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Network [1976]


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Editorial
Amazon.co.uk Review

Media madness reigns supreme in screenwriter Paddy Chayefsky's scathing satire about the uses and abuses of network television. But while Chayefsky's and director Sidney Lumet's take on television may seem quaint in the age of "reality TV" and Jerry Springer's talk-show fisticuffs, Network is every bit as potent now as it was when the film was released in 1976. And because Chayefsky was one of the greatest of all dramatists, his Oscar-winning script about the ratings frenzy at the cost of cultural integrity is a showcase for powerhouse acting by Peter Finch, Faye Dunaway and Beatrice Straight (who each won Oscars), and Oscar nominee William Holden in one of his finest roles. Finch plays a veteran network anchorman who's been fired because of low ratings. His character's response is to announce he'll kill himself on live television two weeks hence. What follows, along with skyrocketing ratings, is the anchorman's descent into insanity, during which he fervently rages against the medium that made him a celebrity. Dunaway plays the frigid, ratings-obsessed producer who pursues success with cold-blooded zeal; Holden is the married executive who tries to thaw her out during his own seething midlife crisis. Through it all, Chayefsky (via Finch) urges the viewer to repeat the now-famous mantra "I'm as mad as hell, and I'm not gonna take it anymore!" to reclaim our humanity from the medium that threatens to steal it away. --Jeff Shannon

Editorial
Special Features

English
Region 2

Editorial
Synopsis

With stunning prescience, Sidney Lumet's searing satire of television and the contemporary moment chronicles the media's imminent corruption and the public's wholesale purchase into the myths that it creates. With a verbose and visceral script from Paddy Chayefsky, NETWORK follows the doomed path of aging newsman Howard Beale (Peter Finch), who upon learning that he is to be fired after decades as a news anchor announces to millions of viewers that he will publicly commit suicide during his last broadcast. When the ratings consequently shoot up, razor-sharp executive in training Diana Christensen (Faye Dunaway) seizes the moment to exploit Beale's messianic nervous breakdown, turning his delusional exclamatory rage into the vehicle for the network's first number one show and a nationwide craze. Middle-aged and fading news department head Max Schumacher (William Holden) is the only thing that stands in Diana's way--and even then not for long after she casually seduces him and easily has him fired with the help of the savage new head of the network, Frank Hackett (Robert Duvall). The moral and spiritual turpitude delivered by the debilitating forces of television are rendered in sharp relief against a backdrop of crumbling humanity in what is regarded as one of the great satires in Hollywood history.

4.5 stars
Review date: 2008-08-31 Rating: 8 out of 10

A rollercoaster ride of a movie. Not a lot of physical action but an awful lot of talking, to put it very mildly. But then multiple Oscar winner Paddy Chayefsky wrote it, so there would be. This guy is one of the most prized screenwriters of all time, and you just know instantly if you are watching one of his movies or not. I say his, because although he never directed, each film he did has his stamp all over it. I won't waste time in praising him or doing him down, but this is very much a Paddy Chayefsky movie. Others have reviewed the movie, the plot and the theme. I'm just going to tell you this is a Paddy Chayefsky movie. Don't be too tired but do have your dictionary to hand if you are folks because this is a Paddy Cheyefsky movie. Get it? You will after watching this Paddy Chayefsky movie. Who the hell is Sidney Lumet anyway?

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Reviews


Decades Ahead of its time
Review date: 2008-04-25 Rating: 10 out of 10

A few years ago, the writer Charlie Brooker became famous for his satirical, scathing `TVGOHOME' website, a fortnightly TV listing in the same style and font as the Radio Times. It was mostly concerned with the voyeuristic, nihilistic, gaping moral hole in the centre of the modern media. Charlie Brooker gave up doing the columns shortly after the turn of the millennium, because he said that though what he was writing had been satire, he began to realise that TV production companies were actually producing identical copies of his satirical programmes, most infamously in the case of `Touch the Truck'.

Network is in many ways, Charlie Brooker about 30 years ahead of his time. As a consequence of a newsreader (Peter Finch) announcing that he is going to kill himself on air the next day, the network decide that rather than do the decent thing and have the newsreader hospitalised, that they should make use of this sensational asset to boost ratings. When network executive Faye Dunaway starts to get her way, she brings in a whole host of new programming to replace things like the news and designed purely to up ratings: a show for the news anchor to rant and rave all he wants; a weekly programme following violent revolutionaries commit actual robberies and raids ("The Mao-Tse Tung hour"); a homosexual soap opera; news predicted by fortune teller.

In the short term, ratings go through the roof. But after a few weeks, they begin to drop off as people crave the new, the more sensational. Consider the development of Big Brother, starting from a vaguely experimental standpoint, to realising the sensationalist potential of putting thin-skinned people in deliberately volatile situations. No-one ever got killed in Big Brother, but when the recent racist behaviour erupted on-screen, few were mistaken in believing it to be anyone else except the producer's own fault. And yet hundreds of people would still turn up to watch the live evictions. Perhaps we get the TV we deserve.

And it's the attitude of the viewers that the writer gets absolutely spot-on. When Peter Finch asks people to get "mad as hell", people go for it, when he lambasts on air the whole television industry night after nigh, they listen. But then they also tune into the Mao-Tse Tung hour without skipping a beat. The viewers, and therefore society at large is shown to be largely amoral - whatever holds out attention will do, never mind the ethics. Perhaps this is best demonstrated by William Holden's character, a veteran of news production. He leaves his wife to be with Faye Dunaway's executive, his wife representing the dull, self-sacrificing, honest and reliable nature of old TV, of old America. Faye Dunaway represents the rise of a different side of TV, imaginative, restless, irresponsible, rootless, energetic, thoughtless. The reluctance shows as William Holden is swept along with the current, powerless to resist. Much like the rest of us.

It all seems so obvious to us now, the sensationalism, the amorality, the cheapness, the dumbing down, the deliberate aim for the lowest common denominator. What is surprising is that it was seen all those many years ago, so accurate and in such detail.


PROPHETIC!
Review date: 2008-03-02 Rating: 10 out of 10

I barely watch television anymore. Modern televisual entertainment is a sewer filled with floating solid waste called reality TV and weekly serials that are nothing than lame rehashes of old ideas padded out with endless commercials and promos. NETWORK predicted all of this. This film made in 1976 was probably considered and intended to be an over the top parody of contemporary television. However, as fate would have it, after 31 years it has become a prophecy fulfilled. Watch it and see.

Bizarre ending
Review date: 2008-02-18 Rating: 10 out of 10

"I want you to get up right now and go to the window, stick your head out and yell `I'm as mad as hell, and I'm not going to take it anymore.'!"
Many in 1976 decried Lumet's masterful satire of the media as ludicrous. In my opinion, this movie now seems visionary and understated.
News commentator (Howard Beale) begins to ripple the TV airwaves by radically saying what he really thinks, and threatening suicide. His bosses are horrified, until they realise he is becoming a messiah figure to the viewers. Ratings are rocketing.
The brilliant William Holden tells cold hearted Faye Dunaway, "You're television incarnate - indifferent to suffering, insensitive to joy".
Genius. My only problem with this classic is the obscure ending.


One for the critics
Review date: 2007-11-24 Rating: 4 out of 10

I find this movie totally overrated and undeserving of it's status as one of the finest films of the 1970's.

The film does however make some good points about the influence of television and the obsession with ratings in the industry.

Unfortunately despite a stellar cast, everyone with the exception of William Holden hams it up for probably the only time in their careers. The "affair" between Holden and Faye Dunaway's characters is totally unbelieveable. Their scenes together are reminiscent of a bad TV movie.

The ending is totally ridiculous. I won't spoil it but it really is laughable.

I found it astounding that this film won FOUR Oscars. This is easily the worst multiple Oscar winning movie I've ever seen. It's overlong and tedious. I'm sure it works on many levels for the critics but doesn't do anything for me.

Product Details/Specifications


Actor(s):
William Holden
Faye Dunaway
Robert Duvall
Peter Finch
Wesley Addy

Creators:
Faye Dunaway (Primary Contributor)
William Holden (Primary Contributor)

Director(s):

Recording label: MGM Entertainment
Manufacturer: MGM Entertainment
EAN: 5050070010008
Binding: DVD
Number of items: 1
Format: PAL,
Release date: 2003-03-17
Number of discs: 1
Aspect ratio: 1.77:1
Audience rating: Suitable for 15 years and over
Region code: 2
Running time: 117 minutes
Theatrical release date: 1976
Language: English (Original Language)
Language: German (Subtitles For The Hearing Impaired)
Language: English (Subtitles For The Hearing Impaired)
Language: French (Subtitled)
Language: Italian (Subtitled)
Language: Spanish (Subtitled)

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