Network (1976) 10/10
Howard Beale (Peter Finch), a news anchor with declining ratings, is fired. The next day he announces, during his newscast, that he intends to blow his brains out on the air. A sensationalist programming director (Faye Dunaway) decides that Beale should continue on-air, and he is given a show as “the Mad Prophet of the Airwaves.” Directed by Sidney Lumet.
Network is a satire of a medium that nearly defies satirization. Fortunately, screenwriter Paddy Chayesfsky was up to the task, and the movie holds up even today. Stand Network next to Broadcast News, which takes its characters less seriously and its comedy less black; they’re both saying the same thing, that news is not news when it’s on television, it’s entertainment, and that has repercussions. James L. Brooks‘s movie is concerned with what that does to news, while Lumet’s is concerned with what it says about entertainment, and what entertainment means to us anyway. Network predates and predicts reality TV and lurid freak-of-the-week talk shows, but its aim is wider. Network is skewering not just TV, but the way that TV makes us think.
Standing beside the dark comedy of the TV show itself (Sybil the Soothsayer, anyone?) is the relationship between fired news producer Max Schumacher (William Holden) and Diana Christensen (Dunaway). Each scene between them is played as a television scene, each line of dialogue is either about television, or sounds like a television script. Until the end, they speak entirely in cliches, and in self-awareness about the cliches, and in network lingo. Diana, Max finally realizes, is television. She has scripts, not experiences, and is numb to real feeling.
The screenplay is as smart as smart gets. “I’m mad as hell and I’m not going to take this anymore!” “You have meddled with the primal forces of NATURE!” “It’s not a psychotic break, it’s a cleansing moment of clarity.”
Network has long been called a writer’s movie. But it doesn’t suck for actors, either; three of whom won Academy Awards. (The brilliant William Holden was nominated in the same category as co-star Peter Finch, who won posthumously. It’s impossible to compete with a corpse.)
The film is sharply funny, full of witty flourishes, and yet works as drama as well. Despite the satiric nature of the relationship between Diana and Max, they are genuinely moving together, and Dunaway’s Oscar was well-deserved.
I first saw this movie in 1976, and, other than a few very famous clips, hadn’t seen it since. I find it remarkable that, after thirty years, some scenes were still vivid in my memory. Network is like that; it paints a strong and memorable picture.
As a postscript, have you noticed how the darkest, most portentious, most dystopic movies of the past are now being described as “timely”? Sorta fucking miserable.
(I’m mad as hell and I’m not going to cross-post anymore!)
It’s on my re-watch list.
Mine too. Recent references-to can be found in everything from “Studio 60” to “Countdown.”
Oh, definitely iconic.
In fact, I had originally TiVoed it for Arthur, and we had it on the list as well as the pilot for Studio 60. I made him watch Network first so he’d understand Studio 60 better.