Black & White

Two weeks ago I rented a movie called Good Night, and Good Luck. I am ashamed to say this but the only reason I rented it is because of George Clooney. He has co-written and directed it, and is in it. I have great respect for the work he has done as a socially responsible citizen of the world and I find him to be great eye candy, so I thought, OK, combine the two and what do you get? A great Sunday afternoon!

I like to know the cast of the film I choose to watch, mentally referencing other films they have done in the past. It was odd because I was more familiar with the supporting cast than I was with the protagonist of the film, David Strathairn. He plays Edward Murrow, reputed CBS journalist. His friend, producer and partner is crime, is Fred Friendly, played by Clooney. And together they take on Joseph McCarthy.

The films backdrop is the overcrowded and ultra-smoky CBS newsroom. It is not a fabulous film, but a good one. It is a treat for a thinking person and cinematically fairly superior with its camera work, performances and editing.

The fact that it is in black and white was disturbing to me at first, colour being an important part of the ‘setting’ of a film for me (having grown up in the 80’s where ‘flashy’ was an understated adjective). Now that I think back, however, it not only represents the time during which it was made, but it also brings out the unambiguous philosophy of the protagonist. He is not advocating his opinions loudly or screaming murder from the rooftops because of the injustice the McCarthy era instituted. But he has a deep-rooted knowledge and therefore love of himself, his ideals and his country. He was rather reminiscent of someone from an Ayn Rand novel actually…

Speaking of which, I recently read that Atlas Shrugged was going to be made into a film!?!? Words fail me when I think of the impact Ayn Rand’s work had on me as a lost and confused teenager and all I can say to whoever is listening is ‘Stop! Please don’t hurt us’. You cannot make a movie about this. You cannot touch it. Please don’t spoil it.

Back to the original subject, the movie was about the power of TV and how one man used his reach to influence an entire country. Have you watched TV recently? It shames me to see the channels that proclaim themselves as newscasters. Repulsive is not a good enough word to describe the state of Indian TV today. If it’s not a cat with a religious symbol on it, it’s a teenager with raging hormones that gets a heart attack on one of TV’s million circus shows, a daughter-in-law with mascara that can make her eyes bleed or a pompous loser of a vocalist with a nasal defect who thinks he owes it to people to talk down, croon loud and make movies about caps.

I think Shah Rukh Khan, Juhi Chawla and Aziz Mirza were on to something when they made Phir Bhi Dil Hai Hindustani. It flopped… badly. But I remember thinking even then that these guys are saying somethng important to us. They were trying to make a statement about the sensitive nature of the media, and how hype and vulgarity can make a whore out of news channels. And today it has. And it’s not just the news channels now, its all of them.

To sum it all up, here are a few words from the movie: ‘This institution can teach. It can illuminate, and yes, it can even inspire. But it can do so only to the extent that humans are determined to use it toward those ends. Otherwise it is merely wires and lights in a box. Good night, and good luck’.