Here Today, Gone To Murrow

I watched Good Night and Good Luck for the second time this evening. While I enjoyed watching it both times, I still feel the decision to have the entire film mostly set within CBS made it difficult to appreciate just how the American public was feeling, and how McCarthy was feeling.

That's mostly the consequence of being a gimmick film. All of the footage dealing with McCarthy is real, and to have personal reactions of McCarthy would require an actor to play the role.

But without outside perspective, it's left to the audience to imagine themselves at the time. How much respect did the American public have for Murrow? Just how scared was the average American? What did the rest of Congress think of McCarthy?

The fear is mostly represented by Dan Hollenbeck who commits suicide, partly because his wife left him, partly because he thinks he'll lose his job because he's being branded a communist. If he doesn't have his family nor his job, what does he have?

And Murrow himself is something of an enigma. He's presented as a stalwart. His language is so formalized by today's informality that it's hard to relate to that kind of person he was. He knew that news was heading in a direction he didn't care for (entertainment news).

In the end, it's mostly a reminder of how things once were, how we once feared to be accused of sympathizing with who we thought was the enemy, and that our thoughts were often worse than the enemy really were.

Still, a remarkable performance by David Strathairn. I don't recall what Murrow actually looked like, but he's probably as convincing as anyone could be.