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Network (1976 film)

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Network
File:Networkmovie.jpg
Network
Directed bySidney Lumet
Written byPaddy Chayefsky
Produced byHoward Gottfried
StarringFaye Dunaway
William Holden
Peter Finch
Robert Duvall
Ned Beatty
CinematographyOwen Roizman
Music byElliot Lawrence
Distributed byUSA: MGM (theatrical), Warner Bros. (DVD)
non-USA: United Artists (theatrical), MGM (DVD)
Release dates
27 November, 1976 (premiere)
Running time
121 min.
LanguageEnglish
BudgetUSD$ 3,800,000 (estimated)

Network is a 1976 satirical film about a fictional television network, 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. It won four Academy Awards, including both Best Actor and Best Actress.

Plot

The story opens with long-time UBS Evening News anchor Howard Beale (played by Peter Finch) being 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. 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 explicates his own "corporate cosmology" to the now nearly delusional Beale, ultimately persuading Beale to abandon his populist messages. However, audiences find his new views on the dehumanization of society 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.

Cast

Awards

Academy Awards

Won:

Nominated:

It won three of the four acting awards, tying the record of 1951's A Streetcar Named Desire.

Golden Globes

Won:

Nominated:

BAFTA Awards

Won:

Nominated:

Trivia

  • Peter Finch died before the Academy Awards were to take place, where he was nominated for Best Actor. He won, making him the only performer ever to receive a posthumous award at the Oscars.
  • 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.
  • 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 and the Florida Marlins to rev up the crowd. It placed 19th on the [[American Film

Institute]]'s list of the 100 greatest American movie quotes.

  • 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].
  • In June 2007, the American Film Institute released the 10th Anniversary Edition of their Top 100 Greatest Films, placing Network at the 64th spot on the list.
  • 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.
  • William Holden only received the full text of his famous long speech the day before it was shot.
  • The television show Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip referred to this film in the pilot episode, having a similar on-air breakdown on the show-within-a-show in this episode. The opening scene involved the executive producer having an on-air rant regarding television, leading to his firing. Network executives explicitly referred to Network as they discussed this outburst.
  • Alternative Metal act System of a Down reenacted a part of the movie in the opening of the music video for their song "Sugar".
  • Actor Jim Carrey stated that Network was his favorite movie.

See also

External links

Wikiquote has quotations related to Network (1976 film).


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