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DVD: The Edward R. Murrow Collection
4-DVD set (Docurama)
Reviewed by DJ Johnson
We sure could use someone like Edward R. Murrow working in the press today, but don't count on finding anyone who brings him to mind. Murrow was a standout among standouts, coming up during World War II, and as CBS's point man in Europe when it was still just serious international tensions, bringing many of that war's most famous broadcasters with him and into the public consciousness. Among those he discovered and brought onto his team were William Shirer, Howard K. Smith, Charles Collingwood, Eric Sevareid, and Daniel Schorr. To this day there's never been another group of newscasters like Murrow's Boys. They worked hard for their stories and came up with the buried bits that everyone else missed. Murrow himself continued to personify the ideal of the dedicated reporter right up to the end of his career in the early 60s.
Students of journalism should be required to own this 4-disc box of DVDs, The Edward R. Murrow Collection, recently released on the outstanding Docurama label. It could be a visual textbook for a mandatory course that could be called "Actually Reporting Important Stories 101." If that seems flip, please get back to me after watching this incredible programming, much of which is original Murrow reporting from his television shows, See It Now
The See It Now DVD is a treasure chest of shorter pieces from the series, and the topical variety gives you an inkling of what kind of outstanding programming Murrow offered his viewers. In one segment, Murrow's crew goes deep into the south at the dawn of the civil rights movement to report on a school board election. At stake: whether or not to begin bussing students and integrating schools. Listening to the some of those students as they're given the chance to air their own viewpoints still brings a chill all these years later. (One white girl in particular had such a deeply rooted case of ignorance that she just sounded cartoonish.) Another segment finds Murrow himself on the front lines of frozen South Korea. Can you imagine any news show today beginning with a minute-plus close up of a shovel making next to no progress in the frozen earth as a soldier attempts to dig a fox hole? If so, please tell me and I'll become a devoted fan, but at the moment I can't think of any. Murrow gave each man in the outfit a chance to introduce himself on camera, then brought the gravity of war home at the end of the show when he told of the battles the troop fought in the few days since filming, and that one of the men introduced had been hit in the chest with machine gun fire. They need blood, Murrow told his audience. "Can you spare a pint?"
In other segments, Murrow rides a B-17 bomber into the eye of a hurricane, takes you inside the battle for the 1952 Republican nomination, rolls up his sleeves and wades into a Mississippi River flood to tell the story of the people fighting it, and sits down with Grandma Moses, Louis Armstrong and Carl Sandberg. And that's just for starters. Even if you've never heard of Edward R. Murrow, this set is a gold mine of historic events and people brought to life again. We actually get to watch Grandma Moses paint. And the footage of Murrow's visit with Sandberg is priceless. When Murrow asks him if he'd rather be known as "a poet, a biographer, a historian or what," Sandberg replies, "What I need, mainly, is three things in life, possibly four: to be out of jail, to eat regular, to get what I write printed, and then a little love, at home and a little outside. Those four things, and then I don't need to be called either poet, historian, biographer, guitar player or folk singer."
One of the DVDs is dedicated to the battle between Murrow and Senator Joseph McCarthy. Murrow was one of the earliest and certainly the loudest and most visible public figures to stand up against McCarthy's witch hunt that seemed to find communists in every shadow, and, worse yet, created a culture of fear that compelled leaders in many an industry to do McCarthy's dirty work for him. Using the pulpit provided by See It Now, Murrow systematically knocked McCarthy off his high horse, telling the stories of those who were wronged. (The story of Milo Radulovich and his adventures with the Air Force will just amaze and disgust you.) On yet another DVD, we get to experience one of Murrow's (and tele-journalism's) greatest moments: Harvest of Shame, from the hour-long CBS Reports, blew the whistle on the despicable treatment of migrant farm workers in 1960 America. The program is presented in its entirety, still brutally powerful 45 years later.
It's hard to pick a favorite among the four discs; the main documentary (This Reporter) gives such a wonderful overview of Murrow's career, and the McCarthy documentary is such an important historical document on its own, a reminder to today's press that hard, fearless work and a willingness to bring evil into the light of day can still bring about change. Then again, Harvest of Shame and See It Now actually let you experience his work in a way we haven't been able to in decades: in complete segments, as they originally aired. Packaged together, these four discs comprise one of the most outstanding DVD box sets of this or any other year.
© 2005 - DJ Johnson