Can’t seem to find a thread for this and I get errors when I use the search function. I saw it over the weekend. It was okay, but I wonder what others thought.
There was a stunning lack of personal information about Mr Murrow. What was the point there? Maybe they wanted to focus on his fight with McCarthy, but it gave the movie an unbalanced feel. I understand what Murrow did, but don’t think the film really captured it dramatically. I never really felt like the stakes were that high, never had any doubt Murrow would come out on top. The movie sort of drags in spots.
I liked how they shot it in B&W and pictured everyone smoking so much at work. Great job getting into the period. I felt confused about the sub-plot involving the married couple in the news room. Was that more period piece stuff? It was odd: I wanted more personal information about Murrow and got none, and I wanted less personal information about these two and got too much.
I hope it doesn’t seem as if I hated it. I didn’t. I wouldn’t say I loved it, but it was a good movie. Well worth the price of admission. I especially loved the rich B&W sets and Murrow’s deadpan delivery of “Good night, good luck.” In the context of the movie, that signature sign off was the one thing more than any other that offered an ominous bit of tension about the state of the world with Joe McCarthy on the loose.
To be honest, I never considered not hearing McCarthy’s side of the story as I watched (this is a something discussed in the original thread). I am not sure the story needed a more complex McCarthy. A McCarthy era witch hunt is so engrained in the public consiousness, it allows the Murrow story to work with minimal development of McCarthy. If you want McCarthy’s side of the story, I think you have to do the biopic on him and make Murrow a minor figure.
