may think parallels frighteningly the most acute of current political issues in our contemporary world. It isn’t about the rights and wrongs of Communism, Maoism, Scientism, Anarchism, indeed any 'ism', or we may add fundamentalist or moderate Christianity or Islam etc etc. It is about the right both to hold and to dissent from any and all of them. Murrow, Friendly and their team, many of whom were instinctively and honestly conservative or anti-Communist in their personal beliefs stood up for the rights of those who had different beliefs to both hold and express them. That is why I described this film as both inspirational and important. This isn’t a personal statement as you put it, or agreeing with something because it accords with my political views. It is because all citizens in a democracy should defend before all else, the right of all to religious and political freedom of opinion and belief conditioned only by the necessity to acknowledge that right in others, however detestable to you their opinions are. Despite the undemocratic, unprincipled rhetoric of Bush’s White House, shamefully supported by Mr Blair, terrorism is not an ideology it is a totally unacceptable expression of one. It is sin of action not of thought. The lesson of GNAGL is that the greatest threat posed by Bush and Blair’s attitudes and rhetoric, is not to Iraq or Iran or to North Korea but to democracy itself .

Ed Murrow GNAGL “we cannot defend freedom abroad by denying it at home.”

If you think I am erecting an edifice of ideas and values on a slight and ineffective film then all I can suggest is that you see it again. I don’t want to persuade you, or anyone else who sees it, of anything, I want you to see for yourselves what I passionately believe and will argue is there.

I don’t want to re-state my review, it’s all in there. And in the spirit of the above remark all I can ask is that you re-read it with good will and an open mind.

As for your remarks about Clooney’s reticence about the film. I haven’t noticed that myself. But don’t you think he might consider we have had enough half-baked hubris from self-important megalomaniacs and their vanity projects like Mr Costner, oh yes and even Mr Beatty. You find Warren Beatty a convincing commentator on political issues? Wow Sheila. Reds was not a bad film but it had Hollywood written all over it. As a genuine exploration of the moral power of Marxist ideas which Reds did but GNAGL does not, claim to address, it is close to intellectual farce.

My critical heroine is Pauline Kael, and not just for her wonderfully luminous, funny, lucid, perceptive writing about a medium you, I and she all love. But also for her implacable, scabrous rejection of crap films about worthy subjects. Either all my instincts have been killed off or your review of GNAGL misses almost everything that is it about and why it is a serious, effective and quite extraordinary film to have been made and funded within a globally expansionist corporatist culture. And I haven’t even mentioned GNAGL’s challenges about the misuse of TV and the media.

I don’t usually do this but my humble recommendation to any WW readers is – if you only see one film this year then make sure it is Good Night and Good Luck. It is quite simply a superlative film. Don’t take my word for it. Two quotes from GNAGL.

Murrow on challenging McCarthy:

“If what I say is responsible, then I alone am responsible for the saying of it.”

Murrow on TV which he sees simply as a tool that can be used to educate, inform, inspire, move and challenge but which is in danger (speaking in 1958) of becoming a means to distract, amuse, delude, insulate:

“If that is what it is used for then it is merely lights. And wires in a box.” Just so.

(Sheila I admire and enjoy your writing. I respect your honesty and point of view. But respectfully I passionately believe you have got this one absolutely wrong.)

Apologies to everyone for this being so long. And congratulations to anyone who got this far!

Regards

Zettel

Thnk you Zettel, for taking the trouble to compose such thought-provoking rebuttal. I don't disagree with the points about free speech, particularly in a week when someone has been jailed for three years for expressing a point of view. I am reminded of Galileo, who met a nasty fate for daring to suggest the earth went round the sun and not vice versa, as everyne else thought.

My concern is not with wider policial issues but with the film as spectacle and product.

Sometimes a tiny suggestive spark can make us dislike a film. Your comments on bratpack 'vanity' movies struck home and I find myself thinking that's how I had categorised this movie.

The point I was illustrating when I cited 'Ocean's 11' and Robin Hood' was that both were about bands of men with a charismatic leader, but, [more importantly/]the filmmakers took the trouble to individualise them so we cared what happened to them in the course of their missions, usually of the life-threatening kind. By refusing to do this the film sacrifices this empathy, although for those aware of the impact of HUAC there would be a willingingess to overlook this weakness.

Concerning the film as 'vanity project'I hadn't really formulated ideas on this, but they were triggered by your insightful words on the 'Hollywood Bratpack'

I realise my existing suspicions were roused by a detail of lighting at the start of the film.

George Clooney,'s first appearance is as one amongst the team in the newsroom. The proxemics give him some prominence, but then, he is the programme director,so fair enough. He is placed however, so the light reflects distractingly from his spectacles for most of the escene. I know that most movie-goers would regard it as some kind of unfortunate coincidence of the lighting. People often seem to think that what appears on the frame is more or less arbitrary. For me, it was the worst kind of dishonesty and quite delibrate on he part of George Clooney - the director, after all, who can instruct precisely on the lighting. As a moveiegoer in the fifities I always used to wonder why Doris Day and the rest went all misty in close-ups- before I know about filters.

The reflection not only calls attention to the star, but makes a telling point about his character. It made me think of the recent 'Lady Vengeance'. I don't know if you have seen this film, but there is one rather startling shot of her, in the prison cell, when we are told in voice-over that she has earned the nickname 'Lady Kindness'. At the same time a halo of the type seen in crude religious icons appears around her head.The shot points up the irony. I use it as an illustration of how the director can use a 'halo-effect' in a joking way it has been described as 'a touch of magic realism'. I know you are too sophisticated a film-goer to think that such a lighting detail in 'GNAGL' would be accidental, or that George Clooney would not be aware of the unconscious association in the viewer's mind.

An indicator of Clooney's motives exists in the text of an article in Sight and Sound - he appears in line-drawing on the front of the March Issue, and there is something to be said, too, about that, but it may reflect more of the cartoonist's own view than how George Clooney would like to represent himself.

The S&S interviewer says of him:

'The son of former news anchor man Nick Clooney, the 44 year old heart throb was raised to revere Murrow. 'Dad would always talk about him' he has said.'So the film is a tip of my hat to what my old man has been fighting for his whole life.''

Some tip!

Perhaps it is cynical of me to suggest that Clooney is trying to reinvent himself as some kind of political crusader, as Ricard Gere did with Tibet and human rights in China. The current zeitgeist certainly seem to coincide rather neatly with his decline as a heart throb.

Sheila

Sheila

Thanks for the promptness and tone of your response. I am sure the dear old head-waggler will start bathing himself in the glory due to his subject rather than him sometime soon and yes you will be able with justice say I told you so. And your observation about the glasses and lighting is very acute and to the point. I didn't see it. Probably because I didn't want to.

But here's the thing: with this film it doesn't matter if George subtly emphasises his own character a bit. It tries to draw our attention to crucially important ideas and principles that lie at the heart of our culture and democracy. McCarthy got close to leading people away from their most most precious values and beliefs by using generalised fear and lies. Bush and Blair are playing a more dangerous game, for not only are they using the same poisoned rhetoric but they are adding fuel to a fire of cynicism in our public life that was probably lit by Nixon. Since his time it has consumed not only every idealistic belief but also every politician with the courage to try to express one. I can be as cynical as the next person and often am, but if all is cynicism, all motives are doubted, the very idea of truth itself denied, then Mr Bin Laden and Co won't need any bombs or guns to destroy us - we'll do it for him without a bullet being fired.

A worthwhile discussion i think. And it takes two to tango. (The words 'last' and 'Paris' being firmly thrust (oops) from the mind). I think I certainly have already said more than enough about this film at least (and maybe more generally) so I'll end with my favourite remark of Bertrand Russell's:

"Find more pleasure in intelligent dissent than in passive agreement, for if you value intelligence as you should, the former implies a deeper agreement than the latter."

So on that basis we are in agreement. Thanks for the intelligence and the debate. And for a technical element I missed that gives me the excuse to see GNAGL again.

sincerely

Zettel

Yes, we have had a right old ding-dong on this.

I am glad you are an admirer of Bertrand Russell. I named my son after him - not Bertrand, but Russell as a middle name because it would have been a bit too fancy for a first name.

Enjoy the film, and I hope I didn't mistake the glinting specs. I have to go to a meeting in town so I think I'l takein 'Walk the Line', which you may have reviewed already so all I'll have to do is comment. Besides, I haven't finished my 'Capote' review yet.

Sheila