Just saw the movie NETWORK tonight for the first time

[derby378]

Damn, that was heavy. Paddy Cheyevsky's story should have been a wake-up call for America, not a "how-to" manual for the soulless freaks at FOX News.

[Starbucks Anarchist]

1. One of my favorite movies.

[SoCalDem]

2. and yet.... n/t

[blues90]

3. sort of shows you how asleep people really are

Doesn't it and that movies pretty old.

[derby378]

4. I like the MAX HEADROOM pilot for some of the same reasons

It takes a hard look at the psychopathic cynicism that fuels some of these MSM outlets. O'Reilly? Hannity? CNBC? They're nothing more than lame jokes at this point.

[readmoreoften]

5. One of my favorites too. The CEO speech is unbeatable.

The final shot with of him with his face in shadow is both genius and cinematic brilliance.

[Garbo 2004]

16. you have meddled with the primal forces of nature, and you will atone! The speech:

JENSEN

You have meddled with the primal forces of nature, Mr. Beale, and I won't have it, is that clear?! You think you have merely stopped a business deal -- that is not the case! The Arabs have taken billions of dollars out of this country, and now they must put it back. It is ebb and flow, tidal gravity, it is ecological balance! 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 are no third worlds! There is no West! There is only one holistic system of systems, one vast and immane, interwoven, interacting, multi-variate, multi-national dominion of dollars! petro-dollars, electro-dollars, multi-dollars!, 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! And you have meddled with the primal forces of nature, and you will atone! Am I getting through to you, Mr. Beale?

(pause)

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 A T and T and Dupont, Dow, Union Carbide and Exxon. Those are the nations of the world today. 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 deter- mined 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, Mr. Beale, will live to see that perfect world in which there is no war and famine, oppression and brutality --one vast and ecumenical holding company, for whom all men will work to serve a common profit, in which all men will hold a share of stock, all necessities provided, all anxieties tranquilized, all boredom amused. And I have chosen you to preach this evangel, Mr. Beale.

HOWARD
(humble whisper)
Why me?

JENSEN
Because you're on television, dummy.

[Gregorian]

6. The Daily Show had Santelli as a faux Howard Bealle

I'm pretty sure it was the Daily Show.

I'm mad as hell and I'm not going to pay for my neighbor's mortgage! Or something?

[derby378]

8. More like an anti-Howard Beale

Peter Finch's character, although losing his grip on reality, was still sane enough to realize what was happening to human society and brave enough to denounce it. The network just wanted to milk his downward spiral to boost their sagging ratings without any thought for the ideas contained in his populist rants.

[Gregorian]

11. It's a shame there haven't been more Howard Beales.

I found it very relieving to watch. And yet distressing that it was so far removed from reality. Sort of like soldiers who refused to go to Iraq. Not very many.

Oh, yes, definitely an anti-Beale. How sick. That Santelli thing was choreographed.

[C_U_L8R]

7. "I don't have to tell you things are bad."

"Everybody knows things are bad. It's a depression. Everybody's out of work or scared of losing their job. The dollar buys a nickel's work, banks are going bust, shopkeepers keep a gun under the counter. Punks are running wild in the street and there's nobody anywhere who seems to know what to do, and there's no end to it. We know the air is unfit to breathe and our food is unfit to eat, and we sit watching our TV's while some local newscaster tells us that today we had fifteen homicides and sixty-three violent crimes, as if that's the way it's supposed to be. We know things are bad - worse than bad. They're crazy. It's like everything everywhere is going crazy, so we don't go out anymore. We sit in the house, and slowly the world we are living in is getting smaller, and all we say is, 'Please, at least leave us alone in our living rooms. Let me have my toaster and my TV and my steel-belted radials and I won't say anything. Just leave us alone.' Well, I'm not gonna leave you alone. I want you to get mad! I don't want you to protest. I don't want you to riot - I don't want you to write to your congressman because I wouldn't know what to tell you to write. I don't know what to do about the depression and the inflation and the Russians and the crime in the street. All I know is that first you've got to get mad. You've got to say, 'I'm a HUMAN BEING, Goddamnit! My life has VALUE!' So I want you to get up now. I want all of you to get up out of your chairs. I want you to get up right now and go to the window. Open it, and stick your head out, and yell, 'I'M AS MAD AS HELL, AND I'M NOT GOING TO TAKE THIS ANYMORE!' I want you to get up right now, sit up, go to your windows, open them and stick your head out and yell - 'I'm as mad as hell and I'm not going to take this anymore!' Things have got to change. But first, you've gotta get mad!... You've got to say, 'I'm as mad as hell, and I'm not going to take this anymore!' Then we'll figure out what to do about the depression and the inflation and the oil crisis. But first get up out of your chairs, open the window, stick your head out, and yell, and say it:
"I'M AS MAD AS HELL, AND I'M NOT GOING TO TAKE THIS ANYMORE!"


(one of the finest rants in the history of ranting)

[earth mom]

9. And if people aren't mad as hell now, they aren't paying attention. nt

[RUMMYisFROSTED]

10. 30 years of slumber.

What a waste.

[shireen]

12. Wonderful movie, one of my favorites! nt

[PSPS]

13. Prescient

In 1976, the movie's release date, we had three television networks. Cable TV was largely unknown and had very few channels or subscribers. Each television network had a news department apart from entertainment. They all operated at a net loss to the network because they were intended to inform rather than make money. Entertainment subsidized them.

Even TV entertainment shows back then were far above what we're getting today. Since there were really only these four outlets for creativity, they could choose only the best of the best. Ad revenues were high meaning production costs were affordable.

So here comes Paddy Chayefsky's story about what happens to TV news. Even though the movie won four oscars, people back then didn't have this vision of TV's future that Chayefsky did. But look at things now. There is no TV news anymore, only "infotainment." All of "Murrow's boys" were cast aside a long time ago. We've got hundreds of national networks now, thanks to cable. And with so may outlets today, anything (and I mean anything) can find a broadcast outlet. We've reached the finish line in our "race to the bottom."

[Garbo 2004]

14. Simply brilliant. One of my faves. After Chayefsky died the Emmy's had a tribute

to him, including a reading of part of Network's script which, IIRC, excoriated the TV industry. It was a bit surreal amidst a night of the TV industry celebrating itself and patting itself on the back. Paddy no doubt would have enjoyed the irony.

[rocktivity]

15. At the risk of sounding like Yogi Berra

The older that movie gets, the newer it feels.


rocknation

[misanthrope]

17. Now go watch "Face in the Crowd"...

...and you'll see Elia Kazan trying to warn us 20 years earlier.

[emilyg]

18. In my opinion Mr. Kazan was an under appreciated genius.

[NoSheep]

19. Oh man. I think it trumps Citizen Kane and is as good as Giant. A Face in the Crowd. Wow.

I just saw that for the first time about a year ago and I've watched it 6-7 times. It is phenomenal.

[Hannah Bell]

21. and so interesting to see andy griffith playing a creep. he's perfect with

the folksy-creepiness.

[NoSheep]

22. He's amazing. I think it is his and Patricia Neal's first film

SHE is amazing. He totally gets the psychology of what he's been asked to portray. I can't rave about it enough.
On The Beach is another film I saw around the same time that I'd never seen. Have you? If not, please do. Great story line. Beautifully shot. Heavy.

[Hannah Bell]

23. i didn't, but i enjoyed the book. i'll see it if i have the chance.

though under present circumstances, movies about the end of the world hit a little too close to home...

ps: first came across 'face in the crowd' as the budd schulberg screenplay, saw the movie later, it wasn't shown on tv much, & this was before video.

schulberg's novel, "what makes sammy run?" made a huge impression on me when i was young. about a similarly creepy person, it begs for film treatment, but:

"According to a 2001 article in Variety,<4> Dreamworks paid US$2.6 million to acquire the rights to the novel from Warner Bros. for a proposed movie version starring and/or directed by Ben Stiller, although as of 2008, production has not begun. Budd Schulberg has been quoted as saying that he doubts the film will ever be made. "I still think there’s a sense that it’s too anti-industry," Schulberg told the The Jewish Daily Forward in 2006.<5> If and when it does get made, it will be the first theatrical film version of the novel."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/What_Makes_Sammy_Run??acti...


Budd Schulberg (born March 27, 1914, in New York City, New York) is an American screenwriter,novelist and sports writer.

Born Seymour Wilson Schulberg, he was Hollywood "royalty", the son of B.P. Schulberg, head of Paramount Pictures and Adeline Jafee-Schulberg, sister to agent/film producer Sam Jaffe.

Budd Schulberg is best known for his 1941 novel, What Makes Sammy Run, his 1947 novel The Harder They Fall, his 1954 Academy-award-winning screenplay for On the Waterfront, and his 1957 screenplay A Face in the Crowd.

In 1939 he collaborated on the screenplay for Winter Carnival, a light comedy set at Dartmouth. One of his collaborators was F. Scott Fitzgerald, who was fired because of his alcoholic binge during a visit with Schulberg to Dartmouth.<1>

While serving in the Navy during World War II, Schulberg was assigned to the Office of Strategic Services (OSS), working with John Ford's documentary unit. Following VE Day, he was among the first American servicemen to liberate the Nazi-run concentration camps.


Schulberg "named names" in the McCarthy era blacklist.

[NoSheep]

24. mmm. Glad you've read the book. I haven't. The movie showed everyone

behaving, really, as they should EVERY DAY, but that they only could knowing the end was near. Did the book get that across?

[Hannah Bell]

25. i read it as a teenager 40-odd years ago, so honestly, i don't remember so much.

mainly the nuclear aspect & the doom & being depressed. being young, i enjoyed tragedy. :>

when you mention it, it *seems* like i remember something of that aspect, but not enough to say for sure.

[NoSheep]

20. is Network the one where the emcee wants a human sacrifice to get the ratings up?

It's been a while and I could be confusing it with something else.

[notheyrejustwrong]

26. Sidney Lumet (the director of Network)

was asked, "Did you think you were making a satire?" and he replied no, he and Paddy thought it was REPORTAGE!

Network is one of the all-time best.

As far as A Face In The Crowd...how about starting a Sarah "Lonesome Rhodes" Palin meme

[proud2BlibKansan]

27. A "how to" manual for Faux!

Perfect description.