Good Night and Good Luck

A Film Review by Lloyd Sederer, MD

Bullies take pleasure in ruthlessly capitalizing on their position of power. They pretend to be acting for the common good, but their compass is fixed on their own aims. 

Yes, that’s the current, 47^th President of the US, who is walking in the footsteps of many others. One particularly noxious and lying predecessor was Joseph McCarthy (1908-1957). As a US Senator (R) during the 1950’s Communist “Cold War”, he was Chairman of the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations. His probes were baselessly directed at prominent Americans he claimed to be Communists infiltrating and destroying the country. By targeting Hollywood actors, journalists, and members of the military among his prey, McCarthy rose to be a treacherously prominent federal official whose actions (also) threatened to destroy the fragile democracy we are privileged to live in.

But McCarthy’s reckless animus and ambition went too far, as told in the story of his highly public efforts to destroy the life and career of Edward R. Murrow, one of this country’s legendary investigative journalists (before that term gained popularity). Murrow had been a CBS prime time reporter for 19 years who had assembled ample broadcast film evidence of McCarthy’s ruthless and groundless campaign to ride the US “Red Scare” wave to his own aggrandizement. Back then the public could recognize and judge McCarthy’s self-serving mendacity, leading to his fall from power. But McCarthy’s public attacks on Murrow had threatened the future of CBS’s finances, famously built by Murrow and its newsroom. Their President then, Bill Paley, let Murrow hang and relegated him to infrequent programs with low viewer numbers.

Murrow “fell on his sword” rather than brandish it at CBS, some say because of the lung cancer eating him away. But it was President John Kennedy who stepped in during Murrow’s last years. In 1961, JFK appointed Murrow as Director of the U.S. Information Agency (USIA), the country’s public diplomacy arm, responsible for The Voice of America, The Fulbright Program, and active in promoting US Policy abroad. Mr. Kennedy awarded Mr. Murrow, in 1965, the Presidential Medal of Freedom, and Murrow was Knighted in Britain. He died in 1965.

Much of this history is not portrayed in the film. But I thought it warranted saying about what happened and what it took to be a man who stood up to dangerous and evil power gone awry.

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The shame due the “Junior Senator from Wisconsin” (as Murray called McCarthy) has its replay today: officials in the highest offices of US government are plunging the poor further into homelessness and hunger, stripping them of necessary medical and mental health care, violently employing the National Guard, muting the media satire we all need, daring to overtake the sovereignty of other nations, and creating a public shiver about what comes next.

Once again, we must find ways to expose the ruthless, self-serving use of power to a broad television and media audience, as did the fearless Edward R Murrow.  Enter George Clooney, who wrote, produced, and starred in the Broadway play (and now Netflix film), Good Night and Good Luck, a chilling confrontation of disinformation (aka lying) by its most effective enemy, truth. 

Mr. Clooney plays Mr. Murray with great fidelity, including his staccato voice, facial flinches, and fierce malaise about what was happening to America. His makeup underscores the black circles below his eyes like those Mr. Murray collected by the brutal work of revelatory journalism. But the scurrilous storm invading American then, including the money men at CBS, was beginning to envelop even the great man that Murrow was. His media podium was being kicked aside, announcing the end of his remarkable run at CBS.

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Mr. Clooney may be leaving behind his seemingly endless Ocean’s franchise to write, perform, produce, and direct more ‘media with a message’. Like Mr. Murrow, Mr. Clooney may seem invincible. But none of us are when soulless tyrants are at large.

That said, we owe our continued yet fragile liberty to those among the first to confront the dark sides of politicians and their bedfellows, especially those in corporate America, where money has a way of eclipsing honesty and integrity. 

Mr. Clooney is paying homage to a 20^thC warrior’s service to the public good (our good!). Mr. Murrow could not abide the trampling of honesty that is fundamental to a society in search of the ineffable we term integrity - and the pride that fashions. We realize that Mr. Clooney, as well, has determined to not stand aside amidst the lies meant to dismiss justice and erode the common good. We are their beneficiaries, in debt for their efforts to keep liberty alive.

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Lloyd Sederer, MD, is a psychiatrist, public health doctor, and non-fiction writer.