March 16: Network (1976 -- Sidney Lumet)

★★★★★

Network is such a prescient film that it’s almost eerie to watch it today, and it’s been prophetic throughout the 35 years since it was made.  These decades have seen the decline of news departments, the growth of conglomerates that swallow and then squeeze networks, and an increase in “personality” news. More striking still from today’s perspective is the rise of media that thrives on stoking anger—you have only to think of Rush Limbaugh or Sean Hannity—and the blossoming of reality TV.  Paddy Chayefsky’s script couldn’t anticipate the way media has changed because of technological innovation that opened the door for cable and the internet, but in 1976, Network already saw that that the media was going to become all entertainment all the time. With anger as it's main attraction.

Beyond its vision for the media itself, Network also talks about what will happen to media consumers.  Max is old school –married with friends, family, integrity and a long career.  In Network, he’s having problems in life, but he deals with them directly by having his winter/spring romance with Diana and negotiating the terms of his marriage with his wife.  His is a real life.  The new media person, the character of Diana, is one who doesn’t experience life directly but instead lives through the media she loves.  Diana has several former marriages, she doesn’t connect on a personal level, she lacks integrity, and she’s abrupt in sex.  All these characteristics show how she has trouble with real people and real emotions.  In fact, although Network seems a little on-the-nose in describing her as trying to turn her life into a series of TV program plots, that is how she lives.  Throughout her brief sex scene, she talks about ratings, and to talk with her about their relationship, Max has to talk about possible plot lines.  Perhaps because Network is so heavy-handed and affected with this observation, it rings somewhat hollow today, but as we watched Newt Gingrich in the 2012 Iowa Republican primary go from first to last as a result of negative campaign advertising on TV, a movie like this one does make you pause and wonder how much we’re inscribed by the media around us.


Network is unquestionably of its time, as New Hollywood as any movie you’ll see.  It’s earnest, advocative, and critical.  Lumet goes beyond the ideas, though, by getting strong performances, especially from William Holden and Peter Finch.  Robert Duvall, though sometimes too over-the-top, still brings a cinematic intensity to his role engages.  The weak acting in this film is, unfortunately, at the center—Faye Dunaway as Diana.  A lot of the dialog here is stagy and theatrical, and even Holden and Duvall sometimes have to work to keep the language from taking us out of the movie.  Dunaway doesn’t have the chops to do that though, and scenes like the one where she bustles into her office giving orders are more painful than anything else.


That reservation aside, this is an eye-opening movie.  It transcends its 70s topicality and manages to pull off social satire while making a surprisingly accurate critique of public media.  I remember rewatching Brazil ten years ago and being surprised at how it anticipated the Bush administration’s creating the Department of Homeland Security and increasing governmental powers in order to "combat terrorism"; rewatching Network today, when anger is entertainment, I had the same feeling of eerie amazement.