Network (film)
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Network is a 1976 satirical film about a fictional television network named 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.
Plot
Network news anchor Howard Beale (played by Peter Finch) hosts the UBS Evening News, the nightly news program for the Union Broadcasting System, which has recently been suffering from abysmal ratings. UBS soon decides to fire Beale as anchor, and this, coupled with the low ratings, causes him to lose his mind. Upon hearing of his firing, he goes on the air announcing the network's decision along with his intent to commit suicide by getting a gun and "blowing his brains out" during his final broadcast. Some believe the film to be inspired in part by newscaster Christine Chubbuck's on-air suicide, although there is no definitive documentation of this. UBS immediately fires him after this incident, but they let him back on the air upon the persuasion of Beale's producer and best friend Max Schumacher (played by William Holden). This plan backfires when Beale lets off on a rant about how life is "bullshit," but while there are serious repercussions, the network's ratings skyrocket and the upper echelons of UBS decide to exploit Beale rather than get him the psychological help he needs.
Parallel to the story of Beale, the film depicts the rise within UBS of Diana Christensen (played by Faye Dunaway). She begins as a Producer of Entertainment Programming and ends up as controller of a merged News and Entertainment division. To advance this, Christensen has a destructive affair with Max Schumacher, an old guard news editor concerned with protecting Beale. When Beale launches an on-screen tirade against the conglomerate that owns UBS, Christensen arranges for him to be murdered on air by a group of urban terrorists (who, in a sub-plot, also have a UBS show). The film is a cynical look at the way networks make decisions about programming and the disdain that they show for their audiences. It also served as a warning against potential abuses resulting from corporate conglomorate ownership of the television networks, specifically the network news.
Produced/released in the year of the United States Bicentennial and following the Watergate scandal and resignation of Richard Nixon, and the loss of the Vietnam War, the film's main theme is the decay of the concept of public service.
Network won Academy Awards for Best Actor in a Leading Role (Peter Finch, posthumously), Best Actress in a Leading Role (Faye Dunaway), Best Actress in a Supporting Role (Beatrice Straight) and Best Writing, Screenplay Written Directly for the Screen. It was nominated for Best Actor in a Leading Role (William Holden), Best Actor in a Supporting Role (Ned Beatty), Best Cinematography (Owen Roizman), Best Film Editing (Alan Heim), Best Director, and Best Picture.
It won three of the four acting awards, tying the record with A Streetcar Named Desire in 1951.
Trivia
- 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!"
- Beatrice Straight's performance is the shortest Oscar-winning performance in history. She is on film for less than six minutes.
- Dunaway and Finch have no scenes together, despite being arguably the main protagonist and antagonist of the film.
- In 2000 the United States Library of Congress deemed the film "culturally significant" and selected it for preservation in the National Film Registry.
- 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" [link]. Clooney's character refers to Network in his 1998 film Out of Sight.
- In 2006, the script (written by Paddy Chayefsky), was voted one of the top ten movie scripts of all-time by the Writer's Guild of America.
- The film was made by MGM and United Artists 5 years before they became sister studios. When MGM did purchase United Artists, they got full rights in a way to the film, but the UA division still held worldwide theatrical rights. The US rights to the film passed on to Turner Entertainment along with the rest of the pre-1986 MGM library in 1986, and then to Warner Bros. in 1996 following Turner's merger with Time Warner. Warner has released the film on DVD in the US twice, and the international DVD rights now lie with MGM -- all the ironic considering they only had US rights but not international rights in the first place.
Cast
- Faye Dunaway as Diana Christensen
- William Holden as Max Schumacher
- Peter Finch as Howard Beale
- Robert Duvall as Frank Hackett
- Wesley Addy as Nelson Chaney
- Ned Beatty as Arthur Jensen
- Beatrice Straight as Louise Schumacher
- Jordan Charney as Harry Hunter
- Lane Smith as Robert McDonough
- Cindy Grover as Caroline Schumacher
- Marlene Warfield as Laureen Hobbs
- Carolyn Krigbaum as Max's Secretary
- Lee Richardson as Narrator (voice)
Awards
Won:
Nominated:
Won:
Nominated:
Won:
Nominated:
- Best Film
- Best Actor - William Holden
- Best Actress - Faye Dunaway
- Best Supporting Actor - Robert Duvall
- Best Director - Sidney Lumet
- Best Editing - Alan Heim
- Best Screenplay - Paddy Chayefsky
- Best Sound Track - Jack Fitzstephens, Marc Laub, Sanford Rackow, James Sabat, & Dick Vorisek
External links
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All text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License See Wikipedia Copyrights for details.
Won:
Nominated:
- Best Film
- Best Actor - William Holden
- Best Actress - Faye Dunaway
- Best Supporting Actor - Robert Duvall
- Best Director - Sidney Lumet
- Best Editing - Alan Heim
- Best Screenplay - Paddy Chayefsky
- Best Sound Track - Jack Fitzstephens, Marc Laub, Sanford Rackow, James Sabat, & Dick Vorisek
External links
From Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia. Original article here. Support Wikipedia by contributing or donating.
All text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License See Wikipedia Copyrights for details.
All text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License See Wikipedia Copyrights for details.