Network

Dir: Sidney Lumet

1976

*****

Sidney Lumet was a master director, his film, based on Paddy Chayefsky's brilliant script, is easily one of the best of the 1970s and indeed, of all time. It's a rich satire and black comedy, a masterpiece in the genre and the one movie that all political films, whether they be satirical or not, now look up to. It has also become something of an eerie prediction. It has often been mistakenly reported that Chayefsky was inspired by the real life on-air suicide of Christine Chubbuck in 1974 (Chubbuck, who was suffering from manic depression, calmly read the news but when a reel of film about a nearby shooting at a restaurant jammed she quipped "In keeping with Channel 40's policy of bringing you the latest in blood and guts, and in living colour, you are going to see another first - a live suicide" at which point she pulled out a gun and shot herself in the head) but the truth is that Chayefsky had already written the suicide part of Network before the event, it was just an eerie coincidence. However, the way the media work, the manipulation, dishonesty and underhand goings on is as old as the newspapers but quite how low they are prepared to go is clearer now all these years later and yet nothing has actually changed, if anything, it has got worse. Whoever controls the news controls everything, from what people buy to how people vote and seeing a veteran news anchor explain this in a mid-air breakdown as the brilliant Peter Finch does, is quite exhilarating. Howard Beale is undoubtedly one of the greatest movie characters ever written, Finch, in his last ever role, certainly did him justice. After learning he is about to get the axe due to a lack of ratings, after many years of service, Beale gets drunk and comes to work the next day and threatens to kill himself live on air on his last day. He is sacked instantly but when the network learn just how big the ratings were during his outburst they give him his own show. He soon becomes a people's champion, adopting the famous 'I'm as mad as hell and I'm not going to take this anymore' tagline. His show becomes almost evangelical and people flock to see him. Meanwhile, his friend and colleague Max Schumacher (the great William Holden), who is deeply worried and protective of his friend, enters into an affair with the Network's head of programming Diana Christensen (the brilliant Faye Dunaway), who is developing a radical new documentary series following global terrorist organisations. When the news that the Network is about to be bought out by the Saudis, Beale calls for viewers to stand against the merger and the Network gets nervous. Eventually the powers that be, the collective 'Network' find a solution to the problem that Schumacher brilliantly describes as "Television incarnate. Indifferent to suffering, insensitive to joy. All of life is reduced to the common rubble of banality". The script is just incredible, the collective cast of truly great actors certainly did it justice but I wonder if anyone could make it sound bad. It remains an incredibly important film and one that changed the way films were approached in many respects. I'm a huge fan of satire but it only works when performed properly and I'm not sure Network has or will ever be matched. The most masterful thing about it is that as well as holding up the mirror to the TV news networks, it also makes the audience turn and look at themselves. You know something is bad for you and yet you still pay for it, consume it and ask for more. TV in the 70's is almost art compared to the garbage that would follow in the next couple of decades, in this sense Network was way ahead of the times. At the time, the critics accused the film of attacking its own audience, which is quite absurd and totally misses the point. Today, the film is considered a classic, one of the best of all time, and yet TV news is worse and we're still buying it, making the film something of a tragic masterpiece.