"Network" (1976)

(Truth and illusion….This is Part 1 of a 2-part series about two classic movies which examine  reality and fantasy.   This theme is important today, as we hear conflicting stories about a pandemic that is gripping the world with renewed force.  Some are desperate to find life-saving truths, while others defiantly cling to the safety of their illusions. Whether people succumb to the barrage of contradictory media messages without question, or conduct their personal lives in a state of self-imposed delusion, these movies examine this theme with cutting humor and high drama.)

Two classic movies, made ten years apart, and very different in style and content, nevertheless share an intriguing common theme: what is truth, and what is illusion?   “Network” (below) creates characters who embody the corruption of television, who exist in a fantasy world that precludes human emotion or compassion.

(“Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?”, in an upcoming post, examines two personal relationships, built on lies and fantasy, in various stages of decay.)

As outrageous as each film’s premise is, both exist in a recognizable world with identifiable characters.  One is an insider’s satire of television news, which predicted a disastrous future with uncanny accuracy.  The other is a lacerating look at personal relationships built on tragic deceptions, and the terrible, difficult journey towards healing and redemption.

Both contain some of the greatest acting ever seen in American film.

Both are writer’s films, which use exquisite dialog to create powerful and unforgettable scenarios.

 

“NETWORK”

“We deal in illusions, man!  None of this is true…You’re beginning to believe the illusions we’re spinning here.  You’re beginning to think that the tube is reality, and that your own lives are unreal… In God’s name, you people are the real thing.  WE are the illusion!”  --Peter Finch as Howard Beale, the ‘Mad Prophet of the Airwaves’.

Where do I go these days to get the truth about a tumultuous world?  At one time, I relied on televised news.

I was about twelve years old in the late 1960s, when the seismic events of an uncertain world entered my awareness.  It was a world whose intensity was like that of today, even if the topics were slightly different.  Back then it was polluted air and water, unrest in colleges and inner cities, the Vietnam war, and Richard Nixon; today it’s climate change, Black Lives Matter, Covid-19, and our incumbent (who I won’t dignify by name).

Journalists on a handful of networks, like Walter Cronkite, could be trusted.  They objectively, matter-of-factly reported the day’s news, providing commentary only when the magnitude of their stories was too outrageous to ignore.  They had no political agenda.  They had no reason to mislead or misinform us.

Now, the many networks devoted just to news create illusions instead of reporting facts.  Hourly news broadcasts come from such polarized viewpoints, that the same stories seem to be coming from different planets.   Journalists offer spin instead of sanity, hyperbole instead of objectivity.  Some pander to their viewing base with lies and propaganda, and peddle it as news.   There is hysteria on all sides.

We are so afraid of losing what little we have of our dwindling world—including our very lives—that we gravitate toward the messages that reassure us, that validate our opinion, whether or not any of the messages are true.  We are captive to whatever the media outlets want to talk about, ignoring many other things happening in the world that might enlighten us, and make us feel less panic-stricken.

A steady barrage of media images and messages creates a dangerous environment  of illusion.  Sometimes we have to turn it off, and trust our instincts, or find other ways to learn what’s real.  

One of the greatest films of the 1970s, and a personal all-time favorite, the dark comedy “Network” is so fast, so packed with ideas and humor and outrageous situations, that it holds up over many viewings. The most alarming thing about the film is how it no longer feels so outrageous, because our culture has embraced illusion and escapism over enlightenment and truth.

I am still amazed by “Network”, the way it boldly condemns American media and American complacency, takes topical issues to absurd comic heights, and showcases great actors and powerful language.  Most of all, as many critics have discussed before, “Network” was prophetic.  Paddy Chayefsky’s fevered screenplay chillingly predicted a breakdown of objectivity, the era of news as entertainment, and “reality TV”.  His warning has come true today, to a point where even serious political discourse has deteriorated to the level of professional wrestling.

Now that we need intelligent and objective media to provide information that can literally save our lives, the broadcasts  contain so much hype and mixed messages that it’s numbing.  We are not so much educated and encouraged, as we are expected to take sides and use our health to make a political statement.

It is all for high ratings, to appease sponsors. “Network” satirizes the moral bankruptcy of TV executives who would do anything for ratings, and the laziness of audiences who blindly accept whatever they see and hear on the tube.

“Network” tells the story of the ill-fated news anchor Howard Beale (Peter Finch) on a fourth-rate network, the fictional UBS.  About to be fired due to low ratings, Beale announces, live, that on his final show he will blow his brains out on the air.  The control room barely pays attention to this astounding statement.

Beale’s long-time friend Max Schumacher (William Holden) believes that Howard is emotionally disturbed, needs care, and must be taken off the air.  When Howard begs for another chance to make amends, Max relents.  Ratings are high for the next show, in which Howard lets loose with uncensored statement that “life is bullshit”.  The ratings go through the roof.

An unscrupulous head of programming, Diana Christensen (Faye Dunaway) recognizes that Howard’s rants, in spite of his mental illness, are ratings gold.  With the help her equally corrupt boss Frank Hackett (a wonderfully boisterous Robert Duvall), Diana conspires not only to keep Howard on the air, but to have the entire news division transferred into the Entertainment Division.  She programs the news hour with soothsayers, celebrities, opinion polls, gossip columnists, and Howards unexpurgated editorial tirades.

At first, it’s both amusing and disturbing.  Howard, despite his madness, makes sense.  In a chaotic world, Howard “articulates the popular rage.”  In the film’s most classic scene, he encourages viewers to get mad.  The film’s big catch-phrase, “I’m as mad as hell and I’m not going to take this anymore” entered the American consciousness. (When the movie had its television premiere, TV audiences around the country actually yelled out their windows.)

“It’s like everything everywhere is going crazy, so we don’t go out anymore. We sit in the house, and slowly the world we are living in is getting smaller, and all we say is, ‘Please, at least leave us alone in our living rooms. Let me have my toaster and my TV…and I won’t say anything’.  Well I’m not going to leave you alone…You’ve got to say, ‘I’m a HUMAN BEING, goddamn it!  My life has value!’ “  Howard Beale

At some point, during a lengthy rant, Howard reveals a secret about a shady business deal between the station’s conglomerate and a hostile world power.    Howard incurs the wrath of Arthur Jensen (Ned Beatty, fresh from his role in “Nashville”), the head of the conglomerate that owns UBS.  Jensen rages at Howard, and convinces him that the individual is finished: that countries no longer exist, that the world is nothing but a business.

Howard, totally awed, believes Jensen is the voice of God, buys into this depressing message, and spouts it on the air. Jensen insists that Howard remains on the air, and the ratings plunge.  

Diana and Frank can’t fire Howard, but they need to prevent a ratings freefall.  They come up with a final solution in the film’s extremely dark finale.

Chayefsky’s ingenious screenplay, which won him his third Oscar, is an intricate, topical, enviable piece of work.  It does many things simultaneously: it's an authentic satire about TV; a tragicomic look at a sensible madman; a polemic about an absurd world; a cockeyed story of seduction and infidelity; and an urgent call for reason.  

Along with some of the most powerful and pointed monologues ever recited, Chayefsky  juggles a number of entertaining subplots that are cleverly interwoven and resolved at the climax:

Max leaves his loving wife of 25 years (Beatrice Straight) to begin an affair with Diana after she steals his news show.  The purposely cliched love scenes are made hilarious by Dunaway’s delivery of work-related issues in the most romantic way. 

Diana, meanwhile, wants to create a docu-drama series, writing weekly episodes  around actual footage of crimes committed by the Ecumenical Liberation Army (a terrorist group based on the SLA, who kidnapped millionaire heiress Patti Hearst).  These terrorists quickly learn the jargon of television contract negotiations. 

And Howard’s grand, on-air tirades continue to the stunned delight of his studio audience, as he works himself to a frenzy until he passes out with exhaustion.

“Network”, for all of its provocative satire and challenging human drama, is full of biting hilarity, even if the some of the allusions to current events of its day have faded from the collective American memory.

Director Sydney Lumet is an unsung hero of exquisite cinematic craftsmanship.  His expertise with the camera, his success with actors, and his respect for a beautifully-written script made “Network” his crowning achievement, just one year after he directed another enduring masterpiece, “Dog Day Afternoon”.   I especially enjoy how Lumet lights his sets and sets up his shots to replicate various types of television genres: documentary, soap opera, crime drama, high fashion, and suspense.

He creates such a good atmosphere on the set, after painstaking rehearsals beforehand, that his actors are totally committed to the extreme material, with freedom to make their characters as believable and human as they can. “Network” resulted in five Oscar nominations for acting (William Holden, Faye Dunaway, Peter Finch, Beatrice Straight and Ned  Beatty).  For the first time since “A Streetcar named Desire” in 1951, “Network” won three acting awards.

Dunaway, who took home Best Actress, is masterful as the hardened, driven executive who is “television incarnate”.  Holden provides a strong center, the voice of reason among the madness.  Good as he is, and he is wonderful, it was Peter Finch who received special attention for succeeding in an extremely difficult role.  When he is on screen, you can’t focus on anything else.  He was also quite ill with a heart condition when he shot the film, and died soon after it was completed. Finch was the first Actor to win a posthumous Oscar. 

Beatty and Straight each have one powerhouse scene.  Beatty was cast late in the process.  With great professionalism, he learned his lengthy monolog quickly, filmed his scene in one day, and created a character of forceful realism and surreal humor. 

Straight, whose heartbreaking, explosive scene with Holden took only five minutes of screen time, was strong enough to win her an Oscar, the shortest performance ever to result in Oscar victory.

A film to be savored and enjoyed on many levels, “Network” is entertaining, funny, breathtaking, depressing, and thought-provoking, especially over forty years after its release.  It reminds us to use discretion when we consume media, and to think about what we’re seeing and hearing. It also reminds us to take a step back, and to live in a more authentic way, where fantasy and illusion are only the by-products of mindless entertainment, not the way to live our lives.