Broadcast pioneer Edward R. Murrow is the hero and Sen. Joseph McCarthy is the villain in George Clooney's black-and-white "Good Night, and Good Luck," making its premiere at the Venice film festival Thursday night.
While it may raise the hackles of conservatives, the movie is not designed to be an attack on U.S. President George W. Bush's policies, Clooney insisted Thursday at a news conference, although he did call himself an "old, bold liberal."
But the parallels with today's burning questions are unavoidable.
Can we champion freedom abroad without trampling on it at home? In McCarthy's 1950s crusade, the enemy was Cold War communism. Now it's worldwide terrorism, and both times have seen Americans wondering if the enemy is mingled among them.
"Sometimes we do dumb things," Clooney said. "We use fear to attack civil liberties."
The film's title is the trademark signoff of pioneer broadcast journalist Edward R. Murrow, who is played in a searing manner by David Strathairn as he systematically scrutinizes the methods of McCarthy's quest to "out" communists and their sympathizers during congressional hearings.
The movie was made in black-and-white to better evoke the atmosphere of the newscasts of those days. More importantly, it allows for seamless changes from actors on the screen to clips of McCarthy from archives.
But there are few shades of gray over who is the bad guy here and who is the good one.
Clooney, the son of a former TV anchorman, Nick Clooney, who made an unsuccessful run for a U.S. congressional seat last year, grew up in Kentucky in admiration of what he heard about Murrow.
McCarthy not played by an actorNo actor plays the junior senator from Wisconsin, who used bullying methods as he went after his victims in hearings of the House Un-American Activities Committee. Instead, Clooney chose to have McCarthy shown exclusively in footage of the era.
"If we had someone play McCarthy, people would have said, he is (portrayed as) too harsh or too evil and as a rat," said Clooney, who also wrote the script.
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Celebrity Sightings
We couldn't think of any one (actor) who was as good as he was, or as bad," said Grant Heslov, who co-wrote the film.
Clooney insisted that despite the parallels with current debate, "Good Night, and Good Luck" was not designed to be an attack on Bush's policies.
"I'm an old, bold liberal and I am outspoken against" U.S. policies, said Clooney, who has made his disapproval of the war in Iraq public.
But the film "wasn't designed specifically to be a political statement," said Clooney. "I didn't make the film as a protest."
Conservatives may object to how the right was treated in the film, but Clooney seemed to be saying 'bring on the critics."
"Some films get you in trouble. They open up debate. It's fun to be caught up" in the middle, the director said.
Murrow is seen wrestling with loyalty to viewer, country and himself.
Lesson for todayClooney said McCarthy did root out some disloyal Americans. But the senator's methods warranted scrutiny by Murrow because he didn't give those he was attacking the chance to know who was accusing them.
Without giving examples, the director said the same danger of rights violation was present today.
Counterpoint to the crisp pace of the newsroom developments is the jazz singing of the performer for CBS's musical interludes _ a reflection, perhaps, of Clooney's fondness for the melodic voice of his late aunt, Rosemary Clooney.
Clooney seems on his way to becoming European. Gossip magazines have been covering his love affair with an elegant villa he bought on Lake Como in northern Italy a few years ago.
In the film, he plays a principled and practical CBS television producer, Fred Friendly, who later, as a Columbia University professor, encouraged a generation of journalists to think through dilemmas of responsibility and ethics.
Frank Lagella has the role of CBS executive William Paley, proud of giving his producers freedom to pursue their stories while worried about angering advertisers who help pay for programming and politicians who ultimately approve broadcasting licenses. Robert Downey Jr. plays Joe Wershba, also part of the CBS team which backed Murrow.
Another film making the buzz for Golden Lion contender is Ang Lee's "Brokeback Mountain," a story about the homosexual relationship of two cowboys on a ranch in the American West in the 1960s. It will be shown to the public on Friday.
The award will be announced on the festival's final day, Sept. 10.