I've never seen this movie, but now I want to see this!
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I'm mad as hell, and I'm not going to take this anymore!
- Thread starter Josh Oakley
- Start date
I've never seen this movie, but now I want to see this!
Good stuff and, utterly off-topic, may I just say Faye Dunaway ... oh my!
On-topic, it seems that not much has improved over the past thirty or forty years
.
On-topic, it seems that not much has improved over the past thirty or forty years
.
OP
- Thread Starter
- #4
Sadly true.
Steve
Mostly Harmless
It's been... a long time since I've seen the movie. But in the movie, wasn't the entire point that he stopped reporting the news, and started reporting his opinion? He ranted and raved and went on like Glen Beck off his meds, and instead of firing him, the network started chasing ratings?
I see that clip and it always strikes me that it's being misquoted. The point isn't that he was right to go ballistic on the issues plaguing society at the time. Rather, he was 100%, flat out wrong to do so. And instead of calling him on it, the network saw him as a ratings magnet.
And taken to it's logical extreme, they had him assassinated to boost ratings into another season.
The movie is about chasing dollars and ratings over truth. Or am I completely wrong? As I said, it's been a long time since I've watched the entire movie. Am I remembering it incorrectly?
OP
- Thread Starter
- #6
Dont know. Like I said, I haven't seen the movie. But if what you say is true, I would say that the movie would be quite prophetic.
OP
- Thread Starter
- #7
Rock synth organ for the win!LOL, I will take any opportunity I can get to post this
Steve
Mostly Harmless
Absolutely. As I remember the movie, it was considered ludicrous to believe that the news would be about ratings and money. Couple years later, CNN goes on the air and the 24 hour news cycle is born.
Again, the movie is ahead of its time, but not because the issues he was railing against were profound. Those same issues have been plaguing civilization since forever. It's that the movie forecast a shift from news as a public service and means to inform to news as influence and a means to gain power and money.
Edit: And now I'm officially curious enough to Google it. I am wondering how skewed my memory is of what this movie is actually about.
Steve
Mostly Harmless
http://www.filmsite.org/netw.html
Here's a pretty comprehensive summary. I think I got most of it right.
Here's a pretty comprehensive summary. I think I got most of it right.
The movie is on Netflix streaming right now, so check it out! I just watched it again about a week ago.
FWIW - spoiler alert...LOL this movie is as old as I am.
Like any good movie, there are a lot of levels intertwined. I would say, yeah, Network is about that on a superficial level, but on the same level, the ratings chasing producer calls out the newsroom and says, "You're nothing but a tabloid pretending to have a reputation. If you're going to hustle, lets do it right!"
Howard Beal was giving his opinion and sometimes opinions strike right to the root of the matter and stir public consciousness. That's another level of this movie. Howard was right and the people knew it and responded. In that way, he's not like Glenn Beck, a clown that took off his makeup.
Another level of this movie deals with the corporate control of media. Howard Beal laments that when the president of UBS died, the last domino standing in the way of a corporate takeover of the airwaves was gone. He foretold that the corporations would use the media outlets to flood the public with propaganda that people would be unable to discern reality from what was created for them by "the tube." That sounds damn familiar.
Another level of this movie goes straight to the heart of the real power in this world. Howard Beal gets millions of people to stand up to a massive financial transaction and he is brought before the corporate demigod to receive a lecture in monetary cosmology. At the end of the lecture, Beal says, "I have seen the face of god" and the demigod says, "You might very well have" and then the corporate overlord puts Beal back on TV where he basically starts telling people to give up, fit into their holes, and erase any individuality they may have cultivated.
When this message is rejected by the people, another level is reached by the movie. The corporate underlings are so disheartened by their bosses "adamantine" decision to keep Beal on the air that they plot his assassination in order to boost ratings. This is an appeal to the base and vile instincts of humanity, which the powerful always resort to when they struggle to keep the public's attention.
And then their is the level where the old producer and the young producer have an affair. It ends where the old producer points out the vapid, emotionless, entitled and vacuous spirituality of the younger generation that was raised by TV.
It's a good movie, I definitely recommend.
aedrasteia
Purple Belt
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It's not "Howard Beale" talking.
Its Paddy. Chayefsky. the finest, smartest writer for television and films we've ever produced, talking through that character and all the characters in Network. a genius. google him. the wiki entry isn't bad.
His scripts are so sharp. his ear for real-life speech was pitch perfect. He wrote the finest tv drama ever and then turned it into the first of his 3 Oscars, for Marty (with Ernest Borgnine) in 1953. no special effects, just writing so good its makes your teeth hurt.
His last script was for "Altered States" in 1980. watch _that_ one and Marty and you've got a picture of his range and skill. And 5 actors in Network won awards for putting his characters on the screen.
Network is Paddy Chayefsky.
"Chayefsky was a sturdy man of 42, compact and burly in the bulky way of a schoolyard athlete, with thick dark hair and a bent nose that could pass for a streetfighter's. He was a grown-up with one foot in the boys' clubs of his city youth, a street snob who would not allow the loss of his nostalgia. He was an intellectual competitor, always spoiling for a political argument or a philosophical argument, or any exchange over any issue, changing sides for the fun of the fray. A liberal, he was annoyed by liberals; a proud Jew, he wouldn't let anyone call him a "Jewish writer." In short, the life of the mind was a participant sport for Paddy Chayefsky.[SUP][14]
[/SUP]
Its Paddy. Chayefsky. the finest, smartest writer for television and films we've ever produced, talking through that character and all the characters in Network. a genius. google him. the wiki entry isn't bad.
His scripts are so sharp. his ear for real-life speech was pitch perfect. He wrote the finest tv drama ever and then turned it into the first of his 3 Oscars, for Marty (with Ernest Borgnine) in 1953. no special effects, just writing so good its makes your teeth hurt.
His last script was for "Altered States" in 1980. watch _that_ one and Marty and you've got a picture of his range and skill. And 5 actors in Network won awards for putting his characters on the screen.
Network is Paddy Chayefsky.
"Chayefsky was a sturdy man of 42, compact and burly in the bulky way of a schoolyard athlete, with thick dark hair and a bent nose that could pass for a streetfighter's. He was a grown-up with one foot in the boys' clubs of his city youth, a street snob who would not allow the loss of his nostalgia. He was an intellectual competitor, always spoiling for a political argument or a philosophical argument, or any exchange over any issue, changing sides for the fun of the fray. A liberal, he was annoyed by liberals; a proud Jew, he wouldn't let anyone call him a "Jewish writer." In short, the life of the mind was a participant sport for Paddy Chayefsky.[SUP][14]
[/SUP]
Altered States is another awesome movie. LOVE IT!!!
