Diana Christensen: I'm interested in doing a weekly dramatic series based on the Ecumenical Liberation Army. The way I see the series is: Each week we open with an authentic act of political terrorism taken on the spot, in the actual moment. Then we go to the drama behind the opening film footage. That's your job, Ms. Hobbs. You've got to get the Ecumenicals to bring in that film footage for us. The network can't deal with them directly; they are, after all, wanted criminals.
Howard Beale: I want you to go to the window, open it, stick your head out and yell: "I'm as mad as hell, and I'm not going to take this anymore."
Network was very disappointing to me.
Seeing the cast (William Holden, Faye Dunaway, Robert Duvall), and reading the plot, I thought it would be good. Instead it was tedious. I will admit that Faye Dunaway was good. She won Best Actress. Additionally, Peter Finch won Best Actor and Beatrice Straight won Best Supporting Actress, but they were less memorable in my opinion.
Finch is Howard Beale, a news anchor who has been fired and then says that he's going to kill himself on air during one of his final broadcasts. Dunaway's character, Diana, a brilliant but cold-hearted executive for the network, takes full advantage of the situation and gets him a regular spot spouting his ranting rhetoric, garnering great ratings for the network. Holden plays Max Shumacher, a jaded network executive who begins an affair with Diana. The affair very unsurprisingly goes downhill when the fact that Diana's only real passion is for her job becomes glaringly obvious. Max heads back to his wife (Beatrice Straight) to appeal to her better nature, telling Diana: "You're television incarnate, Diana. Indifferent to suffering; insensitive to joy. All of life is reduced to the common rubble of banality. War, murder, death are all the same to you as bottles of beer. And the daily business of life is a corrupt comedy. You even shatter the sensations of time and space into split seconds and instant replays. You're madness, Diana. Virulent madness. And everything you touch dies with you."
It's just not that interesting. The inner workings of a television network are cynical and dull. Beale's off the cuff, anti-establishment speeches are monotonous. For example:
"Right now, there is a whole, an entire generation that never knew anything that didn't come out of this tube. This tube is the gospel, the ultimate revelation; this tube can make or break presidents, popes, prime ministers; this tube is the most awesome goddamn propaganda force in the whole godless world, and woe is us if it ever falls into the hands of the wrong people, and that's why woe is us that Edward George Ruddy died. Because this company is now in the hands of CCA, the Communications Corporation of America; there's a new chairman of the board, a man called Frank Hackett, sitting in Mr. Ruddy's office on the twentieth floor. And when the 12th largest company in the world controls the most awesome goddamn propaganda force in the whole godless world, who knows what shit will be peddled for truth on this network?"
It goes on and on.
Once more, I think this is a case of a movie being very modern and edgy when it came out, but no longer packing the same punch today. I've heard it all before. Everyone bashes reality TV (while watching it anyway) and decries TV stations as exploitative and money-obsessed. It's nothing new anymore.
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