Great Movies
From: Paul J. Marasa, Galesburg, IL
I just read your Answer Man comments to the would-be reviewer who asked how much of one's politics should enter a review. Your answer is fine; what troubles me is how objective you were. The writer, James Frazer, described himself as a "somewhat politically conservative man" who "hated the film because [he] thought it was smugly left-wing and pompous in the extreme." "Good Night, and Good Luck" was "left-wing" to an "extreme"? Is there anybody left in America who remembers when one didn't have to be a "liberal" to think Joe McCarthy was a venal thug?
Are we so polarized, and so convinced that our values are under siege, that we duck-and-cover with aggressive either-or, for-against absolutes? If recognizing that the McCarthy era was a national embarrassment makes one "left-wing," then "left-wing" must mean "objective."
Elvis Costello was once able to sing, "I used to be disgusted, and now I try to be amused." I wish I could manage the latter.
Roger Ebert was the film critic of the Chicago Sun-Times from 1967 until his death in 2013. In 1975, he won the Pulitzer Prize for distinguished criticism.
