The social and cultural functions of jazz in 'Good Night and Good Luck', 2005.

Abstract

In Edward Murrow’s 1958 speech to The Radio and Television News Directors Association he takes journalists to task saying that they need to keep a more watchful eye on media networks and companies. George Clooney’s film, Good Night, and Good Luck (2005), opens with a jazz soundtrack then the start of Murrow’s speech before segueing into a flashback of the events leading up to Murrow’s presentation of the famous television exposé of McCarthy, the broadcast itself, McCarthy’s rebuttal and the immediate aftermath. The film closes with a return to the speech thus implying that the flashback was the content of the speech and securing Murrow’s ownership of the narrative. The narrative is punctuated with jazz performances by Diane Reeves who provides a black, female presence and voice in an historical event where, as in the film, most of the participants were white men, and the film closes with credits over a jazz soundtrack. This bookending implies a link between the use of jazz and the American film industry. Does Clooney’s film carry an admonition to American filmmakers that we might compare with Murrow’s speech to journalists? This paper argues that jazz is used to provide a structuring device that separates the film from Hollywood style, gives a subversive political counterpoint to McCarthyism and resonates with contemporary audiences conscious of the vulnerability of their citizen rights in post 9/11 America. The paper then goes on to tease out some of the links between the film as cultural and industrial artefact and aspects and American identity and citizenship.