Issue #39, December 22, 2006

They Made The Movie Here Film Festival 2006

review: network

After the screenings of Something’s Gotta Give and Network, you may find Westhampton’s Performing Arts Center shaking with the thunderous sound of voices shouting, “We’re mad as hell and we’re not going to take it anymore!” Can you blame them? The comedy was a lot, and followed by the melodramatic Network? Forget about it! The four-Oscar 1976 film, Network, part of a double header with Something’s Gotta Give, which starts at 1 p.m., was the product of celebrated television dramatist Paddy Chayefsky’s quixotic, raging anger. His original screenplay was a broadly satirical diatribe denouncing the television industry and the commercial world in general. The film was directed by Sidney Lumet, East Hampton’s own formidable windmill tilter (our good old town has the windmills to prove it.) He initially directed a lot of television, and in 1957, made his brilliant feature film debut with 12 Angry Men, from a television play by Reginald Rose. So he and Mr. Chayefsky were well qualified to take wild whacks at the small screen’s spinning powers. In Network, they stretch a fantastic yarn, sparing nothing in imagining the far-out lengths that television will go for ratings.

Network is no-holds-barred, in your face, suspicious accusation of the industry’s lack of ethics. It’s a great, colorful, off-color joking, name-calling, whistle-blowing fantasy (or is it) about greedy conspiracies and ideologies gone berserk. On top of that, it has a large and impressive cast. Peter Finch plays Howard Beale, a bellowing, can’t-tell-if-he’s-drunk-or-just-nuts, newscaster who wants everyone to stick their heads out of their windows and scream “I’m mad as hell and I’m not going to take it anymore!” Faye Dunaway is at her best as predatory programmer, Diana Christensen. She gets it ON with business by dominating and decimating rivals and gets OFF sexually by talking business during the act. Their news chief, Max Schumacher, is staunchly played by a ravaged-looking William Holden. He is the best friend of Beale, the mad news commentator and “prophet,” as they had been “Edward R. Morrow” newsmen together. Now, they are disillusioned boozers.

Dunaway’s Christensen wants control of Holden’s department, so she seduces him. It’s a love affair made in hell and consummated in an Amagansett motel. Beatrice Straight gives a true, stressed performance as Holden’s bereft wife. Ned Beatty, as Arthur Jensen, is the controlling chairman of the TV network (and just about everything) with an evangelical passion for big business. Robert Duvall plays the shark-like V.P. in charge of hatcheting for Jensen and his conspirators.

Room is made in this movie for everything and everyone, including a black militant group with their own Patty Hearst, a fortuneteller, gossips, you name it… And they all agree that if someone has a low-rated TV show, he should be shot. Do the filmmakers go too far? Is it unbelievable? As far out as Mr. Chayefsky reaches, Mr. Lumet works his damndest to keep it believable, and it works.

Network is over-loaded with messages. Chayefsky and Lumet are swift messengers from the time of socially aware plays and movies. However, as Sam Goldwyn said, “If you want a message, go to Western Union.” Today, the telegram is essentially gone, partly because people associated it with bad news. Now, the same could be said for movies with a social message – they are considered downers. Movies today have messages so terrible, so awfully destructive and incredible that the bad news is no more jarring to viewers than oddities of fiction. With Network, the social statements are so exaggerated they are entertaining. Smart fellas, Paddy and Sid.

Academy Awards went to Peter Finch (posthumously), Faye Dunaway, Beatrice Straight and Paddy Chayefsky. Obviously, the movie is a winner. So leave your TV set, and come down to Westhampton Performing Arts Center to vent about the state of TV, entertainment or movies these days. However, please don’t hold us accountable for the X-rated shenanigans carried on by Dunaway and Holden and in the really nice, G-Rated, family Sea Breeze Inn and Motel. Your host, Sarah Halsey and some refreshments will try to set the world right again.

Guy-Jean de Fraumeni is the producer/writer/director of award-winning European and American feature films. He has been a judge at Major Film and TV award competitions, including the Oscars, the Emmy’s and various film festivals.