George the iconoclast

Good Night and Good Luck- Barbican Cinema, 24/02/06

The wonderful world of George Clooney; how great must that be? You know in the world generally there are injustices, then inconveniences, and then there are the abominations of inequality that are typified by the gorgeousness of people such as George. Why should some men or women have so much in terms of looks and attractiveness? I know I’m delving into the muddy politics of feminism and 20th century commercialism (of course good looking people are touched up by the glossies etc), but really, it’s just not fair when they not only monopolise the world of physical beauty but start to traverse the divide between the geek and the supermodel, churning out really great movies such as this.

With Good Night and Good Luck George Clooney proves that he is someone to be listened to and whose opinion should rightly be sought on weighty political matters such the invading of foreign realms and the defence of civil liberties. Clooney’s father was a newsroom hound during the fifties and this has obviously inspired him to do just homage to the era. The claustrophobic atmosphere of the newsroom itself, not only but including the prolific smoking of cigarettes before, during and after each broadcast, is meticulously recreated, and I felt afterwards that I had lived and breathed the fifties for those 2 hours.

That McCarthyism was not a good thing, was not a startlingly new discovery for me but some of the subtleties and nuances of the period; the extent to which individuals had to keep secret facts about their life that we would consider totally irrelevant (such as having once had an ex girlfriend who was involved with someone who had once been a member of the communist party), because this could mean the end of their career, were a revelation for me. The film isn’t as profound as it might think it is, or aspire to be, but it is a well acted period piece that breathes authenticity and has more than a little relevance today. Oh and its good to see Robert Downey Junior paired up with Patricia Clarkson as a married couple; it’s a pairing of equals rather than the media moguls wet dream that we usually get (older distinguished man, young girly girl).

George Clooney, like Johnny (the cheekbones) Depp, makes movies that tantalise and enchant the cerebral senses as well as the corporeal. What are mere mortals meant to make of this? I guess we should be jealous but it’s made incredibly difficult by the charisma and intelligence of both men. How dare they be both clever and beautiful? There should be a law against it.