DVD : Good Night, and Good Luck (Widescreen Edition)

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starring: Robert John Burke, Patricia Clarkson, George Clooney, J.D. Cullum, Jeff Daniels
directed Author name: George Clooney

: Good Night, and Good Luck (Widescreen Edition)
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Aspect Ratio: 1.85:1
Audience Rated by buyers PG (Parental Guidance Suggested)
Type of bind: DVD
Brand: Warner Brothers
EAN num: 0012569736788
Format: AC-3, Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, DVD-Video, Subtitled, Widescreen, NTSC
Label: Warner Home Video
Manufacturer: Warner Home Video
Quantity: 1
Publishing house: Warner Home Video
Region Code: 1
Release Date: March 14, 2006
Running Time: 93 minutes
Sale Popularity Level: 4085
Studio: Warner Home Video
Theatrical Release Date: October 14, 2005



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Editor's Notes and Comments:

Product Description:
'Good Night And Good Luck.' takes place during the early days of broadcast journalism in 1950's America. It chronicles the real-life conflict between television newsman Edward R. Murrow and Senator Joseph McCarthy and the House Un-American Activities Committee. With a desire to report the facts and enlighten the public Murrow and his dedicated staff - headed by his producer Fred Friendly and Joe Wershba in the CBS newsroom - defy corporate and sponsorship pressures to examine the lies and scaremongering tactics perpetrated by McCarthy during his communist 'witch-hunts'. A very public feud develops when the Senator responds by accusing the anchor of being a communist. In this climate of fear and reprisal the CBS crew carries on and their tenacity will prove historic and monumental.Running Time: 93 min.Format: DVD MOVIE Genre: DRAMA UPC: 012569736788 Manufacturer No: 73678

Amazon.com:
Without force-feeding its timely message, Good Night, and Good Luck illuminates history to enlighten our present, when the need for a free and independent press is more important than ever. In 90 breathtaking minutes of efficient and intricate storytelling, writer-director George Clooney and cowriter Grant Heslov pay honorable tribute to the journalistic integrity of legendary CBS newscaster Edward R. Murrow,

Director George Clooney
who confronted the virulent and overzealous anti-Communist witch-hunting of Wisconsin Sen. Joseph McCarthy in 1953-54, and emerged as a triumphant truth-seeker against the abuses of corporate and governmental power.

David Strathairn as Edward R. Murrow
As played by David Strathairn, Murrow is a dogged realist, keenly aware of the smear tactics that will be employed against him; Clooney provides crucial backup as Murrow's 'See It Now' producer and closest confidante Fred Friendly, forming a fierce but not entirely fearless triumvirate of broadcasting bravery with CBS chief William Paley (Frank Langella), who anxiously champions Murrow's cause under constant threat of reprisals. While using crisp black-and-white cinematography (by Robert Elswit) to vividly recreate the electrifying atmosphere of the CBS newsroom and the early years of television, Clooney (son of long-time Cincinnati newsman Nick Clooney) proves his directorial skill by juggling big themes and an esteemed ensemble cast, never stooping to simplification of ethically complex material. Good Night, and Good Luck is an instant classic, destined for all the accolades it so richly deserves. --Jeff Shannon

Learn More About Edward R. Murrow and Broadcast Journalism

George Clooney's Recommended Reading
George Clooney's Recommended Movies
The Edward R. Murrow Collection






Customer Reviews
User popularity level: out of 5 stars

Rated by buyers 4 out of 5 stars - More Hollywood Rewriting of History
Although this movie was entertaining, it is a completely slanted version of history. America is in the dire condition it is in yesterday because the media trashed, slandered and libeled the great Senator Joseph McCarthy and got away with it.
America is in the grip of global organized crime based on zionist philosophy and centered in Israel. If senator McCarthy had been able to rid the gov't of treasonous zionist criminals, the Kennedy's would never have been assassinated, and many atrocities like the Iraq war would not have become reality.


Rated by buyers 5 out of 5 stars - Good product
Purchased this DVD as a gift for my husband. We have watched it twice and it is good quality. Would purchase from this vendor again.


Rated by buyers 4 out of 5 stars - A DISTILLATION OF PURE McCARTYISM and ITS ENEMIES
**WARNING** This review is full of plot spoilers!

GOODNIGHT AND GOOD LUCK follows veteran CBS-TV journalist Edward R. Murrow from 1953, when he took the Air Force to task for denying a soldier a security clearance based on secret evidence and no counsel; to 1958 when he left CBS. Along the way Murrow and staff go after Joseph McCarthy and his accusations, but allow McCarthy time to respond on the air. McCarthy sent a letter which in no way denied anything CBS-TV or Murrow had reported, but laid on more and more name-calling. Murrow suffered this with grace and soon therafter, Congress investigated Senator McCarthy.

But there was a price to pay. Bill Paley, head of the network (the whole corporation, in fact), advised against airing the McCarthy episode, and the show's sponsor, ALCOA, dropped the show after the McCarthy episode aired. The vehicle for such investigation, Murrow's show SEE IT NOW, wound up in the Sunday cellar of broadcasting and increasingly Murrow had to deal with trivialities like interviewing Liberace. About the same time in 1958 that Murray was receiving professional accolades on his career, Mr. Paley let him go, or did not stop his trying to go, ostensibly for budgetary concerns.

This is a low-key but high-impact behind-the-scenes drama that plays out in semi-documentary style, using grey and white and incorporating some of the actual shows and government hearings, which of course are digitally scrubbed copies of the original film or kinescope. Nice comedic relief is supplied by Dianne Reeves' jazz singing, which ironically comments on the action, and by the very real-feeling camaraderie among the actors playing CBS staffers.

George Clooney, director, gave himself a nice subordinate role as Fred Friendly, who was often stuck in the middle between Murrow's desires as a seeker of accurate news and Bill Paley's as a businessman. David Straithairn is wonderful as Murrow and looks a great deal like him. Frank Langela's take on Bill Paley is especially praiseworthy. We come to understand how Paley sympathized with Murrow but ultimately had to give in to real-life concerns, like finding advertisers. In other words this film is careful to present nuance and not tar all the journalists or all the capitalists with the same brush, quite unlike Joseph McCarthy's overheated and usually false accusations.

This is just one man's opinion, but IMHO this film would be a great thing to show in high school or college as part of a U.S. History, media history or even current-events class. The notions of secret judgments made by accuations in sealed envelopes and no resort to counsel is, sadly, still with us, as is a tendency on the part of some powerful people to impugn a citizen's patriotism rather than answer substantive questions.

As of this writing, the widescreen (recommended) DVD is quite cheap: under eight dollars. Thank you Amazon!



Rated by buyers 2 out of 5 stars - Disappointing
I suspect people's enthusiasm for this movie is due to the real footage of the McCarthy hearings, footage that we don't see often enough and reminds us how careful we should be not to go down that route again. (McCarthy enjoyed huge support at some point, after all.) For people like me who had already seen the footage in the PBS documentary on Ed Murrow ("The Edward R. Murrow Collection", DVD, 2005), the movie fell absolutely flat. There is no original story line, no character development. I guess its redeeming feature was to push PBS to package the documentary, since it came out at about the same time. My advice to anyone considering buying the "Good Night, and Good Luck" DVD would be to buy "The Edward R. Murrow Collection" instead.


Rated by buyers 5 out of 5 stars - 5-star acting and directing; problematic ideas
Every reviewer who has already gushed over David Strathairn's performance is absolutely right: this film is worth seeing just for his acting alone. Too much of the time actors (and viewers) seem to think that bellowing and gesturing madly constitutes an award-winning performance. Straithairn does none of these things, but I could not keep my eyes off him in this film (and while he's no eyesore, he's not exactly George Clooney in the looks department). A riveting performance, absolutely amazing.

Clooney's vision as director is interesting to see as well. I like that he clearly made some deliberate choices that he had to know weren't going to endear this film to a broad, general audience (black and white, short length, far more "intellectual" content than emotional) but made them precisely because of his own unique vision.

One thing does trouble me, however: this film is, obviously, not a documentary, even though it does include actual film footage of McCarthy and the Senate hearings. Something about that seems manipulative to me. "Forrest Gump" did the same thing, yet that film would clearly be classified as "entertainment" in part because it's obviously fiction. And yet..."Good Night" is essentially fiction as well, despite its being based on real events. If "Good Night" isn't a documentary, and it isn't "Forrest Gump," what is it? I dislike the too-clear-cut distinctions between media that "entertains" and media that "informs" that both Murrow and Clooney seem to be pushing here. The real point to be made is that we need to be critical of ALL representations of "the truth" that are shown to us, whether they be "Forrest Gump" with its insultingly simplistic platitudes or McCarthy with his faulty rhetoric -- or even "Good Night," which clearly has a point to make and perhaps dresses itself up too much in the guise of "truth" in order to make that point.

In other words, what's more important in relation to this film isn't that Americans prefer being entertained over being informed; it's that perhaps we no longer know the difference. That's far more ominous, in my view.

And so, ironically, I think this film works best in the ways that it serves as entertainment, with its astounding acting and directing. As "information," I'm less certain. (But at least it did give me a chance to spout off in this pretentious way. Thanks, George.)

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