"What's old is new again" as they say, and while it's not a perfectly equal comparison, it must be said that the world of America in 1976 (the year in which Sidney Lumet's
Network was released) does bear a great resemblance to America in 2017. A historically catastrophic President? A recent grisly war that has not produced the sort of triumphant victories America is accustomed to in its foreign affairs? People looking for answers in their entertainment? Some variations of all those ideas always exist in human society but they're particularly potent in both 1976 and in the modern era, making
Network one of those amazing movies that's both a perfect time capsule of the era in which it was released and also something that feels incredibly relevant multiple decades after its initial release.
