Howard Beale (Peter Finch) is getting the axe. Despite working as a newscaster for the UBS Evening News for decades, as part of a corporate restructuring he's being let go in close proximity to his wife leaving him. His life in shambles, he quietly proposes in a drunken stupor at a local tavern that he's going to kill himself. He makes this declaration more pronounced the following evening during his live broadcast in addition to unleashing a massive amount of profanity that the general non-Cable TV airwaves are unaccustomed to. Though his superiors, including Frank Hackett (Robert Duvall) are at first disgusted by his performance, the ratings come in for Beale's program and they're massive, far larger than anything the network is used to.
At the urging of Diana Christensen (Faye Dunaway), Beale isn't just kept on the network but his nightly ramblings are a prominent fixture of the network. Before you know it, Beale is seen as some kind of hero for the general public, with his no-nonsense calls to action stirring up the general masses to take action to the tune of Beale's catchphrase "I'm mad as hell and I'm not gonna take it anymore!" Everyone at the network is happy....except for Beale's long-time friend Max Schumacher (William Holden), who doesn't like his friend being taken advantage of just for the sake of network ratings, especially since all it'll take for Beale to lose his job again is if one of his nightly rants happens to conflict with the network's interests.
In the course of the story of Network, Howard Beale gets raised to the level of modern-day prophet, all for expressing the rage that so many felt in the late 70's in response to devastating events happening across the world. The advent of television allowed for the horrors of war (in this case, The Vietnam War) to be broadcast into the general public's living room, making them aware of the brutality of these conflicts in a visually evocative manner that would have been impossible in decades past. The prominence of television in this era also allows for Howard Beale's words to travel across the country and resonate with people with his frenzied and wild-eyed appearance adding extra weight to his words since he looks so far removed from the composed sharp-dressed impression most other newscasters try to give off.
The script by Paddy Chayefsky diverts a lot of the time to Beale's spiels on the airwaves, allowing the audience to see what exactly is entrancing the television-obsessed masses in this universe. The various speeches Beale delivers are well-written in that they do convey a sense of "To hell with it" looseness combined with a pervasive air of rage that makes it easy to see why people would be so engrossed by this guy. Not only is he unlike any other newscaster in this biz but he's also expressing the resentment towards authority and "the powers that be" bubbling just under the American populace at this moment, he's tapping into emotions no other TV show would dare go near. Peter Finch's wholly committed performance also helps make it clear why Beale becomes such a sensation in the world of TV.
Beale gets surrounded by a horde of selfish individuals who are intentionally painted as wholly unlikable, especially higher-ups at the network played by Robert Duvall and Ned Beatty who are portrayed as people who solely care about their job titles and paychecks. The contempt for authority that plays a big role in Beale's speeches also carries over into how Network depicts its characters in power, who are shown to be individuals who look at footage of actual kidnappings not with horror but rather glee at the idea of what kind of ratings such footage will draw. Network intends to be a satirical send-up of (among many other things) the exploitative nature of television news, but it doesn't even feel like all that heightened of a send-up honestly, it just feels like an accurate depiction of the selfish greed that motivates the likes of FOX News in the modern era.
Sidney Lumet is working on a different tonal level than past movies of his like 12 Angry Men, but he manages to fit into the world of satirical cinema like a glove. The guys got a real keen visual eye for how to depict extended dialogue sequences and it carries over here, with scenes like Ned Beatty's character chewing out Howard Beale carrying an imposing air in both the types of shots used and how long the camera lingers on Beatty in his moment of rage (cinematographer Owen Roizman, of course, also deserves kudos for how well-executed such a scene is on a visual level). I also like how both Lumet and writer Paddy Chayefsky go all in in creating a darker satire, there's not even an attempt at a tidier happy ending here to placate potential wary studio executives.
Instead, Network goes for an appropriately grim conclusion that reinforces a tragic air that's been traveling underneath the entire story. These cruel people are taking advantage of a man whose obviously having some sort of breakdown all in the name of ratings. Only Max Schumacher (played with appropriately weary gravitas by William Holden in an amazing performance) recognizes the moral depravity inherently woven into this situation and even he finds himself compromising himself in terms of his morals. The world is cruel and at the whims of the powerful in Network, just like how it is in real life, and though a rage-induced speech can provide momentary hope, well, even the best prophets can end up becoming false prophets over time. It was true then just as it is true now.
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