Impulse

“Good Night and Good Luck”, the movie chron­i­cling Edward R. Murrow’s fight against Senator McCarthy, is tear­ing up the box offices. I saw it at a lit­tle the­ater by my house on a Wednesday night — usu­ally a dead night for cin­ema atten­dance — and the the­ater was com­pletely packed. I saw how entranced peo­ple were dur­ing the movie, and lis­tened to them rave after­wards. They loved it. I loved it. Yet, how is it that a script which is almost entirely made up of tran­scrip­tions from 50 year old TV broad­casts have such an impact on people?

The movie is good in sev­eral ways: the cin­e­matog­ra­phy is lus­cious, the act­ing is spot-on from the lead to every minor part, and Clooney’s cam­era place­ment and move­ment add emo­tional weight to each scene. There’s no doubt that these ele­ments are pow­er­ful, but they can’t move audi­ences alone. It’s the script that dri­ves this movie — a script pri­mar­ily writ­ten by Murrow & McCarthy in the 50’s. I think what peo­ple react to most are the words of Murrow and his action of stand­ing up against what he thought was wrong. It is the tri­umph of right­eous­ness and integrity over self-righteousness and self-interest.
I love turn­ing around dur­ing a movie to watch the audience’s reac­tions. It’s the bud­ding film­maker in me. I checked on the audi­ence dur­ing a few of Murrow’s broad­casts dur­ing the movie: People lit­er­ally leaned for­wards in their seats, eyes fixed, and a few times, mouths agape. They nod­ded their heads to the points being made. It was almost like cult lead­ers lis­ten­ing to a ser­mon. I even heard an “Amen”.
Yet, Murrow’s words were hardly preachy. They were strik­ingly mat­ter of fact: here’s what we know, here’s some footage, here’s our clearly labeled opin­ion, we leave you to form your own opin­ion, and we may be wrong. So much of this is refresh­ing. He sim­ply presents the facts with­out a whirl­wind of spin. He treats the viewer with enough dig­nity and intel­li­gence to allow them to form their own opin­ion. My per­sonal favorite, He admits that he could be wrong. (When’s the last time you heard some­one say, “I’m will­ing to be wrong”? The next time you’re in an argu­ment, try it — the impact is amaz­ing). It’s all respect, honor, and integrity — three things which are com­pletely gone from the gov­ern­ment and pop­u­lar cul­ture nowa­days. Their vacancy has cre­ated a need that Murrow’s speeches sat­isfy.
Murrow’s actions speak loudly as well. He stood up to the most pow­er­ful man in the coun­try because he thought it was the right thing to do. A man of ideals and a man of action. How won­der­ful it feels to expe­ri­ence some­one tak­ing a stand for what they believe is right, and stick­ing to it despite all costs. This is one of the rea­sons I love West Wing sea­son 1: it’s the story of peo­ple try­ing des­per­ately to make the coun­try bet­ter.
To be fair, there are a lot of con­ser­v­a­tive folks who are try­ing to make a stand for what they believe is right. I have great respect for them. Their dis­ad­van­tage is that a bunch of self-interested, power-mongers latched on to those beliefs as a tool to advance their own inter­ests and power. Their cor­rup­tion in time will bring down the move­ment for which those few right­eous peo­ple worked. Or so any­one who sees this movie prob­a­bly hopes: that excesses of cor­rup­tion will be brought down.
It truly would be a great demon­stra­tion of func­tion­ing democ­racy if the cor­rup­tion could be reigned in. Corruption is hard to stop as Russia, Italy, and well, almost every­where else show. I’m real­is­tic; there will always be cor­rup­tion. But, it’d be nice to get rid of gov­ern­ment for Halliburton, by Halliburton, and put peo­ple back in the equa­tion. Still, if we could do it, wouldn’t that be a clearer mes­sage to the world that America’s fla­vor of democ­racy works than any pre-emptive inva­sion?
I think that’s why “Good Night, Good Luck” is mak­ing such a splash. We need another hero. We need a demon­stra­tion in our cul­ture that honor, integrity, and respect are not just good ideas, but, when exer­cised, bring about a bet­ter world. Heroes lead peo­ple by exam­ple to bet­ter them­selves and their world. In this film, Murrow is that hero.
Who, today, will take up that role?