Hansel: Good Night and Good Luck

Good Night and Good Luck and The Crucible both employ the theme of McCarthyism in the simultaneous use of parallelism.  Good Night and Good Luck paralleled McCarthyism with government actions such as the Patriot Act and the constant fear of terrorism.  The Crucible, however, paralleled the Salem Witch Trials with McCarthyism, which was a current issue when Arthur Miller published the Tony Award winning play in 1953.  What George Clooney was trying to portray as director and co-screenwriter of the film was quite reminiscent of Arthur Miller’s intent.  Both of the films offer jarring social commentary for their appropriate times, but I prefer to compare Good Night and Good Luck with one of my favorite films that just so happens to relate to the Red Scare:  Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb.  These two films offer commentary on the United States’ dealings with Russia and communism, but in different lights.  Dr.  Strangelove is more of a humorous interpretation of the Red Scare.  This is evident through the constant use of phallic symbols, character parts, and utter exaggeration of ideals scarily similar to that of actual government officials at the time.  Good Night and Good Luck is more of a haunting rendition designed to make the audience more aware through emotional response more serious than that of the satirical Dr. Strangelove, shown by the stoic line delivery, the constant smoke stained shots, and the almost always intimate proxemics.  Though their intents differed, Stanley Kubrick and George Clooney used similar directing styles for their films.  One that particularly stood out was the use of black and white.  Also, the use of tight framing in practically all of Night is reminiscent of the office scenes in Dr. Strangelove.  One directorial facet of Clooney’s that I particularly enjoyed in the film was his use of music playing over scenes without hearing the actual scenes.  Kubrick employs this technique in the final mushroom cloud scene of Dr. Strangelove.  Finally, I have to note the aspect of Good Night and Good Luck that originally caused the link between the film and Kubrick’s.  In class, Tuesday, Prof.  McCay noted the aluminum ad that included a farmer shoveling manure, inherently implying what?  BULLSHIT.  That is exactly what American citizens were being fed through the media in the 50’s.  This type of symbolism is reminiscent of Kubrick’s use of cigars, missiles, planes, and god-knows-what-else as phallic symbols.  If I begin to think of any more parallels or interesting contrasts between the two films, I will add them to the 
blog.


Images aquired from http://dc340.4shared.com/ and http://www.jonathanrosenbaum.com, respectively.