Wednesday, April 05, 2006

Good Night and Good Luck


I think this has to be the best movie I have seen in a long time. Directed by George Clooney it portrays the events surrounding the confrontation between Ed Murrow and Senator Joe McCarthy and the House Un-American Activities Committee. I consider it to be one of the most historically accurate films I have seen in a long time and visually excellent. Here is a group of film makers that really get it


The use of the full aspect ratio in composing a pleasing and thought provoking shot.



Here Murrow is waiting to see his boss. Notice how large the set is and how this makes his character look small. Pushing him to the left of the screen and in confrontation with that giant pillar



Here the boss has just watched Murrow's first attack on McCarthy. This shot is held for quite a while on screen and he doesn't move at all.
Worth watching!

5 comments:

Keith Savage said...

I saw an interesting interview with Orson Welles from the 1960's where he lamented the fact that he once planned to run for the Senate, but decided not to. The person who ran and won that year was Joseph McCarthy, and to quote Welles "I've been regreting the decision ever since."

michael valiquette said...

I taped that interview Keith, it's fantastic. 40 minutes of old CBC footage, Orson Welles talking about his time a left-leaning political critic and losing that position in the fifties along with all the other pinkos.
Have either of you guys ever seen F For Fake?
Sorry to get so off topic. Haven't seen Clooney's movie yet, but those stills are gorgeous. If they maintain that quality of composition, it's gotta be a beautiful film.

Rob A. said...

Hey guys. I don't think I knew that! How different the world may have been. Never seen F for fake though. What is it?

michael valiquette said...

I have a copy on video. It's this awesome pseudo-documentary that Welles made in the seventies. It's all about fakery and fraud. He was living in Ibiza and there was a crew ther filming a doc about one of the 20th century's greatest art frauds El Mir. The filmaker was himself the author of a notoriously fake "autobiography" of Howard Hughes, so a fake making a moving about a fake. The production went under so Welles bought all the footage and recut it, weaving into a story about Picasso and a young lover. Now bare in mind that Welles is also known for one of the greatest hoaxes of the twentieth century, his radio broadcast of War of the Worlds. So, a faker, making a movie about a faker making a movie about a faker. It's very cool and trippy and a little amateurish with of course some fantastic Welles narration, plus a twist near the end. Also, the firdt time I ever saw it I was stoned out of my tree. It blew my mind. Finally tracked down my very own copy a few years ago.
One of my very favourite movies ever.

Suzanne Marsden said...

Yeow, I gotta see some [new] movies-- these sound cool & thought provoking. Thanks for posting Rob; great still shots :-) F for Fake sounds great Mike -- now I'm all curious. Clay & I were cruising Blockbuster and scooping up movies for $4.99 (Clay got the usual cheesy/fun stuff) & I got "The Lathe of Heaven" (don't have a clue how they did a movie about Ursula K. Le Guin's masterpiece, so am curious), "Outrageous" -- an awesome movie about Craig Russell and of course "Operation Midnight Climax" (which could be good or awful, but if it has boobies in it I'm all over it :-)