It may be hard to imagine in this day and age of “Peak TV” (or “Too Much TV”), when television is considered an art form equal to, if not greater than, movies, but back even 40-50 years ago, television was considered “a vast wasteland”, to quote Newton Minow, in a speech he made when JFK appointed him chairman of the FCC (my personal favorite crack about television – attributed to both Fred Allen and Ernie Kovacs – is “Television is a medium, so-called because it is neither rare nor well done”). Ironically, though the 1960’s and 70’s were the time of the respected anchor of network news (particularly Walter Cronkite), TV news during that time also came under fire, with people arguing the medium, by definition, simplified news, leading people to treat complex issues in a simple-minded way (Neil Postman, a cultural critic, made arguments like this in his book “Amusing Ourselves to Death”), but also the fact outside pressures, particularly business, were dictating not just how the news was presented, but what news was shown. Network, written by Paddy Chayefsky and directed by Sidney Lumet, was the first big studio movie to deal with this, and while it was advertised with the tag line, “Prepare yourself for a perfectly outrageous motion picture,” much (though not all) of the movie is uncomfortably prescient today.
Howard Beale (Peter Finch) is a respected news anchor at Union Broadcasting System (UBS) until his ratings go down, at which point he’s given two weeks notice. After going out and getting drunk, as you do, with Max Schumacher (William Holden), Howard’s best friend and vice-president in charge of the news division, Howard announces the next day on the air the news of his firing, and declares he’s going to kill himself the following week. Naturally, this causes a stir, and Howard is asked to clarify his remarks on the air. Instead, Howard claims everything is “bullshit” on the air, and that he’s sick and tired of it (Max lets him rant because he’s upset about the fact Frank Hackett (Robert Duvall), the network president, has cut the news division budget). Hackett and the other bosses are angry at first, until Diana Christensen (Faye Dunaway), an ambitious programming executive, points out Howard is not only getting press (she brings up all of the ongoing news stories, including rising oil prices, New York City going bankrupt, and civil wars in Angola and Beirut, and yet Howard was on the front page of every newspaper), he’s getting ratings, and tapping into the anger a lot of people feel. Diana’s proven right when, on a later broadcast, Howard urges his viewers to get up, go to their windows, open them, and yell, “I’m mad as hell, and I’m not going to take this anymore!” This action boosts ratings even further, gets them national news coverage, and as a result, Diana takes control of the news division, giving Howard his own show. Also, Max gets fired. Not long after that, however, Max enters into an affair with Diana, even leaving his wife Louise (Beatrice Straight). And while Howard is a hit, soon, he runs afoul of Arthur Jensen (Ned Beatty), chairman of the conglomerate that owns UBS (“And YOU have meddled with the primal forces of nature, and YOU! WILL! ATONE!”)
Admittedly, Chayefsky and Lumet’s film is dated in some aspects. One of the subplots involves Diana approving of, and supervising, a show based on the exploits of a group that’s the Symbionese Liberation Army in all but name (Kathy Cronkite, Walter’s daughter, plays the Patty Hearst figure, Arthur Burghardt plays a character modeled on Cinque, the leader of the SLA, and Marlene Warfield plays Laureen Hobbs, based on Angela Davis), and while the satire is spot on (especially when the SLA starts to argue about their contract, particularly subsidiary rights), the media did not in fact end up co-opting far left rage like that (I’ll get to what they did co-opt below). More seriously, the idea of someone being a construct of television, and therefore unable to feel, as Diana is told in a speech by Max near the end, is nothing more than a construct, and while Dunaway gives a terrific and hilarious performance, even sneaking in some vulnerability when Max leaves her at the end (though Lumet had told her from the beginning Diana didn’t have any), she’s still playing a symbol, and a sexist one that hasn’t aged well.
Nevertheless, this is still an uncomfortable movie to watch in the right ways as well. Business has continued to encroach on, and dictate, news at an alarming rate, and even more than what Chayefsky and Lumet show here. Fox News has co-opted right-wing rage (the way Chayefsky thought it would happen with the left-wing), made millions from it, and helped to divide our country. The show about the SLA clones is an awful lot like many, if not most, reality TV shows. Also, though there would likely be more of an organized protest these days, the movie does show how Howard’s obvious mental illness gets exploited by the network higher-ups, despite Max’s feeble protests. Finally, while no one has been killed on the air for ratings (yet), the way Howard’s assassination is planned, during a normal business meeting, is uncomfortably close to how wars and political assassinations are planned today.
Chayefsky, of course, was fond of speeches in his work, and at its worst, it could get uncomfortably didactic, but Lumet manages to make them make sense here. Cinematographer Owen Roizman contrasts the studio scenes with scenes outside of the studio well. Except for the network theme music, there’s no music in the film. And the actors delivering Chayefsky’s speeches make them work; I’ve already praised Dunaway’s work here, but Finch is also good playing a disturbed, and badly burnt out man, and he’s matched by Holden in one of his best performances as the voice of reason. Straight, Duvall, and especially Beatty are also good in their supporting roles. Network, unfortunately, is no longer as outrageous as it was, but it’s still entertaining.