"good night, and good luck."

Television in the main insulates us from the realities of the world in which we live. — Edward R. Murrow

Of the various aesthetic constraints that George Clooney operates under for the duration of Good Night, and Good Luck. — including black & white cinematography, and a total absence of exteriors — the most interesting is the absence of a musical score. Mind you, the action, such as it is, is punctuated by the occasional vocal performance by Dianne Reeves (playing a chanteuse in the Columbia recording studio a floor below CBS TV's news operation), and the songs offer some witty commentary between cinematic chapters. But there is no instrumental score. It's as if Clooney et al were aware that the script had to stand on its own merits — to blemish even a few lines with emotional string-pulling would have been to sell out the spirit of Murrow. Mind you, Clooney has no reservations about romanticizing Murrow as a hero, with David Strathairn, flawless in the lead role, delivering movie-star cigarette poses and noble head-cocking... But it's an intellectual hero he wants us to recognize, and on the hero's own terms. In that he succeeds admirably.