We saw our fourth Best Picture nominee last weekend, the superb Good Night, and Good Luck. I knew little about the film when we entered the theater, and thus was pleasantly surprised to find it tautly written, well acted, and filmed lovingly in grainy black-and-white.
Good Night, and Good Luck. tells the story of reporter Edward R. Murrow's campaign against Senator Joseph McCarthy. The film wisely avoids providing detailed background to McCarthy's crusade against communism; it assumes the viewer has a basic grasp of this piece of American history. Instead, the film focuses almost exclusively on the offices of CBS News and on the men (and few women) who risk their careers to confront McCarthy and his dogmatism. These men are not painted as heroes, but as ordinary fellows doing their jobs. The film uses actual archival footage of McCarthy, letting him damn himself.
This is an excellent film, my favorite non-documentary of the year. (Kris still prefers Crash and Brokeback Mountain.) Granted, there are a couple of opaque points — who is this Don Hollenbeck and why should we care about his story? — but on the whole, the film is tight and cohesive in a way that most modern Hollywood films, with their loose stories and superfluous subplots, are not.
Some other quick points:
- I adored the sets.
- A person could get lung cancer just from watching this film. There's more smoking than I can recall ever having seen in any other movie. (Is this why there was a trailer for the upcoming Thank You For Smoking? If so, very funny.)
- Alex Borstein plays a young woman named Natalie in this film. Kris and I both thought she looked like our little Aimee Rose.
- Why is this film rated PG? I can't remember anything that warranted this. Maybe it's all the smoking.
Kris was in a foul mood all weekend.
That's not true: she started the weekend in a stellar mood. We had dinner with Marcela and Pierre (and their beautiful children), which left us craving more of their company. Kris, in particular, finds their conversation stimulating. While Louis and Ella showed me how to play their favorite games (Peanut Butter & Jelly being the #1 choice), the other three adults sat at the dinner table, discussing politics with wine and candlelight. Kris loves this sort of thing: adult conversation about adult topics.
Recently, Kris has been watching a The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer. "I love this show," she tells me. "Everyone is so smart: the commentators and the guests. It's great to see intelligent people discuss the issues." (She's also become a fan of of the Cursor linked news summaries, which you ought to visit if you haven't already.) I don't watch the show with her, but she often gives me condensed versions of each night's stories.
Last weekend the news had overwhelmed her. "I have this seething anger that no one seems to be PAYING ATTENTION," she told me.
"You know," I said during one of her sour patches, "you really ought to give Dave a chance. He's educated, intelligent, and keenly interested in world affairs. Of all our friends, he's probably most able to carry on the sort of conversation that you crave. When we were at lunch Friday, we had a fine discussion about the decline of oratory in this country. He told me about the book he was reading, a biography of Lincoln. He's well-informed."
Kris sighed.
She wishes I were more keenly interested in world affairs. Like Pam, I bury my head in the sand. I purposely avoid exposure to the news because:
- I can't influence it;
- it's always the same thing over-and-over;
- it only makes me depressed.
I guess what I'm trying to say, though poorly, is that I've been thinking recently about my relationship with the world, especially regarding politics and social activism. I've tried to suppress these sorts of thoughts, most of all in this weblog, aside from the usual angry tirade about our President. Maybe it's time for me to change. Maybe it's time for me to become more informed. Maybe it's time for me to care.
Maybe it's time for me to voice my opinion, the consequences be damned.
On this day at foldedspace.org
2007 — Web 2.0 Defined In which I share a video that defines web 2.0. In which I share other random thoughts.
2005 — Superman is a Dick In which I share silly comic book covers.
Kris is right, people don't seem to be paying attention. Perhaps more disturbing is that there are those who are aware of what's going on, but don't see a problem with it. The wiretapping thing is a good example. Several people interviewed on the news have said either a) I don't care if the government listens in on my conversation with grandma, or b) if I'm talking to "x unpopular group" then the government has a right to know what I'm saying without the necessity of those pesky warrant things (what'er those for anyway?).
People don't seem to remember a time when governmental abuse of power caused harm to people and therefore are unlikely to think that it's going to harm them. Or rather, they seem to forget that the difference between them and Joe Accused is that Joe Accused happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. The Brandon Mayfield case is a good example of that.
The ultimate problem with this complacency is that the next step is to put trackers in our cars to let the government know when we're travelling faster than the speed limit, where we've been and where we're going, that we register all of our telephone calls with the state before we make them and that we put cameras in our homes so that the government can make sure we're not engaging in any illegal activities such as terrorism, bomb making, owning a gun, having an abortion, having sex without a marriage license or thinking bad things about King George.
Sadly, any reference to the Orwellian George, the modern George and this historical King in that last line is usually lost on those who most need the reference.