I’ve been wanted to watch this for a while and though I wasn’t entirely in the mood for watching what I thought would be a hard-hitting, drier type of movie, I am glad to say that it surpassed my expectations and I really enjoyed it. Not only was there a really capable cast (Clooney, Downey and David Strathairn, who really suits the 1950s journo look) but it was semi-documentary, based on true events in journalism and political history.
It's a black and white film, set in the 1950s, when TV broadcasting journalism was taking off and was about news anchor Edward R. Murrow (Strathairn) and his producer, Fred Friendly (Clooney), along with reporter Joseph Wershba (Downey), who defy corporate and sponsor pressure at the CBS newsroom and report on and editorialise stories about U.S. Senator Joseph McCarthy of Wisconsin. At a time when the threat and fear of communism was high, McCarthy set on a crusade to investigate and get rid of Communist-aligned individuals. Murrow first defends Milo Radulovich, who was facing separation from the U.S. Air Force because of his sister's political leanings and because his father subscribed to a Serbian newspaper. A very public feud develops when McCarthy responds by accusing Murrow of being a communist and digging up some specks of his past that may in some way be interpreted as linked to communism. However, the film ends with the CBS team successfully bringing down Senator McCarthy in what I think is a crucial victory in journalism’s history.
Other events in the plot include Wershba and his fellow-journalist wife having to hide their marriage to save their jobs (though everyone knows they are married) and the suicide of Don Hollenbeck, who was accused of being a Communist. The film is mostly a large flashback, bookended by a speech given by Murrow to the Radio and Television News Directors Association in 1958, in which Murrow harshly cautions his audience about ignoring the potential of television to inform and educate the public.
It’s interesting how Clooney portrays a journalist as I have read his dad was a TV journalist (so maybe it’s a way of getting to live out that other dream, although apparently he was a broadcaster at one point but quit his job to avoid competition with his father). The film's tone, the fact it's shot in black and white, as well as its depiction of one of journalism's greatest victories really presents it as a nostalgic film, that seems to lament what journalism used to be. Anyway, this film is definitely worth watching and I’ll be sure to have another look at it in the future.
4/5
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