Network

Rating:
Summary: Wake up and smell the cathode
Review: Paddy Chayefsky's 1976 blockbuster hit "Network" is, I truly believe, the best film satire ever made. It might well be the best film regardless of genre ever made in the United States, better than "Citizen Kane," better than "The Godfather," better than any of the other numerous contenders. The first time I saw "Network" was on television about ten years ago, a supreme irony that became more and more amusing as the film progressed, and the powerhouse dialogue, performances, and set pieces captured my imagination unlike any other film. I have since watched this film so many times that at one point I could quote large chunks of dialogue verbatim with the greatest of ease. Over the past several years, however, I haven't seen Chayefsky's masterpiece as often as I would like. When I decided I would finally tackle the daunting prospect of writing a review for this movie, I rented the DVD version and resubmerged myself into the dark world of Howard Beale, Max Schumacher, Diana Christensen, and Frank Hackett. And I rediscovered something I always realize every time I watch this magnificent piece of cinema: "Network" is as great a movie as it was the first time I saw it, and it's prescience to our modern world continues to astonish.

"Network" takes the viewer inside of a major television network, UBS, during the 1970s. Their prime time newscaster, Howard Beale (Peter Finch), has just received word from his boss Max Schumacher (William Holden) that the network is terminating his contract due to low ratings. Perturbed about leaving his position, and with nothing else in life to live for, Beale breaks down on television and promises his audience that he will kill himself on live television the following evening. Not surprisingly, this revelation causes quite a stir amongst the suits on the upper floors. Frank Hackett (Robert Duvall), the new overseer of the network since its acquisition by a larger corporation called CCA, threatens once again to clean house. Schumacher convinces Hackett and the other executives to hold off because Howard is essentially insane, and he even manages to get Beale back on the air the following evening in order to issue a public apology. Max has his own reasons for supporting Beale: the network is threatening to cut the budget of the news division in order to decrease the debt load, a decision they failed to notify Schumacher about beforehand. When Howard goes off on a rant about the sicknesses of American society the following evening, Max refuses to cut the live feed as a protest against the network's unfair treatment.

Hackett hits the roof, but when entertainment division chief Diana Christensen (Faye Dunaway) convinces him that Beale's rants brought in a record number of viewers, a new idea quickly forms. What if the network encouraged Howard's irrational behavior? What if they made a program based solely on his prophecies about the state of modern America? That's exactly what Christensen and Hackett accomplish when "The Howard Beale Show" debuts on UBS. In front of a roaring crowd, the former newsman raves about the evils of corporatism, the corrosive effects of television, and public corruption. At the end of each tirade, Beale collapses in a faint in front of the cameras. Audiences eat these histrionics up, and ratings for the show go through the roof. UBS is well on its way to turning a profit. Meanwhile, a subplot about Max and Diana plays out. The two embark on a tempestuous love affair despite their professional quibbling about Howard and Max's longtime marriage. While Christensen sets about creating new programs highlighting left-wing revolutionary activities, programs like "The Mao Tse-Tung Hour," Max leaves his wife and moves into Diana's apartment. Their relationship resembles a television program, and as Howard's ratings slip after he receives a readjustment to his worldview from CCA chairman Arthur Jensen (Ned Beatty), Max and Diana's union also falters. The film's conclusion is as cruel as it is darkly hilarious.

I've never seen, nor do I expect to ever see again, a film like "Network." Each element of the film fires on every cylinder. Time stops while watching this picture. The performances from major and minor characters are sublime, but it's Peter Finch who grabs the spotlight with both hands and refuses to let go. His Howard Beale raves, rants, gesticulates, and issues statements on the world that spellbind with their power and elegance. His monologue to Max about his mental state, his lecture to audiences about the illusion of television, and his take on corporate buyouts brings me to my feet every time I hear them. Just as memorable is Arthur Jensen's mind-blowing analysis of the true nature of the corporate universe and the ultimate fate of mankind if the citizens of the world allow his ilk to have their way. The film ends with Max Schumacher labeling Diana Christensen "television incarnate" because of her total inability to form meaningful emotional connections. In fact, the mindlessness and callousness of television, how it reduces every aspect of human sentiment and interaction to one-dimensional superficialities, ultimately destroys every character in this film.

I could keep going ad infinitum, explaining how Max represents the common man faced with the daunting task of giving in to his cravings for television (re: Diana) or simply turning it off for good by returning to the wholesomeness of family life. I could also examine how Chayefsky shows us television destroying not only those who watch it but also those who fill the medium with images, i.e. the decision Hackett and Christensen feel they must make concerning Beale's plummeting ratings. What I really want to do is fill this review with line after line of the brilliant dialogue uttered in this film. I won't though; you need to see this tour de force motion picture for yourself. And realize how much of it pertains to our society today. Mad as hell, indeed!



Rating:
Summary: Strikingly contemporary even 30 years later
Review: I watched Network again last night, for the first time since the film first came out. I remembered that it was a good movie with a lot of good acting, but given that the things this film predicted about television have all come true - and been surpassed in spades - I was expecting that its indignation over the commercialization of television news would seem quaint and certainly dated.

Good heavens, was I wrong. This movie hasn't lost its edge a bit in 30 years. William Holden as Max Schumacher is the only real human being, and he wanders through this film looking slack-jawed, as if he'd landed in Toon Town and can't quite believe his eyes. As it turns out, he has: the cartoonish, conniving antics of Robert Duvall and Faye Dunaway leave all of us laughing guiltily.

The screenplay emphasizes the comic-strip nature of these characters by giving them dialog that no real human being could ever utter with a straight face. The one sex scene between Dunaway and Holden is one of the most horrifyingly hilarious moments I can remember from any film. Add Ned Beatty - who doesn't say much through most of the film, and then erupts like Lucky in "Waiting for Godot" with a single, five-minute monologue that will peel the paint off your walls - and this is one of the darkest, funniest films of the last 50 years.

They should re-release this film in theaters. Especially now.





Rating:
Summary: Overwritten; should have been a play
Review: Chayevsky's "Hospital" I think was a better satire. "Network" has one serious flaw: with its long speeches, and flowery, at times, language, it is more suitable to the stage than the screen. Movie dialoge should be sharp, crisp, pithy. The dialogue here needs some editing, and that would make the script tauter and more effective. Having said that, this is a hilarious, black comedy about television and the people behind the scenes. Chayevsky skewers them beautifully (as did Fred Allen, years before him) and the result is a tought-provoking, prescient, yet very entertaining film.

Peter Finch, as a news anchor who loses it one night and promises to commit suicide on the air, turns in a sterling performance as Howard Beale. He is the main reason I watch the movie again and again. His rantings on the air result in high ratings and the bigwigs, who at first wanted to fire him, keep him on to exploit his initial appeal. (Beale's rantings are long, but are appropriate to his character and are interesting to listen to). His appeal wanes, but then he is given his own show, along with a soothsayer and others, that is meant as pure entertainment, and has nothing to do with news. This has happened on the radio, with the ranting right wing commentators, but TV news has not really taken this path (except maybe for cable).

William Holden, as Howard's longtime friend, Max, is a TV executive at the station (UBS). He is the most human, sympathetic character in the film. He thinks Howard is having a nervous breakdown and should be taken off the air, but the top brass disagrees *mainly because of his high ratings) and he is kept on, despite the fact that he regularly faints on the air at the end of his rantings. Many of Max's speeches, to his wife, and to Faye Dunaway, are much too long, and need editing. He leaves his still good looking wife, to move in with the heartless, career-driven, Dunaway (he has been fired from UBS and is writing a memoir about his early days in television). This act, to me, seems unconvincing, as Max is the only character in the film with any humanity left; the affair makes him a little less sympathetic character. He never really explains why he leaves his wife. Eventually, he leaves Dunaway, but the whole affair does not seem like somethig Max would do. Holden, as usual, turns in a solid performance as Max.

Faye Dunaway plays a young executive who has no life outside of her job. She is ruthless (takes over Max's job behind his back), and will do anything to get what she wants. But she talks too fast. She too has speeches that are too long, and added to the fact that she tends to deliver her lines too quickly (granted, it is in character) makes her irritating to watch. I suppose you should feel sorry for her in some way, but Dunaway is not that good of an actress.

Chayevsky is right on when he predicts reality shows, by having the network produce a television show centered on a real revolutionary group's bank hold-ups (even including a Patty Hearst character).

Ned Beatty, in a small role, plays the head of CCA, the company that has bought UBS. After Howard has gone on the air and exposed a buyout of CCA by a consortium of banks, etc., owned by the Saudis, he goes on the air and exhorts his listeners to write to the White House in an attempt to block the deal (sound familiar?). Beatty takes Howard into a board room and shouts, "You have tampered with the primal order, Mr. Beale." He goes on and on about how the only thing that matters is money, and how nations and democracies are obsolete, that only business and international companies matter in this day and age (right on again, Mr. Chayevsky). Beatty delivers his tirade majestically, demonically; it is one of the most memorable moments in the picture, again proving the adage "there are no small roles, just small actors." Howard sits there listening as if in a trance, and at the end of the tirade says "I have heard the voice of God" or something like that. He is told to preach this new gospel on his TV show. And he does. And his ratings go down. So the executives, unable to replace Howard, because Beatty likes him, decide to have him assassinated, on the air, of course. And in s voice-over, Max says, "So Howard Beale was the first news anchor who was murdered because of low ratings."

Robert Duvall plays an exec of CCA, the company that has bought UBS. He once again proves that he is one of the finest actors in Hollywood, turning in a great performance as Frank, the quintessential company man, who cares only about percent shares of the TV audience UBS receives, and making money. He fires Max. You really hate him.

It is fun to watch this film and see how many of Chayevsky's predictions have come true. Quite a few. This a film replete with good guys and bad guys, and there is little question where Chayevsky's sympathies lie. This is a very good film, but not a great film.

Rating:
Summary: Chayefsky Had a Crystal Ball
Review: What is often repeated about this film is how in 1976 it predicted the future of television. "The Howard Beale Show", "Sybil The Sooth-Sayer", and "Che Guevera Hour" have their predecessors in Jerry Springer and reality shows like "Fear Factor". But back then there were only three major networks competing among themselves for ratings with no competition from cable outfits. Some of the film's assertions were dismissed as paranoid fantasy. It is my understanding that this film germinated from scriptwriter Paddy Chayefsky's mind after becoming disillusioned with the direction network television had evolved. This from a man who wrote "Marty" for television only to see it evolve into a sea of "Gilligan's Islands" and "Six Million Dollar Mans". I cite Chayefsky as the primary force behind this film because it is essentially dialogue driven but Sidney Lumet does a superb job directing the proceedings. The ensemble acting here is superb led by Peter Finch's crazed newsman Howard Beale, Faye Dunaway as the ratings driven program director Diana Christiansen, William Holden as the the voice of reason, axed newsman Max Schumacher, Robert Duvall as hatchetman, Frank Hackett. Ned Beatty and Beatrice Straight shine in smaller roles as a corporate type and Max's spurned wife, respectively. In 1976 this film was typecast as dark comedy. Today it would be a reality show. Are you listening, Donald?

Rating:
Summary: Art imitating life, 28 years ago!
Review: I recently watched a new movie called "OutFoxed" (avail at Amazon?) about the very subject this movie satires. If you enjoy(ed) this movie, I would also recommend HIGHLY, OutFoxed. The first time I saw "Network" in 1976, it was just entertaining... a great cast in a great, original movie plot. I rented it again a few years ago and loved it even more. For days after, it was fist shaking and "I'm mad as HELL, ..." . Amazingly, the last two years of network history have become so much like this movie that it has been transformed into an odd classic. A must for the permanent collection.

Rating:
Summary: I Wasn't Ready!
Review:
Network is phenomenal. First of all, the acting is tight, and the dialogue is well written. I fell in love with the characters instantly. In addition, the plot blew me away. The story begins with a depressed news anchor who announces that he will kill himself on air, and the story gets much more interesting from that point on.

Most importantly, this film was extremely prescient in its depiction of television news in an era of large coporate ownership. Watching this piece of fiction brings to mind real-life current documentaries like "Outfoxed" and "The Merchants of Cool." For those of us who are "mad as hell" about the role of mass media in today's society, this film is for you!

And, for a film that's fairly old, the ending was surprising and memorable. I wasn't ready! This is one of the better films that I've seen in the past year. Try it for yourself.

Rating:
Summary: The reason why I'm in the Broadcasting business!
Review: You want to see some great acting! I'm mean do you really want to see some great acting? This all star cast is a testament to the movie's greatness. William Holden, Faye Dunnaway, Robert Duvall, Ned Beatty are all outstanding. But it's Peter Finch who died just before the Academy Awards and recieved a postumous Oscar for the mad prophet himself, Howard Beale. A man who single handedly brings a Broadcasting Network from worst to first. The actions of the executives in this movie are no different then what they do today. On my top 5 list of the greatest movies ever!

Rating:
Summary: Possibly the Most Important Film Ever Made
Review: I have put off writing a review for this film for quite a long time, but I finally decided to dive straight into the maelstrom and take a stab at it.

Network is (in my opinion) one of the most important films ever made and is essential as both an angry and cynical satire (one of the greatest) and as an eye-opening experience for our modern age. I would even venture to say that this film is even more pertinent now than when it first entered theaters 28 years ago. A huge (actually staggering) amount of events have happened since then, including the rise of the computer (which is already an average, commonplace thing now) and globalism. Corporations (the object of scorn in this film) are more powerful than ever. It makes the chilling statements in this movie even more confrontational and prophetic.

Network displays terrific ensemble acting by all of the characters involved: from "leading" figure William Holden, the old-fashioned romantic left rudderless in the wake of a new ultra-consumerist culture to his icy and mechanical love interest Faye Dunaway who is the "ugly" spirit of the Network itself to his wife Beatrice Straight, the lonely, bitter, and heartbroken woman (she won an Oscar for being in merely one scene, that's how real it was!) to Robert Duvall's exaggerated performance as a cruel and money-obsessed entrepeneur to Ned Beatty's strange, almost Shakespearean portrayal of the head executive as a sort of Antichrist for Capitalism to the small but gritty and ferocious roles of the quasi-Communist radicals who also end up tangled in the web of the Network and scrambling for their own "share".

Then we come to Peter Finch. Dunaway and Straight also won Oscars, but it was Finch's dazzling, enraged, and clownish acting feat as "mad prophet" Howard Beale that truly steals the show. His vitriolic diatribes which reveal his deepest, darkest inner secrets as well as his outer visions about society and the world end up bringing chills to the spine and are more adrenaline-pumping than any action-adventure extravaganza. He was an anomaly in the film and in the Hollywood spotlight, being the first actor awarded a posthumous Oscar.

Of course, the heart and soul of this film belong to kinetic director Sidney Lumet, who captures the zeitgeist, city, and intricate structure of modern times so well, and riddling writer Paddy Chayefsky who does some intense philosophical probing into many puzzling and disturbing issues that still ring true today.

In the end, Network is more than just another Oscar winner (being another tragic example of Hollywood's bias and/or reluctance to choose revolutionary films as Best Picture, other examples being Citizen Kane, Easy Rider, Apocalypse Now, etc.), it is also a film that makes you examine your own position in our modern society and what that society is doing (more importantly, the persons in power in that society). Network has no heroes, no happy ending, and no resolutions. It offers hard questions but few answers. I highly recommend this startling, over-the-top, and controversial film. It is provocatively honest.