Tarpalechee 1 Layna Tarpalechee Dr.

Dial-Driver Composition 2 27 April 2012 A Journey Back in time The movie Good Night, and Good Luck was directed by George Clooney. The movie takes place in the early 1950s, during McCarthyism. McCarthyism was the attack on communism by Senator McCarthy. Edward R. Murrow was the television broadcaster that attacked McCarthy and helped lead to his demise. Clooney uses a black-and-white screen, Murrows slogan, advertisements and actual footage of the McCarthy trials to produce flashbacks in the older viewers and give the younger viewers more background to the situation taking place in the movie. Clooney makes the movie black-and white to give it the old feel. Clooney is capturing the time by presenting in black-and-white. The black-and-white helps Clooney achieve his goal of setting the time and presenting the flashbacks that will pull in older viewers. The next idea that helped Clooney was mentioning Ed Murrows sign-off slogan. The mentioning of the slogan gave Clooneys film an unexpectedly melancholy tinge (Turan). I agree with this because older viewers would hear it and be taken back to the time they originally heard it on their televisions. When older people see this movie they will tell their children or grandchildren about what they seen and what they know about McCarthyism; this will lead to the achievement of Clooneys goal for this movie. The two advertisements showed in the movie are Kent cigarettes and the Aluminum Company of American (Alcoa). Throughout the whole movie the men are constantly seen smoking cigarettes and the advertisement for Kent cigarettes shows up more than once. Kent cigarettes were actually very popular in the 1950s. Cigarettes were made without filters. Due to in an article in Readers Digest titled Cancer by the Carton, cigarette brands looked to make their cigarettes with filters in order to make

Tarpalechee 2 them safer. Kent introduced the Micronite filter which was made with blue asbestos (Walter). Kent promised it to be the safest cigarette and people bought into it. The advertisements were shown for the simple fact that they were the most popular cigarettes in that time period. The other advertisement shown in the movie is an advertisement for Alcoa. The reason an Alcoa advertisement was used is because Alcoa ventured into television advertising in 1951 when alcoa sponsored Edward R. Murrows See It Now CBS news program (alcoa). So, seeing these advertisements would help with the flashbacks because people would be seeing the advertisement used during the show in the 50s. Using these advertisements was a good idea because they were popular advertisements during the time the movie takes place. Its almost like watching the show when it first aired. The last element Clooney uses is the actual footage of McCarthy from the 1950s. This element works because the viewers see McCarthy as he really was, rather than an actors portrayal. This was quite effective for the flashbacks because the older viewers are seeing footage they have already seen. The footage was my favorite parts of the movie. I liked it because I was seeing what had actually happened; which I guess is what Clooney intended for the younger viewers. I felt closer to understanding McCarthy as a person after listening to his speeches. The footage captured McCarthys flaws and a reproduction of the trials and his speeches would not have done McCarthys flaws justice. Clooney picked a good subject and representation in order to cause flashbacks for older viewers. I hope that older viewers appreciated his efforts and did experience what he intended for them. I know that I enjoyed the movie and appreciated his efforts in showing me what happened during that time period.

Tarpalechee 3 Works Cited Alcoa. Aluminum Company of America Inc. Web. 20 Apr. 2012. Good Night, and Good Luck. Dir. George Clooney. Perf. David Strathairn, George Clooney, and Patricia Clarkson. Warner Independent Pictures, 2005. DVD. Turan, Kenneth. ""Good Night and Good Luck": Murrow vs. McCarthy." NPR. National Public Radio, 7 Oct. 2005. Web. 16 Apr. 2012. Walter, Prof. "Kent Cigarettes - Now with Asbestos Filters!" Web log post. Professor Walter. 11 Mar. 2010. Web. 15 Apr. 2012.