NETWORK....prophecy from 1976....

[jus_the_facts]

....And when the twelfth largest company in
the world controls the most awesome
goddamned propaganda force in the
whole godless world, who knows what
shit will be peddled for truth on
this tube?

So, listen to me!
Television is not the truth! Tele-
vision is a goddamned amusement
park, that's what television is!

Television is a circus, a carnival,
a traveling troupe of acrobats and
story-tellers, singers and dancers,
jugglers, side-show freaks, lion-
tamers and football players.

We're in the boredom-killing business!
If you want truth, go to God, go
to your guru, go to yourself because
that's the only place you'll ever
find any real truth! But, man,
you're never going to get any truth
from us. We'll tell you anything
you want to hear. We lie like hell!
We'll tell you Kojack always gets
the killer, and nobody ever gets
cancer in Archie Bunker's house.
And no matter how much trouble the
hero is in, don't worry: just look
at your watch -- at the end of the
hour, he's going to win. We'll
tell you any shit you want to hear!

We deal in illusion, man! None of
it's true! But you people sit there
-- all of you -- day after day, night
after night, all ages, colors, creeds
-- we're all you know. You're
beginning to believe this illusion
we're spinning here.

You're beginning to think the tube is reality
and your own lives are unreal. You
do whatever the tube tells you. You
dress like the tube, you eat like
the tube, you raise your children
like the tube, you think like the
tube. This is mass madness, you
maniacs! In God's name, you people
are the real thing! We're the illu-
sions!

So turn off this goddamn
set! Turn it off right now! Turn
it off and leave it off. Turn it
off right now, right in the middle
of this very sentence I'm speaking
now --

At which point, HOWARD BEALE, sweating and red-eyed with
his prophetic rage, collapses to the floor in a pro-
phetic swoon.

...Television continues relentlessly on.... :nopity:

[iamjoy]

1. I'm Mad As Hell

and I'm not going to take it anymore!

Of course, if you've seen the movie, you know how it ends. We can't have the news anchors telling the truth now, can we?

[jus_the_facts]

6. When CBS basically fired Dan Rather.... it made me wonder if maybe....

....he'd go off on them LIVE....not to announce suicide mind you...just TELL IT LIKE IT IS...for once and for all!! :D

[Warpy]

2. I never saw "Network"

but I did read Beal's rant.

I also turned it off in 2004. I just plain got sick of being lied to.

I found more current affairs on Simpsons reruns than I did on the evening news.

Breaking the habit of flipping on the set for the nightly dose of propaganda was easier than I thought. I still haven't missed it.

[jus_the_facts]

4. I had to repost this after the replies to my posts in the Digital TV thread...

....some people are so addicted to TV they can't conceive of not watching it...apparently. :shrug:

[Delphinus]

20. I'll watch sometimes,

but all the networks are talking about the switch to whatever's coming up, making sure we all know what we have to do. And when I see those, I think to myself, what's really worth watching?

[LeftinOH]

7. Peter Finch's performance was so good, even though he was dead, he won an Oscar.

[calimary]

12. It's one of my all-time favorite movies. Well worth renting if you ever get the chance.

Just frickin' brilliant! It will give you chills.

[jus_the_facts]

15. It's FREE at the library... if your library offers movies....

....what got me personally was when Faye Dunnaway says..."..how many calls are coming in?"....the guy answers her..."...well...they're mad as hell in Baton Rouge!" :thumbsup:

[calimary]

16. From Albuquerque to Sandusky! The response is sensational!

Over 900 fucking phone calls complaining about the foul language!

Son of a BITCH!!! We've hit the MOTHERLOAD!!!!

I know that historically news divisions are expected to lose money. At CCA we view that as a wanton fiscal affront to be resolutely resisted.

I have committed a great deal of that script to memory by now. I just LOVE that movie. Love it more every year that passes, with each new - um - affront.

[Cleita]

3. Yep, the producers and writers of that movie sure saw it coming. n/t

[mikelgb]

5. this post and seeing all those logos reminded me of mediaopoly:

http://youtube.com/watch?v=zDEO9ipned0

a classic

[Fire Walk With Me]

8. This should be a sticky at the top of the forum.

Most especially the film's discussion of corporations/capitalism.

[jus_the_facts]

9. Thank You...also the way the media WANTS you to rant and rail to them...

....it's posted here ad nauseum...contact the media...the only thing that will bring about any change with them is to quit paying for their service...yet hardly anyone *gets it*. x(

[ET Awful]

10. YOU have meddled with the primal forces of nature, and YOU WILL ATONE! n/t

[calimary]

11. One of the best rants ANYWHERE!

Paddy Chayefsky was so brilliant! Prescient, as it turns out.

[seemslikeadream]

13. So turn off this goddamn set! Turn it off right now! Turn it off and leave it off.

[BrklynLib at work]

14. Paddy Chayefsky was a genius!!! Both "Netwrok" and "The Hospital"

were incredibly prescient and astute examinations of where we were heading at the time...

[tom_paine]

18. You mean he did healthcare like he did TV News? I never knew.

Guess I'll be seeing that movie, soon. If it is half as good as Network, it'll be worth the expense.

[BrklynLib at work]

22. Here is some info about the movie.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0067217/

&

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hospital

[tom_paine]

24. Thanks. I'll be seeing it soon. n/t

[tom_paine]

17. Network has been so surpassed by reality it is almost quaint, archaic

How can the Mao Tse Tung Hour even compete in vile vulgarity with Real Videos, or if we leave violence out of the equation, Reality TV, or the rest of the shit people now do to be imprinted on the National Hologram for even a moment?

Don't get me wrong. The move was so unbelievable prophetic that, a short 30 years later, is is already surpassed by reality 100-fold.

Now THAT'S prophesy.

Like someone printing predictions in a newspaper and half have them have already happened before the ink is dry on the printing and three-quarters of them by the time the newspaper hits the stands.

In a bad way, Mr. Jensen's soliloquoy is equally propethic as anything Beale said, which is a tragedy of our times.

Arthur Jensen: You have meddled with the primal forces of nature, Mr. Beale, and I won't have it. You are an old man who thinks in terms of nations and peoples. There are no nations; there are no peoples. There are no Russians. There are no Arabs. There is no third world. There is no west. There is only one holistic system of systems; one vast interwoven, interacting, multivariate multinational dominion of dollars. Petrodollars, electrodollars, reichmarks, rubles, rin, pounds and shekels. It is the international system of currency that determines the totality of life on this planet. That is the natural order of things today. That is the atomic, subatomic and galactic structure of things today. It is the international system of currency that determines the totality of life on this planet. That is the natural order of things. You have meddled with the primal forces of nature, and you will atone! Am I getting through to you, Mr. Beale? You get up on your little twenty-one inch screen and howl about America and Democracy. There is no America. There is no democracy. There is only IBM and ITT and AT &T and Dupont, Dow, Union Carbide and Exxon. Those are the nations of the world today. What do you think the Russians talk about in their councils of state? Karl Marx? They pull out their linear programming charts, statistical decision theories, and minimax solutions and compute the price-cost probabilities of their transactions and investments just like we do. We no longer live in a world of nations and ideologies, Mr. Beale. The world is a college of corporations inexorably determined by the immutable by-laws of business. The world is a business, Mr. Beale! It has been since man crawled out of the slime. And our children will live to see that perfect world in which there is no war or famine, oppression or brutality. One vast and ecumenical holding company for whom all men will work to serve a common profit and in which all men will own a share of stock, all necessities provided, all anxieties tranquilized, all boredom amused. And I have chosen you to preach this evangel.

Beale: Why me?

Arthur Jensen: Because you're on television, dummy.

Beale: I have seen the face of God!

Arthur Jensen: You just might be right.

Chayfesky was clearly a genius. A prophet more successful and speaking more clearly than anything in the Bible or Nostradamus. And he got it right. He saw the future as it was about to unfold...EXACTLY as it was about to unfold, even the lies the Bushies (Jensen) tell us to get us to buy into their bullshit. "Perfect World" my ass.

[jus_the_facts]

19. Yes indeed....I wish I could edit to include that now... thanks for adding it....

....Paddy was a genius and prophet...without question! I wish I could recommend your post too. :hi:

[Neshanic]

29. Best post on this....excellent!

[windoe]

21. Then everyone threw their TV out the window at the same time,

what a classic.

[FatDave]

23. I first saw that movie in the mid-90's

I thought it was a good movie, but nothing more. Then I saw it again in about 2005 and couldn't fucking believe how true it all was. I'm not sure if the difference was just between being 25 and 35 years old or if things had gotten that much worse over the years. I suspect the latter.

[happydreams]

25. People are afraid of getting this angry, plus...

you don't get paid for it like Finch did. Look at all of the smiling back-slapping shithead politicians scared shitless to get serious and sustain it. I remember Dennis Kucinich trying to make some headway in the MSM and he had to turn on a forced smile at every turn.
Go back and look at the old newsreels of FDR, or Kennedy, they could get angry and sustain it. It used to be you people were serious most of the time and laugh it up now and then; now the reverse is true. Superficiality is a pre-requisite for doing business with the corporate media.
People like Keith Oberman and Abrams are isolated people working for the MSM and do not express outrage, but rather hotly discuss events and right-wing idiots. Which is something, but it isn't the same thing.

We are one fucked up human race.

[jus_the_facts]

26. Yes we are...and shows more every day...in so many ways....

....seriously fucked up. :(

[jus_the_facts]

27. Here's a two clips from the movie ...think I'll go to the library and get the DVD for free....

...for seven days. :thumbsup: :thumbsup:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qzCQELSwSC4

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PPwpdJ864U4

[Neshanic]

28. Amazing when the movie was made, the reaction was that it would never, ever happen like that.

Strange how it did, just like the movie.

[tom_paine]

30. WORSE than the movie, IMO. n/t