Network

This movie came out when I was nine years old, and I saw it on network TV the following year, lured by the brouhaha that surrounded the use of the "barnyard epithet" during prime time. I loved this movie before I understood it, and I worship it now. Like "Elmer Gantry" or "1984," it's a work of didactic art that only fails on an imaginative level -- Sinclair Lewis couldn't grasp how debased evangelism would become, Orwell couldn't foresee the excesses of Mao or Pol Pot, and Chayevsky couldn't envision the absolute decline of television from a vast wasteland to a malevolent sewer. Fox News, reality TV, even the OJ chase, "Network" anticipates every vile bit of it.

Now, it's ridiculously overwritten -- NO ONE is as articulate as the characters in this film, and most certainly, no one who works in television is as literate as Diana Christensen (the Faye Dunaway character). I doubt that poet laureates or even Eminem could spew as witty an aside as "muttering mutilated Marxism." But damn if that isn't part of its charm. Plus, outside of Max Schumacher (William Holden), the characters are pretty much archetypes instead of real people (the Robert Duvall character might as well wear a black cape and top hat), but their two-dimensionality works as a good metaphor for Max's seduction into the "shrieking nothingness" or television. Plus the actors are so superb they make screeching caricatures into almost-sympathetic characters: Duvall is a credible and charismatic villain, Finch is a fine mad prophet and Faye Dunaway manages to make a shrill, manipulative, soulless neurotic so damn cute and sexy you'll want to leave your wife for her, too, just as long as she promises to keep sitting cross-legged on your desk and hitching up her skirt. (Therein lies the real eroticism, forget the intentionally mechanical, unerotic coupling later in the flick). Anyway, this is complex, high art masquerading as popular entertainment, go rent it now.

In 1976 when this film came out, there was no cable television, no internet, no cell phones. All that existed, apart from newspapers and radio, were three or four "broadcast" television channels. Since then, technology has exploded with a cornucopia of communication devices. Which renders the story in "Network" painfully dated. And yet ...

The story's theme is as valid now as it was thirty-three years ago. The theme is that the ratings business has corrupted television, because ad revenue, and therefore profit, is tied to the ratings. Programs and events then, and now, get aired if, and only if, they are likely to result in high ratings. It's all very seamy, very dishonorable, very shabby, and very relevant to today's world of ten thousand channels.

Though most of the characters in "Network" end up being corrupted by television, Howard Beale (Peter Finch) is one who does not. His vision is pure. And he speaks the truth: "... television is an ... amusement park ... a circus, a carnival, a traveling troupe of ... story tellers ... jugglers, sideshow freaks ... and football players ... You're never going to get any truth from us (television) ... We lie like hell ... We deal in illusions, none of it is true. But you people ... believe the illusions ... You do whatever the tube tells you ... you even think like the tube". Worse yet, people elect their leaders based on how they look and sound, and how their words are interpreted by boob tube "pundits".

"Network" is a film wherein thematic import is conveyed almost entirely through dialogue. Some of the dialogue devolves into speechifying, which may come across to viewers as preachy. Still, the film's message was highly prophetic. Except for the film's climax, everything predicted in this film has already happened. And credit should go to script writer Paddy Chayefsky for his futuristic vision.

Some parts of the film seem superfluous in retrospect, like the romance between two main characters. But the film has a sense of realism, helped along by the use of technical jargon and a general absence of background music. The film's technical elements, including direction, casting, acting, editing, and cinematography, are fine.

As social commentary, "Network" is one of the best films ever made, despite a dated, time-bound, story. That "there are no nations, only currency" is becoming increasingly obvious, and as Ned Beatty's arrogant character explains in a frighteningly ominous tone: "The world is a business, Mr. Beale".

This is one of those wonderful films where everything comes together. The acting and the writing is by far the most impressive elements of this film. William Holden and Peter Finch should have both received Oscars for their performances, instead of just Peter Finch. Faye Dunaway pulls of the most dynamic and emotional characters she has ever played.

The true brilliance of this film is that all elements of it fade appropriately behind the actors and their messages. The film is completely a work of storytelling and, at least for the writer, stunning clarity of message and purpose. Political films come and go but few remain in the annals of film because of their effectiveness at their own message.

The cinematography, editing, sound, costume design, art direction and production design are all quite simplistic. In some scenes the film can be accused of being almost ugly. However this all lends to the back-washing of the film so as to allow the message to ring loudest. In my opinion, Sidney Lumet took this just a little too far and thus I give it a 9 instead of a 10.

This is certainly a film for the history books. Every connoisseur of film should be exposed to this movie at some point in their life. If you happen to be cynical, then you will love every minute of this movie as its stark view of life in the 1970's (and onward) touches the hard of even the hardest of cynics. For those educators out there, GREAT film for classes on Media and Politics.

Experienced, but disillusioned news Anchor Howard Beale blurts out one night that he wants to commit suicide live on air, he is fired, but the executives notice that his outburst had a positive affect on ratings, they decide to stick with the unstable news reader.

Close to fifty years old, and still brilliant. Network is an impressive film, that holds up incredibly well, and still has a powerful message. It dares to discuss the way that people are ruled by a box in the corner of a room, and that people have a morbid curiosity in disaster and tragedy, we can't help but watch it.

Two hours fly by, it's fascinating from start to finish, it really does explore the darker side of humanity, the sheer exploitation that occurs for wealth.

When you think of all that's been seen on the small screen since then, this film was almost prophetic.

This boasts an awesome cast, including William Holden, Faye Dunaway and many more, but for me it's Peter Finch that steals the show,

One minor detail that's always struck me, the American decor of the 1970's, some of it is so tasteful.

Even now it's still a phenomenal film.

10/10.

It is the only word I can come up with to describe this masterfully savage satire, and IMHO, it's the only word that need be used.

Once I had seen ALTERED STATES and read the novel, I was hungry to find out more about the late novelist/playwright/screenwriter Paddy Chayefsky, and sought out this movie. It blew me away years ago, but I find it even more stunning now. Not just because of the writing, Sidney Lumet's taut direction or the Oscar-caliber performances by everyone involved, all of which are almost beyond being lauded with superlatives.

But what knocks me out is how Chayefsky seemed less to be writing from the power of his imagination, than channeling Our Times Now. As if he was capable of some form of mental time travel; able to look into the Nineties and beyond to see the coming of SURVIVOR, or Maury Povich, Jerry Springer, Bill O'Reilly and Paris Hilton. Even HE probably didn't know how he knew, but he sure as hell felt it and wrote it down for us to marvel over today.

Sure, there are political and cultural analogies throughout the picture that are dated. But the core of his vision remains startlingly clear and eerily prophetic. As for Howard Beale, there is not one single "celebrity" who mirrors that character today, but maybe he is a composite of several different personalities with whom we have become all too familiar in the world of "news-fo-tainment." Or maybe he simply hasn't materialized yet. Maybe that is just how far ahead of its time NETWORK really was.

After all, being "mad as hell" nowadays has so many more layers of meaning than it did nearly thirty years ago...