Network (film)

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Network

Network
Directed by Sidney Lumet
Produced by Howard Gottfried
Written by Paddy Chayefsky
Starring Faye Dunaway
William Holden
Peter Finch
Robert Duvall
Ned Beatty
Music by Elliot Lawrence
Cinematography Owen Roizman
Distributed by USA: MGM (theatrical), Warner Bros. (DVD)
non-USA: United Artists (theatrical), MGM (DVD)
Release date(s) 27 November 1976 (premiere)
Running time 121 min.
Language English
Budget USD$ 3,800,000 (estimated)
IMDb profile

Network is an Academy Award-winning 1976 satirical film about a fictional television network named Union Broadcasting System (UBS) and its struggle with poor TV ratings. It was written by Paddy Chayefsky and directed by Sidney Lumet, and stars Faye Dunaway, William Holden, Peter Finch, Robert Duvall, Wesley Addy, Ned Beatty and Beatrice Straight.

Contents

[edit] Plot

Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.

As the story opens, the audience learns that longtime network news anchor Howard Beale (played by Peter Finch), who hosts the UBS Evening News, has been fired due to low ratings. His termination would be effective in two weeks. The following night, Beale announces on the air that he will commit suicide by getting a gun and "blowing his brains out" during an upcoming live broadcast. (Some believe this was inspired in part by newscaster Christine Chubbuck's on-air suicide.)

UBS immediately fires him after this incident, but they let him back on the air, ostensibly for a dignified farewell, with persuasion from Beale's producer and best friend, Max Schumacher (played by William Holden), the network's old guard news editor. Beale promises that he will apologize for his outburst, but instead rants about how life is "bullshit." While there are serious repercussions, the program's ratings skyrocket and, much to Schumacher's dismay, the upper echelons of UBS decide to exploit Beale's antics rather than pulling him off the air.

In one impassioned diatribe, Beale galvanizes the nation with his rant, "I'm as mad as hell, and I'm not going to take this anymore!" and persuades Americans to shout out their windows during a spectacular lightning storm. Soon Beale is hosting a new program called The Howard Beale Show, top-billed as a "mad prophet of the airways." Ultimately, the show becomes the highest rated (Duvall's character calls it "a big fat, ... big-titted hit!") on television, and Beale finds new celebrity preaching his angry message in front of a live audience that, on cue, repeats the Beale's marketed catchphrase en masse. His new set is lit by blue spotlights and an enormous stained-glass window, supplanted with segments featuring polls and astrology.

Parallel to the story of Beale is the tale of the meteoric rise within UBS of Diana Christensen (played by Faye Dunaway). Beginning as a producer of entertainment programming, Diana acquires footage of terrorists robbing banks for a new television series, charms other executives, and ends up controlling a merged news and entertainment division. To advance this, Christensen has an affair with the long-married Schumacher, but remains obsessed with the success of the network, even in bed.

Upon discovering that the conglomerate that owns UBS will be bought out by an even larger Saudi Arabian conglomerate, Beale launches an on-screen tirade against the two conglomerates, encouraging the audience to telegram the White House with the message, "I'm mad as hell and I'm not going to take this any more" in the hopes of stopping the merger. The chairman of the company that owns UBS then lectures Beale on the general equilibrium theory of macroeconomics, ultimately persuading Beale to abandon his populist messages. But audiences find his new views on dehumanization to be depressing, and ratings begin to slide.

And although Beale's ratings plummet, the chairman will not allow executives to fire Beale as he spreads the new gospel. Obsessed as ever with UBS' ratings, Christensen arranges for Beale's on-air murder by a group of urban terrorists who now have their own UBS show, "The Mao-Tse Tung Hour," a dynamite addition to the new fall line-up.

Spoilers end here.

The film examines the way networks make decisions about programming and the disdain that they show for their audiences, as well as their staff. It also serves as a warning against potential abuses resulting from corporate conglomerate ownership of television networks, specifically with regards to news reporting. Produced and released in the year of the United States Bicentennial, and following Watergate, the resignation of President Richard Nixon and the United States' loss in the Vietnam War, the film's main themes are the decay of public service, the tension between capitalism and humanism, and, to a lesser extent, the effects of a generation gap.

Network won Academy Awards for Best Actor in a Leading Role (Peter Finch, posthumously), Best Actress in a Leading Role (Faye Dunaway), Best Actress in a Supporting Role (Beatrice Straight) and Best Writing, Screenplay Written Directly for the Screen (Paddy Chayefsky). It was nominated for Best Actor in a Leading Role (William Holden), Best Actor in a Supporting Role (Ned Beatty), Best Cinematography (Owen Roizman), Best Film Editing (Alan Heim), Best Director (Sidney Lumet), and Best Picture.

It won three of the five acting awards, tying the record with A Streetcar Named Desire in 1951.

[edit] Trivia

  • Beatrice Straight, who played Holden's wife in the film, won the 1976 Oscar for Best Supporting Actress. Hers was the shortest performance ever to win an Academy Award for acting, her character having been on screen for five minutes and 40 seconds.
  • In 2006, the script (written by Paddy Chayefsky), was voted one of the top ten movie scripts of all-time by the Writer's Guild of America.
  • Finch and Dunaway have no scenes together despite being, respectively, the protagonist and antagonist of the film.
  • Except for the occasional commercial or TV show theme (including the end music, which is actually the theme for Beale's "The Network News Hour" program) Network contains no incidental music whatsoever.
  • In 2000 the United States Library of Congress deemed the film "culturally significant" and selected it for preservation in the National Film Registry.
  • Kathy Cronkite, daughter of famed CBS News anchor Walter Cronkite, appears in the film, as the Patty Hearst-inspired Mary-Anne Gifford.
  • The film spawned the popular phrase "I'm mad as hell, and I'm not going to take it anymore," though the actual quote in the film, as uttered by Howard Beale, is "I'm as mad as hell, and I'm not going to take this anymore!" It is frequently parodied, and used by the New York Mets to rev up the crowd. It placed 19th on the American Film Institute's list of the 100 greatest American movie quotes.
  • One example of parodies to the "Mad as hell" line includes a scene in the 1989 film UHF involving a character played by Michael Richards. The line he yells is a lot different. He says, "HEY! These floors are dirty as Hell, and I'm not gonna take it anymore!"
  • In the "mad as hell" scene, UBS discovers that people watching all over the country are yelling the phrase out their windows. At one point, an executive talks on the phone to the network's Atlanta affiliate: "Are they yelling in Atlanta, Ted?" -- a possible reference to Ted Turner. However, this could be a coincidence; Turner did own the station that became WTBS as early as 1970, but wouldn't become a national name until well after the movie was produced.
  • Actor George Clooney is planning to produce and co-star in a live made-for-television remake of the film, just as he did with "Fail-Safe" [1]. Clooney's character refers to Network in his 1998 film Out of Sight.
  • The pilot episode of the 2006 series Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip had scenes inspired by the film, and the episode itself made reference to this. In early development, the fictional production company in the series was also called "UBS", as in this film.
  • The film placed 66th on the American Film Institute's list of the 100 greatest American films.
  • The pseudonymous correspondent who covered television network skulduggery in "The Webs" column of Spy Magazine was named "Laureen Hobbs," after the radical black activist who is corrupted by television in the film.
  • Ned Beatty only received the full text of his famous long speech the day before it was shot.

[edit] Cast

[edit] Awards

[edit] Academy Awards

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[edit] Golden Globes

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[edit] BAFTA Awards

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[edit] External links

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v • d • e
Films directed by Sidney Lumet

12 Angry Men • Stage Struck • That Kind of Woman • The Fugitive Kind • A View from the Bridge • Long Day's Journey Into Night • The Pawnbroker • Fail-Safe • The Hill • The Group • The Deadly Affair • Bye Bye Braverman • The Sea Gull • The Appointment • King: A Filmed Record... Montgomery to Memphis • Last of the Mobile Hot Shots • The Anderson Tapes • Child's Play • The Offence • Serpico • Lovin' Molly • Murder on the Orient Express • Dog Day Afternoon • Network • Equus • The Wiz • Just Tell Me What You Want • Prince of the City • Deathtrap • The Verdict • Daniel • Garbo Talks • Power • The Morning After • Running on Empty • Family Business • Q & A • A Stranger Among Us • Guilty as Sin • Night Falls on Manhattan • Critical Care • Gloria • Strip Search • Find Me Guilty

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