Goodnight And Good Luck Film Analysis

The film one has chosen to review and analyse is George Clooney's “Goodnight and Good Luck”. It is set in America in the 1950's, a full decade after World War II ended, a period of economic growth and recovery after the Great Depression. It was a time of revolution in terms of social, economic and cultural advancement. Having said that, it was also a period of political turmoil, paranoia and intimidation under Senator Joseph McCarthy. This movie explores the way journalist Edward Murrow used his position to expose McCarthy and his abuse of power. In simplistic terms this film depicts the war between the media and a politician seeking to destroy the rights and values of the American people by masking it as patriotism. One will analyse the various themes, major scenes, techniques and the impact

In Lameman’s terms, it was a method to expose supposed communists who infiltrated the United States. McCarthy was notorious for making false allegations and accusations to attract attention to his policy, brainwashing Americans into believing their country was being intruded by communists. A large majority of McCarthy’s accusations were backed up by little or next to no evidence, “HUAC’s circuslike investigations and unproved accusations left a trail of shattered reputations and broken lives”. This was seen especially in the case of Air Force Reserve Milo Radulovich, who was discharged from the force due to supposedly having family who were Communist sympathizers. When trialled, a sealed envelope was present with supposed evidence but was never opened. This illustrated the dangers of McCarthyism; effectively it was a modern day witch hunt. After all of this, Milo was reinstated but had a very difficult time due to those false allegations. As these accusations were common, Clooney wanted to highlight the severity of McCarthyism through his