On what's supposed to be a news program the anchor is simply chosen because he's mentally unstable and it produces ratings. For standard programing the network films criminals doing dispicable things in real life and broadcasts it on television for the public. When you hear that you might think of modern television with Glen Beck's tearful rants and reality telivision. But this is actually the events of Sydney Lumet's 1976 satire Network. Despite the slight confusion in tone the movie is a brilliant, scathing and eerily prophetic look at the the television industry and it's loss of integrity for the sake of greed.
Network centers around the news division of the struggling television network UBS (effectivly a fourth version of ABC, NBC and CBC) which has just been taken over by the large corporation CCA. Howard Beale is the longtime news anchor for UBS's nightly news and he learns that in two weeks he will lose his job due to low ratings. He responds by announcing during a live broadcast that he will shoot himself on live television in a week and claiming that life is bullshit. But instead of removing him from the news CCA decides to keep him on the show anyways once they notice that his mental instability has dramatically increased ratings. Eventually the news show has a live studio audience, a fortuneteller predicting the news, and Beale giving firey yet intelligent rants on the evils of television.
The first thing you notice while watching this movie is the oscar winning script written by Paddy Chayefsky. While at points brutally funny, it's also brutally tragic. It takes simply the subject of a corporation taking over a television network and uses it to talk about the sterilizing effect it has on our knowledge, relationships, and effectivly our entire lives. We spend so much time watching television that we effectivly live and plan our lives like bad cliched TV dramas. Huge tragedies reduced to 30 seconds on a newsbroadcast. It's drained us of our sense of outrage, rendering us almost like robots. In the words of Howard Beale, we should be mad as hell and not want to take it anymore. But the thing is, is that we continue to take it. Howard implores his viewers (and effectivly us as well) to turn off our television sets and we don't. That's the brilliance of the the movie, because it involves the viewer directly in the tragedy of the story. We trap ourselves in a system that simply destroys our humanity.
The second thing you notice is the performances which took home three of the four acting Oscars the year it was released. The flashiest and probably best performance in the film is Peter Finch as Beale. I have two clips of him below and they speak for themselves. He takes an extremely difficult part with three-quarters of the film's important monolouges and infuses it with so much passion and outrage that it's invigorating just watching him. Then there's Faye Dunaway playing constantly talking head of programing Diana. She takes what could have been an irratating and one note part and makes her sympathetic and full of heart, so despite the fact she represents all the film is against you can't help but root for her. Even the smaller parts are fantastic. Robert Duvall is great as the merciless corporate hachet man Frank Hackett and Beatrice Straight is heartbreaking as Louise Shumacher (the shortest performance ever to win an Oscar). This is a massive ensemble film and there's not a single weak link which is a remarkable achievment in itself.
The one flaw of the movie though is that it seems at points that it dosn't know what it wants to be. While at points its very over the top and silly in it's exagerated satire, and then at other points it aims to be a realistic drama about the loss of integrity and humanity in television and humanity as a whole. The tone shifts back and forth rapidy, sometimes several times in a single scene and it makes the movie seem slightly disjointed. But if you think about it possibly that was intentional because now what was viewed is satire is real life, so mabye the ridiculousness was intended to be mixed right in with the humanity.
The film's great achievement is it's humanity. The film is just bursting with emotion from the greatest depths of sorrow, to hell like anger, to incredible happiness. It even manages to stir some of the same feelings in you as you realize that the state of telivision and entertainment as a whole is very much like Network's. It's so brillant and immersive that it makes you a character yourself. The film breeds a very personal relationship with the viewer and because of that I couldn't recommend it more.
I haven't seen this movie, although it's referenced so frequently one feels almost obliged to watch it. I think it's a fascinating account that plays with Glen Beck and right-wing evangelicalism and the rhetoric that is so often employed in what may best be called desultory journalism.
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