I just returned from the AFI theatre in Silver Spring, Md., where I watched the film “Good Night, And Good Luck“. I can’t speak for George Clooney’s motivation for making the film, but the topic certainly is timely considering the U.S. government’s anti-terrorism stance.
As a writer and former journalist (former in current job only), the topic attracted my interest. I credit the director for creating a real sense of being there, even filming in black and white. Wikipedia and Museum of Broadcast Communications offer excellent bios on the film’s protagonist, Edward R. Murrow.
I found the audience to be perhaps as, or even more, interesting than the movie. If I were going to stereotype what a group of hard-core liberals looked like, this audience would be it. I am not liberal by an philosophical means at all, or conservative, for that matter. I don’t identify with the core ideals of either U.S. political party.
But this group sure looked like hard-core liberals to me. I laughed, one because I don’t identify with them and because I wondered how many, if they lived in the 1950s, would have been targets of the very investigation at the core of the movie. Irony? You bet.