66. Network 1976
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0074958/
Set in 1976, television veteran writer Paddy Chayefsky partners with old friend director Sidney Lumet, producer Howard Gottfried, cinematographer Owen Roizman, and editor Alan Heim to bring us Network, a story of what can happen when everyone becomes corrupted. Starring Peter Finch, Faye Dunaway, William Holden, and Robert Duvall[1], Network is a groundbreaking piece of cinema that is more believable today than it was then.
Howard Beale, (Finch) the nightly news anchor at Union Broadcasting Systems, has terrible ratings and is told by his boss, Max Schumacher (Holden), that he is being let go effective in two weeks. Depressed and drunk with nothing left to live for, Beale announces on the next night’s news that he plans to blow his brains out while live on the air. Not only that, but he plans to do it in one week’s time “to give the public relations people a week to promote the show.”
The sound booth could not even care less. Working methodically, placing more significance on programming than on life, they do not even hear what Beale says until after they go to commercial and it dawns on them that he neglected to mention a piece of the news. When word gets out of Beale’s little speech, Frank Hackett (Duvall), the new head of UBS, is flooded with calls complaining about the language and the insanity of the broadcast. Ready to fire Beale immediately, he realizes that he cannot buy this much publicity on his own, and the ratings are going up, so he allows him to continue.
Programming director and professional shark Diana Christensen (Dunaway) is looking for something “counter culture” and “anti-establishment” as an alternative to everyday programming. Straight from the television generation, (in Schumacher’s words, “She learned life from Bugs Bunny.”) she was hired to bring UBS out of the number four slot. She sees the stunt that Howard pulls and lobbies to give Howard Beale a new kind of variety type news show, followed by the “Mao Tse-tung” hour, where the Ecumenical Liberation Army will film themselves performing criminal acts that UBS will broadcast on the air. They turn the newscast into a variety type show; convinced they have a hit on their hands, the numbers do not lie. Ratings skyrocket. Howard is on top of the world while he descends into madness. Week by week, he becomes more delusional; UBS refuses to get him help or take him off the air. Eventually, the show becomes so tired that the executives look for the easiest way out and decide to hire the Ecumenical Liberation Army to kill Howard while on the air.
The mise-en-scene of this film is very 1970’s, complete with 70’s room sets and polyester outfits, and from the first shot the audience can tell on which person to focus: NBC, CBS, and ABC all have muted tones behind their anchors, but UBS has a half red and half ecru, a “which one of these not like others” kind of awareness. The importance of the business in which these characters are consumed stands out in the form of televisions everywhere. Shot entirely on location in a news studio, offices, and apartments, there is a reflective surface in almost every room, but Roizman’s perfectionism ensures that the audience never sees the camera. In fact, the scene where Diana is supposed to be in Hollywood is actually filmed in Long Island, and the reflective surface of the artwork shows the cars outside, an indication of the feeling of California[2]. The stage in which Howard preaches after he becomes the “angry prophet denouncing the hypocrisies of our times” has a stained glass window behind it- also an indication of sorts that Howard speaks the holy truth.
Using a combination of high-key, low-key and source lighting throughout the film, cinematographer Owen Roizman creates an atmosphere of cynicism and corruption. In fact, even Sidney Lumet remarks on Roizman’s infallible lighting, and how in the beginning of the film the lighting is largely source lighting and becomes more artificial as the movie progresses, an indication of sorts that even the camera is being manipulated and corrupted. Most notable about the lighting concepts used by Roizman can be seen whenever lovers Christensen and Schumacher are together. If it is in a public, professional setting, the colors are bright and professional, if they are alone discussing their relationship, it is dark and foreboding.
What makes this film even more unique is the use of the stationary camera. In fact, there are only a few key scenes where panning is used: the very beginning during the News Assembly while the credits roll, and at the board meeting where we finally see Ned Beatty. The latter takes place while Hackett is talking about the projected earnings that they believe the Howard Beale show will bring. It builds to a crescendo, showing the faces of all of the concerned executives while Hackett drones on about cost, deficit, and projections. Finally, it focuses in on Beatty’s face as he delivers one line, “Very good, Frank. Exemplary. Keep it up” Lumet admits in the director’s commentary that the dolly shot was used in this scene specifically to introduce Beatty’s character, Jensen, with this one line. Close up shots are used only in circumstances where the filmmakers want the audience to see nothing but what is going on in the character’s head, such as when Beale truly cracks and delivers his famous monologue including the indication that he is “mad as hell…” In the next scene, people shout it from the rooftops and from balconies. It cuts wider and wider, until you see nothing but screaming bodies in lit windows while lightning and thunder rolls across the sky. It becomes the perfect conceptualization of how one person’s madness can affect an entire nation when that nation is of the television generation, which clearly lacks the ability to think on their own.
Editor Alan Heim does a fantastic job with editing. Chayefsky’s script is perhaps too much story to tell, but he edits them together to pose the union of the two stories in one. The Ecumenical Liberation Army’s meeting about the television contract is the in the same vain as the network’s meetings, save for the gunshot that brings everyone back on point. The movement of the story is slow and methodical at first but becomes quick as time progresses, the quickest especially toward the end of the film when life becomes more urgent. The perfect segue between scenes is shown right towards the end where the executives plot the killing of Howard Beale, and in the very next scene, not wasting any time, the act occurs.
Interestingly enough, the only music in the entire film is the opening of the “variety” type news show; there is no other soundtrack. Elliot Lawrence, largely an awards show music composer, has only this one piece in which to shine. However, a soundtrack is hardly necessary. The sound in this film is the sound of either brilliant dialogue or thoughtful silence; it is not necessary to “muck it up” with mindless elevator music. This is extremely rare to see in films, especially today. Yet, before the regular news show begins, the ticker sound effect is going on before the news, which was a very popular introduction to the news in the 1970’s. The conformity combines with the ingenuity so seamlessly that it is hardly recognized. Most notable about the sound is the sound of the shots that kill Beale. They sound like a gunshot; but in another way, it sounds like a snippet of white noise. This is ingenious, not to mention completely appropriate, since it is followed by the silence that one would normally hear following white noise: the click of the television being turned off or the channel changing, which comes seconds later as 1970’s commercials fill the airwaves. It is a brilliant piece of sound editing.
The acting, too, is dazzling on all sides. Network is the winner of three acting Oscars, awarded to Faye Dunaway, Peter Finch, and Beatrice Straight, with two other nominations for William Holden and Ned Beatty. Dunaway’s character has zero vulnerability; she is so cold that she cannot stop thinking about work even while having sex. Peter Finch is still the only person to have won a posthumous Oscar and it was for this film that he achieved it. We see him delve into madness, but interestingly, he seems to be the only one with any scruples, and therefore, he must be destroyed. Beatrice Straight had a total five minutes and forty seconds of airtime[3], but in five of those minutes, she delivers such an incredible performance that she, without doubt, deserves the award. Ned Beatty is the studio executive who uses Beale to get his point across: that there is no sense of individuality in the world. He knows that the only way to get the point across is to play into Beale’s madness, and uses the same words from Howard’s delusion to deliver his message. The lighting gives Beatty an essence of a halo, and it is clear to see how someone as vulnerable as Howard can mistake him for a messiah. Even Walter Cronkite’s daughter, Kathy, the “Patty Hearst” like character, delivers her one line with unparalleled zeal.
Most interesting in the entire movie is the fact that the corporation does not want individuals. Beatty tells Beale to preach his gospel: that every life is worthless, the single voice is not valuable, and conformity is necessary. Chayefsky made sure that, even though his script was leftist and cynical, it was peppered with comedy so that the audience would not feel preached at.
Roger Ebert described this film as “flawed[4]”; but upon further examination, perhaps it is not so much the film that is flawed but Ebert’s perception of it. In a film filled with such political views and symbolism, it is difficult to understand it all at first glance, as it is with many great films. In other highly political films like “The Manchurian Candidate” and “All The President’s Men” (also made in 1976) the message is not only how it is important to speak out and do what you believe is right, it is a lot clearer. Network takes on a different theme, and it takes a certain school of thought to relate to it. This school of thought is that you are not an individual. You are merely a nameless, faceless, number in the crowd. Perhaps that is the one thing that is flawed about it- it is depressing to hear that your life is worthless. It sounds cynical and sad, but what is arguably sadder than that is the fact that (based on the issues that were prevalent in the 1970’s) the world has hardly advanced politically in the last thirty years. In one of Diana’s lines, she says “…the Arabs have decided to jack up the price of oil another 20%... uh, the CIA has been caught opening Senator Humphrey's mail... there's a civil war in Angola... another one in Beirut…[5]” With gas prices at three dollars a gallon, there does not seem to be any room for argument on the first point; if someone thinks that the CIA does not open up people’s mail, all they need to do is read the Patriot Act carefully (except in today’s hi-tech world, it is voice mails that are being targeted[6]), and there are civil wars going on all over the Middle East. In this film, the people turn to “the tube” for guidance. They turn to a modern-day “prophet”, no matter how mad he may be. Still, if this country was this devoid of individuality, spiritualism and leadership after Vietnam and Watergate, imagine how it is today with all of the high-tech gadgets, detachment from others and distrust in the government, and the war that is going on.
All in all, while arguably cynical and farfetched for its time, the film has become a voice of a generation and a favorite with many critics. The American Film Institute has place this film on at least two of its “100 Years, 100 Best” series: it placed number sixty-six on the 100 Greatest Films of all time and number nineteen for the AFI’s 100 Most Memorable Quotes, (“I’m as mad as hell, and I’m not going to take it anymore!”) It won the Oscar (beating out Rocky) for Best Original Screenplay, and caused quite a stir with journalists of its time, declaring it inaccurate and absurd. It is definitely a movie worth watching, if only for the performances, novelty factor, and to see how long it takes for the farfetchedness and absurdity to become reality.
[1] Full Cast and Crew Credits: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0074958/fullcredits
[2] Director’s Commentary in the 30th Anniversary edition DVD
[3] Amount of time Beatrice Straight was on film http://dick.imdb.com/title/tt0074958/trivia
[4] Roger Ebert: http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/19760101/REVIEWS/601010305/1023
[5] Quote: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0074958/quotes
[6] Patriot Act: http://www.epic.org/privacy/terrorism/hr3162.html
Set in 1976, television veteran writer Paddy Chayefsky partners with old friend director Sidney Lumet, producer Howard Gottfried, cinematographer Owen Roizman, and editor Alan Heim to bring us Network, a story of what can happen when everyone becomes corrupted. Starring Peter Finch, Faye Dunaway, William Holden, and Robert Duvall[1], Network is a groundbreaking piece of cinema that is more believable today than it was then.
Howard Beale, (Finch) the nightly news anchor at Union Broadcasting Systems, has terrible ratings and is told by his boss, Max Schumacher (Holden), that he is being let go effective in two weeks. Depressed and drunk with nothing left to live for, Beale announces on the next night’s news that he plans to blow his brains out while live on the air. Not only that, but he plans to do it in one week’s time “to give the public relations people a week to promote the show.”
The sound booth could not even care less. Working methodically, placing more significance on programming than on life, they do not even hear what Beale says until after they go to commercial and it dawns on them that he neglected to mention a piece of the news. When word gets out of Beale’s little speech, Frank Hackett (Duvall), the new head of UBS, is flooded with calls complaining about the language and the insanity of the broadcast. Ready to fire Beale immediately, he realizes that he cannot buy this much publicity on his own, and the ratings are going up, so he allows him to continue.
Programming director and professional shark Diana Christensen (Dunaway) is looking for something “counter culture” and “anti-establishment” as an alternative to everyday programming. Straight from the television generation, (in Schumacher’s words, “She learned life from Bugs Bunny.”) she was hired to bring UBS out of the number four slot. She sees the stunt that Howard pulls and lobbies to give Howard Beale a new kind of variety type news show, followed by the “Mao Tse-tung” hour, where the Ecumenical Liberation Army will film themselves performing criminal acts that UBS will broadcast on the air. They turn the newscast into a variety type show; convinced they have a hit on their hands, the numbers do not lie. Ratings skyrocket. Howard is on top of the world while he descends into madness. Week by week, he becomes more delusional; UBS refuses to get him help or take him off the air. Eventually, the show becomes so tired that the executives look for the easiest way out and decide to hire the Ecumenical Liberation Army to kill Howard while on the air.
The mise-en-scene of this film is very 1970’s, complete with 70’s room sets and polyester outfits, and from the first shot the audience can tell on which person to focus: NBC, CBS, and ABC all have muted tones behind their anchors, but UBS has a half red and half ecru, a “which one of these not like others” kind of awareness. The importance of the business in which these characters are consumed stands out in the form of televisions everywhere. Shot entirely on location in a news studio, offices, and apartments, there is a reflective surface in almost every room, but Roizman’s perfectionism ensures that the audience never sees the camera. In fact, the scene where Diana is supposed to be in Hollywood is actually filmed in Long Island, and the reflective surface of the artwork shows the cars outside, an indication of the feeling of California[2]. The stage in which Howard preaches after he becomes the “angry prophet denouncing the hypocrisies of our times” has a stained glass window behind it- also an indication of sorts that Howard speaks the holy truth.
Using a combination of high-key, low-key and source lighting throughout the film, cinematographer Owen Roizman creates an atmosphere of cynicism and corruption. In fact, even Sidney Lumet remarks on Roizman’s infallible lighting, and how in the beginning of the film the lighting is largely source lighting and becomes more artificial as the movie progresses, an indication of sorts that even the camera is being manipulated and corrupted. Most notable about the lighting concepts used by Roizman can be seen whenever lovers Christensen and Schumacher are together. If it is in a public, professional setting, the colors are bright and professional, if they are alone discussing their relationship, it is dark and foreboding.
What makes this film even more unique is the use of the stationary camera. In fact, there are only a few key scenes where panning is used: the very beginning during the News Assembly while the credits roll, and at the board meeting where we finally see Ned Beatty. The latter takes place while Hackett is talking about the projected earnings that they believe the Howard Beale show will bring. It builds to a crescendo, showing the faces of all of the concerned executives while Hackett drones on about cost, deficit, and projections. Finally, it focuses in on Beatty’s face as he delivers one line, “Very good, Frank. Exemplary. Keep it up” Lumet admits in the director’s commentary that the dolly shot was used in this scene specifically to introduce Beatty’s character, Jensen, with this one line. Close up shots are used only in circumstances where the filmmakers want the audience to see nothing but what is going on in the character’s head, such as when Beale truly cracks and delivers his famous monologue including the indication that he is “mad as hell…” In the next scene, people shout it from the rooftops and from balconies. It cuts wider and wider, until you see nothing but screaming bodies in lit windows while lightning and thunder rolls across the sky. It becomes the perfect conceptualization of how one person’s madness can affect an entire nation when that nation is of the television generation, which clearly lacks the ability to think on their own.
Editor Alan Heim does a fantastic job with editing. Chayefsky’s script is perhaps too much story to tell, but he edits them together to pose the union of the two stories in one. The Ecumenical Liberation Army’s meeting about the television contract is the in the same vain as the network’s meetings, save for the gunshot that brings everyone back on point. The movement of the story is slow and methodical at first but becomes quick as time progresses, the quickest especially toward the end of the film when life becomes more urgent. The perfect segue between scenes is shown right towards the end where the executives plot the killing of Howard Beale, and in the very next scene, not wasting any time, the act occurs.
Interestingly enough, the only music in the entire film is the opening of the “variety” type news show; there is no other soundtrack. Elliot Lawrence, largely an awards show music composer, has only this one piece in which to shine. However, a soundtrack is hardly necessary. The sound in this film is the sound of either brilliant dialogue or thoughtful silence; it is not necessary to “muck it up” with mindless elevator music. This is extremely rare to see in films, especially today. Yet, before the regular news show begins, the ticker sound effect is going on before the news, which was a very popular introduction to the news in the 1970’s. The conformity combines with the ingenuity so seamlessly that it is hardly recognized. Most notable about the sound is the sound of the shots that kill Beale. They sound like a gunshot; but in another way, it sounds like a snippet of white noise. This is ingenious, not to mention completely appropriate, since it is followed by the silence that one would normally hear following white noise: the click of the television being turned off or the channel changing, which comes seconds later as 1970’s commercials fill the airwaves. It is a brilliant piece of sound editing.
The acting, too, is dazzling on all sides. Network is the winner of three acting Oscars, awarded to Faye Dunaway, Peter Finch, and Beatrice Straight, with two other nominations for William Holden and Ned Beatty. Dunaway’s character has zero vulnerability; she is so cold that she cannot stop thinking about work even while having sex. Peter Finch is still the only person to have won a posthumous Oscar and it was for this film that he achieved it. We see him delve into madness, but interestingly, he seems to be the only one with any scruples, and therefore, he must be destroyed. Beatrice Straight had a total five minutes and forty seconds of airtime[3], but in five of those minutes, she delivers such an incredible performance that she, without doubt, deserves the award. Ned Beatty is the studio executive who uses Beale to get his point across: that there is no sense of individuality in the world. He knows that the only way to get the point across is to play into Beale’s madness, and uses the same words from Howard’s delusion to deliver his message. The lighting gives Beatty an essence of a halo, and it is clear to see how someone as vulnerable as Howard can mistake him for a messiah. Even Walter Cronkite’s daughter, Kathy, the “Patty Hearst” like character, delivers her one line with unparalleled zeal.
Most interesting in the entire movie is the fact that the corporation does not want individuals. Beatty tells Beale to preach his gospel: that every life is worthless, the single voice is not valuable, and conformity is necessary. Chayefsky made sure that, even though his script was leftist and cynical, it was peppered with comedy so that the audience would not feel preached at.
Roger Ebert described this film as “flawed[4]”; but upon further examination, perhaps it is not so much the film that is flawed but Ebert’s perception of it. In a film filled with such political views and symbolism, it is difficult to understand it all at first glance, as it is with many great films. In other highly political films like “The Manchurian Candidate” and “All The President’s Men” (also made in 1976) the message is not only how it is important to speak out and do what you believe is right, it is a lot clearer. Network takes on a different theme, and it takes a certain school of thought to relate to it. This school of thought is that you are not an individual. You are merely a nameless, faceless, number in the crowd. Perhaps that is the one thing that is flawed about it- it is depressing to hear that your life is worthless. It sounds cynical and sad, but what is arguably sadder than that is the fact that (based on the issues that were prevalent in the 1970’s) the world has hardly advanced politically in the last thirty years. In one of Diana’s lines, she says “…the Arabs have decided to jack up the price of oil another 20%... uh, the CIA has been caught opening Senator Humphrey's mail... there's a civil war in Angola... another one in Beirut…[5]” With gas prices at three dollars a gallon, there does not seem to be any room for argument on the first point; if someone thinks that the CIA does not open up people’s mail, all they need to do is read the Patriot Act carefully (except in today’s hi-tech world, it is voice mails that are being targeted[6]), and there are civil wars going on all over the Middle East. In this film, the people turn to “the tube” for guidance. They turn to a modern-day “prophet”, no matter how mad he may be. Still, if this country was this devoid of individuality, spiritualism and leadership after Vietnam and Watergate, imagine how it is today with all of the high-tech gadgets, detachment from others and distrust in the government, and the war that is going on.
All in all, while arguably cynical and farfetched for its time, the film has become a voice of a generation and a favorite with many critics. The American Film Institute has place this film on at least two of its “100 Years, 100 Best” series: it placed number sixty-six on the 100 Greatest Films of all time and number nineteen for the AFI’s 100 Most Memorable Quotes, (“I’m as mad as hell, and I’m not going to take it anymore!”) It won the Oscar (beating out Rocky) for Best Original Screenplay, and caused quite a stir with journalists of its time, declaring it inaccurate and absurd. It is definitely a movie worth watching, if only for the performances, novelty factor, and to see how long it takes for the farfetchedness and absurdity to become reality.
[1] Full Cast and Crew Credits: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0074958/fullcredits
[2] Director’s Commentary in the 30th Anniversary edition DVD
[3] Amount of time Beatrice Straight was on film http://dick.imdb.com/title/tt0074958/trivia
[4] Roger Ebert: http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/19760101/REVIEWS/601010305/1023
[5] Quote: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0074958/quotes
[6] Patriot Act: http://www.epic.org/privacy/terrorism/hr3162.html
posted by Susan @ 2:07 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home