Network (film)

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Template:Infobox Film Network is a 1976 satirical film about a fictional television network named Union Broadcasting System (UBS) and its struggle with poor TV ratings.

Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.

When the network news anchor (Howard Beale, played by Peter Finch) finds out he is being fired, he goes on the air announcing it along with his intent to commit suicide during his final broadcast (some believe the film to be inspired in part by newscaster Christine Chubbuck's on-air suicide, although there is no definitive documentation of this). This and his subsequent on-air ranting cause ratings to skyrocket, something the network is willing to exploit.

Parallel to the story of Beale the film depicts the rise within UBS of Diana Christensen (played by Faye Dunaway) who begins as a Producer of Entertainment Programming and ends up as controller of a merged News and Entertainment division. To advance this Christensen has a destructive affair with Max Schumacher (played by William Holden), an old guard news editor concerned with protecting Beale. When Beale launches an on-screen tirade against the conglomerate that owns UBS, Christensen arranges for him to be murdered on air by a group of urban terrorists. The film is a cynical look at the way networks make decisions about programming and the disdain that they show for their audiences.

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Produced/released in the year of the United States Bicentennial and following the Watergate scandal and resignation of Richard Nixon, and the loss of the Vietnam War, the film's main theme is the decay of the concept of public service.

One may consider "Network" prophetic in its view of television programming today. The movie predicted the rise of television and the demand that ratings place on content. In 2005, television broadcasted more talk shows, "challenge" shows with varying degrees of risk and reward, and makeover shows than ever before in history, with no end in sight. There is even a channel, Fox Reality, that broadcasts reality shows 24 hours a day. The Howard Beale character called television, or "the tube," "the most awesome goddamn force in the whole godless world".

The movie, a black comedy, stars Faye Dunaway, William Holden, Peter Finch, Robert Duvall, Wesley Addy, Ned Beatty and Beatrice Straight. It was written by Paddy Chayefsky and directed by Sidney Lumet.

Network won Academy Awards for Best Actor in a Leading Role (Peter Finch, posthumously), Best Actress in a Leading Role (Faye Dunaway), Best Actress in a Supporting Role (Beatrice Straight) and Best Writing, Screenplay Written Directly for the Screen. It was nominated for Best Actor in a Leading Role (William Holden), Best Actor in a Supporting Role (Ned Beatty), Best Cinematography (Owen Roizman), Best Film Editing (Alan Heim), Best Director, and Best Picture.

Beatrice Straight's performance is the shortest Oscar-winning performance in history. She is on film for less than six minutes.

In 2000 the United States Library of Congress deemed the film "culturally significant" and selected it for preservation in the National Film Registry.

The film spawned the popular phrase "I'm mad as hell, and I'm not going to take it anymore", though the actual quote in the film, as uttered by Howard Beale, is "I'm as mad as hell, and I'm not going to take this anymore!"

Actor George Clooney is planning to produce and co-star in a live made-for-television remake of the film, just as he did with "Fail-Safe". [1]

In 2006, the script (written by Paddy Chayefsky), was voted one of the top ten movie scripts of all-time by the Writer's Guild of America.