Remedy du Jour -- September 1, 2012

I recently re-watched the movie Good Night, And Good Luck (2005, directed by George Clooney). The film is about legendary news man Ed Murrow and his struggle against Senator Joe McCarthy, who wanted to capitalize on American fear of communism. It was the early 1950s, when I was a toddler. America had a brush with fascism, and it was a close call. Murrow worked for CBS in the early days of television.

Many of you are too young to remember when a television network actually stood for something and did real journalism. That points to the main theme of this film—the demise of TV and the rising power of the corporations in the Mass Media Age. Corporate advertisers sponsored news shows in 1953-54, as they do today, and could easily withhold those ads (and the network's revenue) if they didn't like the content of the news. Naturally this economic broadcasting model doomed us from the start.

The first clip contains scenes from the movie, but I want to focus on the great soundtrack, which features jazz singer Dianne Reeves. I wish I could show more of her in the movie, but I couldn't find the clips I wanted. Here we return to the smoky, dark world of jazz clubs in the 1950s. The movie is shot in glorious Black & White. It's a world I didn't get to experience directly, but I wish I had. Of course that world is long gone now.

• scenes from Good Night, And Good Luck
• Solitude — Dianne Reeves, song by Duke Ellington
• I've Got My Eyes On You — Dianne Reeves, song by Cole Porter
• One For My Baby — Dianne Reeves, song by Harold Arlen and Johnny Mercer

 

 

 

 

Comments

[Tony]

I've heard it said that fascism is the merger of government and corporations. I read most of the Wiki entry on fascism, and understand that there are more facets to consider. Since corporations seem to control our government, and hold influence over the people, what form of government do we live under today? It's not a democracy, because our votes are meaningless - either party continues with the corporate agenda, and only differs on window dressing issues. So what are we, a corptocracy?

-Tony