NETWORK (1976)

Neha says
Outrageous, thought-provoking, clever, hard-hitting and a biting satire about the business and bastardization of television news journalism and the industry, Network (1976) will alter the way you view television just like a JFK or All the President’s Men revised the way we understood politics. On the micro level it’s about how a network uses and abuses a distinguished television commentator Howard Beale’s (Peter Finch) mental breakdown to boost TRP ratings but on the macro level Paddy Chayefsky’s Oscar-winning, potent and layered screenplay, that’s one heck of an exhilarating mental work-out, addresses the bigger issues of corporate conspiracies, corruption, dirty takeovers, underhand money transactions with foreign conglomerates (How relevant is that when today’s headlines are all about our very own IPL-Gate WSG-MSM media scandal) and asks one deeply disturbing question- Is democracy today not about nations, people and ideologies but about business, sell-outs and Currency? With a BBC documentary-style baritone voice-over that immediately commands credibility to the many, penetrating monologues that flesh out the thematic threads of the story- Be it Mr. Jenson’s (Ned Beatty) sales pitch to Howard Beale or Beale’s on-air outbursts that expose the decaying, ugly truths of the world- there is a unfailing focus and dynamism with which characters, motivations and ideas are set-up and find completion. And as a sub-plot the relationship between ambitious, alpha female, Vice-President of Programming, Diana (Faye Dunaway) and fired media head-honcho Max William Holden), empowered by sharply written, symbolic dialogue represents the core of this story- Would you rather be a dehumanized, unfeeling, robot of the system or would you like Max refuse to sell your soul? With such a fabulous pedigree of actors who sink their teeth into the rich material; with a consistent urgency around and within the characters; with dialogue that in a league of its own creates a world that’s both intimidating and incisive- NETWORK holds its weight in gold.

Ira says

There is something freakishly funny and oddly frightening about the anecdote that opens Network. Two characters are standing inebriated on a street corner, recounting an episode where someone mistakenly thought one of them was going to commit suicide when all he was actually doing was trying to reach somewhere to get a story. The man in question is Howard Beale (Peter Finch), a popular news reporter who doesn’t know that he is about to be fired by his old associate and closest friend Max Schumacher (William Holden). Little does Beale know how much suicide would feature in his life and career thereafter and little do we know that Network will unflinchingly and grimly look at the idea of ‘suicide’ in many ways. The suicide of human feeling, thought, and basic decency as we’ve known it through the prism of that popular culture force we call the media.

Its all and I mean all about the numbers in Sidney Lumet’s (12 Angry Men, The Verdict) newspaper-backroom drama Network which, explores the inner workings, machinations and manipulation of a fictional TV programming network, UBS and its strategic politics, games, successes and shocking failures. A fine team of veteran actors including Robert Duvall, Faye Dunaway (very well cast for the part of Diana Christensen, a ruthless entertaining programming producer and ultimately vice president), Peter Finch and William Holden lead the group of superbly etched characters who are employees of UBS. Characters who are driven, ambitious, cunning, noble, ignoble and complex, flung from positions of power, or honorary, nominal statuses to puppets in the hands of craving or disapproving audiences, colleagues and media players.

With a superb screenplay that’s acerbic, sharp, incisive, darkly funny and completely fearless in its ability to strip the media, its function, its commerce and its unseen uglier side and still create flesh and blood characters and a distinctive sense of human individualism, identity and society, this one holds even today as a masterpiece of media examination- the industry, the people who make it and the people who view it. What is truth? Entertainment? News? Showbiz? Humanity? And what do we really want from the people who bombard our TV screens on a daily basis, from publications and magazines we read on a regular basis.

Are we, mad as hell, sick of the bullshit and what are we willing to take anymore? Think of our own Indian television, watch the film, and trust me you will think about it again. As you watch former news reporter turned mentally unstable, evangelist ‘prophet’ Howard Bowles, (played with a fierce conviction by the extraordinary Pete Finch) takes over the screens of UBS’s most ‘popular’ show, where psycho-babble, self-help, entertainment, sensationalism, and preaching replace hard news, fact and truth, that knot in your gut gets thicker and tighter. As you watch him looming crazy-eyed on the stage live, and caught on a screen at the edge of a frame simultaneously, the lines between viewer and reporter, reality, fantasy, entertainment and humanity are blurred at horrifyingly inhumane costs. A man becomes a product, of use till he brings in the ratings, and as worthless as a tin can when he doesn’t. (Something The Truman Show would look at with similar insight decades later). Network is a classic and an uncompromising film. And as it rages on, as public rage meets shocking behind the scenes forces of engineering, you will find you rethink and re-question not just the role of the media in our world, but our role as human beings, and our sense of a grounded and humane identity.