Living in a time when Ms. Katie Couric is going to charge $ 60, 000 a day for reading a teleprompter makes brilliant George Clooney film Good Night and Good Luck even more sad, tragic and depressing, if only because it deliberately reminds the audience of how much we have lost, however, before proceeding further, let me share with you a mini-autobiography. I have 51 years of age. I am a pre-Internet Grumpy Old Man reminiscent of VCRs, dial telephones and televisions in black and white. I used to be a black, too. What this means is that I have the sort of retrospective look at the daily shit that's struggled with for years and get to call "history and rdquo;. This is important to remember when dealing with vendors that sell the new "good old days," snake oil in old bottles Therefore, I have to confess that I am not addicted to nostalgia. I think the night is a nice place to visit, but I like to live there. How can you go any other way? Seeing the past as a spotless utopia is a myth. I know this. I was there for part of it. But, that said, there are few moments I'd like former back. Good night and good luck with intelligence and insight examines the seductive ambiguity. It's a complex film that is almost too big to fit perfectly into the limited category of being a "historical" drama. Yes, love is a Valentine to a bygone era in American history, but also a horror film, a time capsule filled with good eyesight, archivist sentimental, and a political allegory. In particular, as Lillian Hellman said in his memoir that describes his experiences as a Hollywood screenwriter blacklisted during that period, it was "time scoundrel." When Good Night, and Good Luck begins, is 1953 and the mad frenzy of McCarthyism is at its peak. Any person who foolishly expressed First Amendment rights were suddenly reviled as "communists" and either lost their jobs or were threatened with treason for "anti-American" activities. In those dark days, the United States was a horror novel co-written by George Orwell and Franz Kafka. People were scared absolutely to the death of Senator Joseph McCarthy. They had good reason to be. So can you imagine what a strange mismatch appeared to be when Edward R. Murrow, the respected TV journalist, quietly approached McCarthy and - after inhaling deeply on his cigarette ever present - the way blew smoke in my face? ; While Good Night, and Good Luck is only his second film, Clooney is building this exciting game of cat and mouse with skill and confidence. It's a pressure cooker of a drama that simmers with a feverish intensity claustrophobic. However, throughout the film, Clooney inserted small markers historical irony of the era that brings to mind the political observation songwriter Gil Scott-Heron's "What you call that nostalgia is not lost." ; First, there are no men or women of color working at CBS. If so, who is mopping the floors, taking out the garbage, shining shoes and white men. There was no "whites only" sign in sight, but need not be. No, I'm not saying that people employed in the CBS were racist, but the circumstances that keep the workplace in the United States certainly were segregated. The few women who were secretaries in the 1950 CBS had to struggle with gender politics. Sure, they worked as hard as men in the newsroom, but is also expected to get the coffee, too. Do you think someone is going to yell at Ms. Couric, "Hey, Katie! Would you do me a great vanilla Chai latte -? Skim milk, please, no cream "today and, of course, everyone smoked. In Good Night and Good Luck, there is a fear that-shouldn't-be-funny-but-that-is when an actor in a television commercial is the sale of lung cancer with a smile so cheerfully explains why Kent cigarettes are "good for you." No, do not miss these cultural anachronisms bad taste in everything. But Edward R. Murrow, the honorable "face of television" has gone and left a vacuum that journalistic pygmies could not fill. The tough, stubborn, tough TV journalist who digs up scandalous crimes that the public needs to know about a heroic archetype in American culture that no longer exists. A contemporary talking heads like Katie Couric is not on the evening news from CBS to tell. Couric is there to make us feel better. She is a smiling, bright-eyed opiates in a suit of thousand dollars of business tells us comfortable, well-written. All of us are poor because the German philosopher Nietzsche wrote, ". Madness is rare in people -. But in groups, parties, nations and ages, is the rule "Good Night, and Good Luck illustrated in chilling detail as McCarthyism, or the" Red Menace "was the collective madness that gripped the United States by neck and not let go. Brave men like Edward R. Murrow helped to free us from taking a position, ask the hard questions and tell us the truth. Who is doing that now? When news has become light entertainment? After seeing the movie, I can not help thinking that perhaps the angry patriotic fervor ignited by the 9 / 11, that led to this brutal and unnecessary war against Iraq could have been stopped if a real TV reporter or newspaper - and not a cheerleader for the White House - the right questions before it was too late Good Night, and Good Luck ends with these prophetic words about television by Edward R. . Murrow: "This instrument can teach, can illuminate, yes, and can even inspire. But you can only do so to the extent that humans are determined to use for such purposes. Otherwise it is just wires and lights in a box. "So, Couric has become inevitable interview with Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes on the new baby yet?
