Network: A Review

NETWORK

When Network premiered, its director insisted that it was not a satire. Sidney Lumet called Network "reportage". Now, with almost fifty years since its release, Network seems actually quite tame in its depiction of the insanity of television. Cruel but horrifyingly accurate and prescient, Network dives into its tale with a mix of sharp wit and bitter cynicism.

Howard Beale (Peter Finch) is the highly respected evening news anchor of the Union Broadcast System (UBS). He also has the worst ratings of all four networks. His friend and boss, Max Schumacher (William Holden) tells Beale that he will be terminated in two weeks due to those poor ratings. Beale, a recent widower with no children, declares on the show that he will kill himself on air. The news barely causes a ripple in the disinterested production booth but by the time they realize exactly what Beale said, it is too late to stop the live broadcast.

Schumacher, albeit reluctantly, agrees to let Beale back on the air to make amends. Beale instead starts becoming unhinged, calling out the "bull****" live. This causes a national scandal. This scandal, however, is brilliant news for two people. The first is Frank Hackett (Robert Duvall), the Communication Corporation of America (CCA) hatchet man who wants to eliminate the news division, which is costing CCA millions. CCA owns UBS and sees this as the perfect opportunity to cut Beale and the moral Schumacher out.  UBS executive Diana Christensen (Faye Dunaway) sees Beale's rants differently. She believes that with some work, Beale's angry and erratic rants could be ratings gold. A revamped news show could be bigger than Mary Tyler Moore according to Diana. 

Some things are clear. Howard Beale is slowly going bonkers, convinced that he can hear otherworldly voices directing him to speak to the world "because he's on television". Max is desperate to keep Beale from humiliating himself and UBS. Hackett and Christensen don't care that Beale is pretty much insane. They are willing to use him to get profits and ratings. Eventually, Howard Beale goes on air in full unhinged mode, pleading with everyone to go out to their window and yell, "I'M AS MAD AS HELL AND I'M NOT GOING TO TAKE THIS ANYMORE!"

Christensen has taken over the news division. The Network News Hour with Howard Beale is now a massive hit. It has various segments such as Sybil the Soothsayer (a psychic who will predict the news) and Vox Populi, where audience members can vote on a particular topic. The main draw, however, is "the mad prophet of the airwaves". Beale can beg audiences that they are the crazy ones for believing that television is real, but his words and fainting fits only seem to convince viewers that he speaks for them. Christen now uses The Network News Hour to create an even more insane series. Using Communist Party member Laureen Dobbs (Marlene Warfield) as a go-between, Christensen creates The Mao Tse-Tung Hour. The show will feature the crimes of the Ecumenical Liberation Army, a radical leftist group. They will supply footage of their crimes while UBS will craft a series around them. 

Despite all his sense, Max and Diana begin an affair. He leaves his wife Louise (Beatrice Straight) for her, though he knows that Diana has no heart or soul. Hackett has no heart and soul either, but now he fully controls UBS. It is not until Howard Beale starts ranting about a proposed merger of CCA to a Saudi-backed corporation that Hackett begins to look on Beale with fury. Christensen's only concerns are ratings. Those become affected after a by-now totally insane Beale meets CCA head Arthur Jensen (Ned Beatty). Jensen convinces the delusional Beale to preach a message that Jensen favors. This new set of ramblings are depressing to audiences, who soon start tuning out. Schumacher has returned to his wife, but UBS has not returned to sanity. Jensen, Hackett informs UBS executives, flat-out refuses to cancel Howard Beale. Deciding to kill two birds with one stone, Hackett, Christensen and other UBS executives come up with the perfect opening for The Mao Tse-Tung Hour's Season Two that will simultaneously cancel The Network News Hour.

Network is in retrospect rather frightening in how it predicted the devolution of television. "TV is showbiz, Max, and even the news has to have a little showmanship", Diana tells Max when she first attempts to work with him on revamping the UBS Evening News. Audiences at the time would have understood the conventions of national news broadcasts. Other elements would have been somewhat familiar. The Network News Hour with Howard Beale, complete with audiences shouting the catchphrase, would be in the style of something like the more benign human interest show That's Incredible! albeit That's Incredible! came later. 

Some of the programming that Network presented might have seemed outrageous. Paddy Chayefsky's Oscar-winning screenplay makes clear that the title The Mao Tse-Tung Hour was meant as a joke. However, Network shows that it was adopted unironically. More outrageously, Network has television aiding and abetting criminals to draw in viewers. As shocking or outlandish as this premise is, it is not too far removed from how various other networks have done things in a similar spirit. From such shows as Keeping Up with the Kardashians to true crime series like Reelz Channel's Murder Made Me Famous, Network managed to predict how television shows would draw in audiences by presenting the most unimportant or salacious matters for our amusement. 

I find that there is a line connecting the amoral ratings-pursuing ruthlessness of Diana Christensen and the television dominance of Andy Cohen. "I want angry shows", Christensen tells her staff. Could one say that the various catfights on the myriads of Real Housewives shows are "angry" or at least showcase public displays of anger?

The presentation of news also has become more spectacular and less informative. The graphics, the segments and sarcasm, the blending of news and opinion have found their ways onto the airwaves. Howard Beale may not have had biological children in Network. He does have spiritual children in Bill O'Reilly, in Keith Olbermann and the various shows on networks supposedly dedicated to news and information. The Howard Beale Show may have featured a psychic and "Ms. Mata Hari and her Skeletons in the Closet." It, however, did not imagine featuring child drag queens like Good Morning America did. Christensen talks about creating a "homosexual soap opera". The proposed series The Dykes is not too far removed from something like Pose or Boots.

What I find endlessly enjoyable about Network is how intelligent it is. Chayefsky crafted a brilliant, logical script that makes the story flow smoothly. An aspect of Chayefsky's screenplay that I do not think is comment on enough is how literate it is. Christensen tells Schumacher that Beale's initial spontaneous rants come across as curmudgeonly versus apocalyptic. "I think you should take on a couple of writers to write some jeremiads for him", Christensen tells him. Later, a devastated Louise tears into Max when he tells her of his affair. "This is your great winter romance, isn't it? Your last roar of passion before you settle into your emeritus years. Is that what's left for me?! Is that my share? She gets the passion, and I get the dotage?"

What impresses me above all else is Chayefsky believes people would use words like "jeremiads", "emeritus" and "dotage" in regular conversation or in fits of rage. Chayefsky not only uses these words in ordinary conversation. He trusts that audiences will understand them. I have always found that aspect of Network brilliant. Paddy Chayefsky never dumbs down anything in Network. The words are intelligent. The plot is outlandish, but he trusts us to keep up. Chayefsky crafts some wonderful dialogue for his actors. 

Most people, even those who have never seen Network, know Peter Finch's "I'M AS MAD AS HELL AND I'M NOT GOING TO TAKE THIS ANYMORE!" rant. However, after rewatching Network, I think there is more one meaning to the word "MAD". Howard Beale may be enraged. However, his declaration that he's "mad as hell" might indicate that he subconsciously knows that he's flat-out bonkers. This rant speaks to the frustrations that Americans were going through. This scene, punctuated by a fierce thunderstorm, brilliantly underscores the impending storm and chaos about to be unleashed.

However, Network is more than Howard Beale's completely insane but frighting accurate worldview. All the actors get great dialogue. Of particular note is William Holden's admission that he is frightened by the knowledge that he is "closer to the end than to the beginning". It's a deeply moving moment, the last sane man with feeling. 

Network is brilliantly acted, a major credit to director Sidney Lumet in guiding his cast to three Oscar-winning performances. Peter Finch became the first man to posthumously win an acting Oscar for his Howard Beale. He made Howard Beale into someone who has slipped into total lunacy. Finch managed to sound like an American, with the possible exception of how he pronounces "homicides" as "homo-sides" versus the more familiar "hah-ma-cides". Whether expressing a belief that he is truly in tune with otherworldly knowledge or having fainting fits, Finch goes in totally on the cray-cray. Despite his rantings, the mad prophet of the airwaves is correct in decrying how viewers have turned into the tube.

Faye Dunaway is ice personified as Diana Christensen. This is a woman who cannot achieve romantic or sexual pleasure but will thrill to being the ratings queen. Dunaway is brilliant in showing Diana's total moral blindness. "For God's sake Diana, we're talking about putting a manifestly irresponsible man on national television", Robert Duvall's Frank Hackett tells her early on. Dunaway's face reveals a woman who is almost possessed on the thought that there is nothing wrong with putting a mentally collapsing person like Howard Beale on the air. Even as she seduces Max Schumacher, we sense that she truly is incapable of love. Despite that, a sliver of humanity does come through in a small moment. As Max tells her that he's leaving her, she in a rage goes to the kitchen. Getting a cup and saucer, we see her trembling, perhaps expressing genuine shock at the human emotions that she is unfamiliar with.

Finch and Dunaway won Lead Actor and Actress for Network. A surprise winner was Beatrice Straight in Supporting Actress. Essentially consisting of one scene, Straight portrays the deep hurt and rage at being abandoned after twenty-five years of marriage. Technically, Straight has two scenes, but she dominates in her second. Her screentime of a little over five minutes remains as of this writing the shortest Oscar-winning performance in Academy Award history. 

Ned Beatty also received a Supporting Actor nomination for his single scene as Mr. Jensen. It is a brilliant scene both written and directed. Beatty was able to shift from almost preacher-like rage to almost cuddly. What surprised me is that Robert Duvall was not nominated for the appropriately named Frank Hackett. He delivered his lines with rapid-fire fury, making Hackett frightening and oddly amusing. Duvall is fiery, arrogant and coldblooded, making Hackett a perfect villain. Commenting to the USB executives early on, Hackett dismisses their sense of outrage when he proposes bringing Beale back on the air. "We're not a respectable network. We're a whorehouse network. We have to take whatever we can get". Hackett has no principles. His unholy union with Christensen makes for frightening but electric viewing.

In all of this, we cannot forget William Holden. It is a fair argument that Finch is really a supporting character (he essentially disappears in the middle of Network). Holden, who received a Best Actor nomination for the film, is Network's moral core. He is able to show Max as the lone principled character. He too, however, is corrupted via his liaison with Diana. He, like Merlin, is aware that he is being taken advantage of. However, he does nothing to stop it. In his righteous anger and awareness of the changing world, Holden does an excellent job.

Network does not have any flaws. Perhaps one can quibble over the intermittent voiceover. That, however, works for the film, a little bit of information spaced through the film. Network, in its cynicism, really now looks quaint in how it shows modern television. Funny, dramatic, well-acted, you will not feel mad after watching Network. 

DECISION: A+