By lucky accident, I watched the 1976 movie Network the other day. It had been many years since I first watched it, but as with a good book, the passage of time can make a second take a different experience, and often a richer one.
For those who don’t know, Network is about UBS, a fictitious broadcast network, and one of its top anchors, Howard Beale, played by Peter Finch. Finch’s performance won him an Oscar. On the verge of a mental breakdown for reciting what he considers lies and propaganda, Beale threatens to kill himself on air. Instead of ending Beale’s career, the threat reignites it. UBS executives, led by Frank Hackett (Robert Duvall), are hungry for programming that will grab public attention and boost sagging ad revenues. Instead of taking Beale off the air, Hackett keeps him on, hoping to capitalize on Beale’s anger and his signature call, “I’m mad as hell, and I’m not going to take this anymore.”
The screenplay by Paddy Chayefsky also won an Oscar. As a piece of dark satirical writing, it’s a masterpiece, and as with all effective satire, its anger and cynicism speak to real underlying problems with the news media and society. Faye Dunaway, whose performance as Diana Christensen earned her a Best Actress award, represents the network’s obsessive search for programming. In the same way that Frank Hackett sees everything through the lens of profit, Christensen cares only for potential stories, characters, conflicts, and irresistible tensions. Right or wrong, moral or immoral, true or false, all that matters is ratings.