Good Night, and Good Luck opens in a gracefully appointed banquet hall where sophisticated, elegantly attired men and women mingle at an awards dinner. The black-and-white imagery is so dazzling it's like looking at a photograph by Cecil Beaton.

If "Confessions of a Dangerous Mind" wasn't proof enough, "Good Night, and Good Luck" confirms it: George Clooney knows how to direct a movie. Visually arresting, imaginatively conceived, emotionally engaging and intellectually stimulating, the film manages the difficult task of placing the audience right in the room with the characters.

The film assumes a basic knowledge on the part of the viewer. Set in the early 1950s, it chronicles the real-life conflict between broadcast journalist Edward R. Murrow (David Strathairn) and Senator Joseph McCarthy, who employed fear, intimidation and outright falsehoods in a crusade to root out alleged Communists from every walk of American life. Ignoring threats to his own career –- not only from McCarthy but also from network executives and corporate sponsors –- Murrow, producer Fred Friendly (George Clooney) and their team at CBS News helped to expose the erroneous claims and scare-mongering tactics of the junior Senator from Wisconsin. (The acting is top notch across the board, although it's not easy figuring out who all the characters are.)

Clooney's decision to make the picture black-and-white rested primarily on his decision to use archival footage of the key historical figures, including McCarthy himself. So seamlessly is it woven into the film that you are halfway through the movie before it hits you on any sort of conscious level. (The film actually was shot on color stock; then the color was removed by way of a digital intermediate.)

For a film dealing with such a serious subject, the amount of humor -- from darkly ironic to laugh-out-loud funny -- is unexpected. With its perfect balance of humor and drama, "Good Night, and Good Luck" proves provocative, diverting, lively and funny -- a civics lesson in a wildly entertaining package.

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