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Film

Psychopaths in the living room

Network', directed by Sydney Lumet, Screenplay by Paddy Chayefsky, Awarded four Academy Awards

Despite the proliferation of Academy Awards, this is a remarkable film. Not only does it deliver a message of political, economic and social importance, but it effectively ensures that its audience is implicated by the message. That the film succeed so well on a thematic level is due to Chayefsky's Award winning screenplay. We are all familiar with the horror movie and its uncontrollable monsters. Chayefsky's concern is also with an uncontrollable monster, but there the similarity ends. The gothic monster threatens a small number of people for a short time. Chayefsky is dealing with the long term effects on the lives of several million people.

The concepts behind this film are immense, and without being superlative, almost Shakes-perean. It is a brilliant satire; the characters are our representatives on screen and come to symbolise a state of mind rather than a state of being, which after all, is a major theme of the film; 'You're beginning to believe the illusions we're spinning here! You're beginning to think the tube is reality and that your lives are unreal.'

Howard Beale (Peter Finch), an aging newsreader, is fired because his programme has poor ratings, and threatens suicide live on the network news. The technical crew in the control room hardly react. They're so preoccupied putting the news on, no one really takes much notice of what has been said. To quote from 'The Man Who Fell To Earth;' 'Television shows you everything, but tells you hardly anything.'

Already the product is divorced from the me means of production. The news has a mesmeric effect. People absorb what is being shown, but they don't think about it. 'If it's on television it must be truel'

Indirectly, Beale's suicide 'note' is a hit with the all important ratings. Network fantasises what could happen if ratings, and their corrollary profit, become an obsession. Max Schumaker, (William Holden) is fired as News Director because he still has a few scruples about how the department should be run, and is replaced by a woman who has no scruples and a lot of ideas on how to make the network pay its way. As a result of her appointment, the news programme is dressed up to resemble a religious revival meeting complete with soothsayers, stained glass windows, a studio audience and starring Howard Beale as a self-proclaimed media-ordained 'mad prophet of the airway.' Having undergone a genuine mystical experience, Beale is given free licence to rail at the audience about society's shortcomings. 'But me? Why me?' he asks himself. 'Because?' some inner voice replies, 'you're on television, dummy!' A prophet can nolonger afford to cry in the wilderness if he wants people to take any notice. 'And why do so many of you watch television? Because only 33% of you read books! That's why!

Such is Beale's impact that he can get his audience of millions to shout slogans out of their windows or to inundate the White House with telegrams. "This tube can make or break presidents popes, prime ministers. This tube is the most awesome goddamned force in the whole godless world. And woe is us if he ever falls into the hands of the wrong people" But who are 'the wrong peopleBeale is unwittingly manipulated by his programme department, which is manipulated by the company head, who is manipulated by a big business corporation, who will even allow a group of ultra-leftist urban guerillas, and a representative of the American Communist Party to take over a TV series called 'The Mao Tse-Tung Hour.' The guerillas send in home movies of their exploits and a programme is built around the event. The network is actually promoting crime in order to obtain better ratings. The show becomes a monster and devours its co-habitants. Despite the best of intentions the communists are sucked into the vortex. A cacophonous scene with the guerillas, their lawyers, the communists and the TV company representatives wrangling over rights from the show remains a brutal warning to those prepared to compromise their long term beliefs for a short-term conversion of the populace. And why does the capitalist network allow this programme to be shown . ., because it's new, exciting, popular, good for ratings and good for business.

Beale himself offends against the corporate heads by attacking the monopolistic tendencies of the company he works for. Howard Jensen, the company head, makes sure he undergoes another 'mystic' experience, personally administered. Beale begins preaching Jensen's doctrine of 'Cosmic Capitalism,' but ironically, the ratings begin to fall—Chayefsky's screenplay can be extremely subtle.

The impact of Network is not restricted to the screenplay. Director Sydney Lumet has mapped out the visual scenario just as painstakingly. The opening scenes are presented in a documentary style, reminiscent of All the Presidents Men, and is carefully developed into an absurdist and surreal nightmare while keeping a semblance of 'sane.' normality. Peter Finch generates an almost messianic quality after his physical and spiritual transformation. Beale is sincere, but he's naive and he's unbalanced. He starts off a protagonist, but quickly becomes a victim of a force he doesn't understand. A difficult role. Finch does it complete justice.

William Holden as Schumaker, the craggy news editor, gives good support, but is completely upstaged by Dorothy Straight as his wife. In one of the outstanding scenes of the film, Schumaker tells his wife he is leaving her. Seldom are scenes like this handled so maturely and sensitively, so completely lacking in melodrama—a la TV soap opera. The disappointing performance came from Faye Dunaway (who incidentally won an Academy Award for best actress in this role.) As the hard-headed programme director she is unimpressive. Diana is a person devoured and spiritually possessed by television. This role had a lot of potential, but Dunaway appears superficial and plastic with a slight touch of the barbie-doll.

Despite its lapses into occasional moralising schmaltz, and some heavy-handed philosophy on the nature of man and TV, the themes are well sustained throughout. A very wordy, and for the most part, static film, it cannot afford to get bogged down by too many incidental reflections on the nature of things. A remarkable film all the same; one well worth seeing.

—Richard Mays.