Network

*“There are no nations. There are no peoples. There are no Russians. There are no Arabs. There are no third worlds. There is no West. There is only one holistic system of systems, one vast and immane, interwoven, interacting, multivariate, multinational dominion of dollars. Petro-dollars, electro-dollars, multi-dollars, reichmarks, rins, rubles, pounds, and shekels. It is the international system of currency which determines the totality of life on this planet. That is the natural order of things today. That is the atomic and subatomic and galactic structure of things today! And YOU have meddled with the primal forces of nature, and YOU WILL ATONE! ** You get up on your little twenty-one inch screen and howl about America and democracy. There is no America. There is no democracy. There is only IBM and ITT and AT&T and DuPont, Dow, Union Carbide, and Exxon. Those are the nations of the world today. What do you think the Russians talk about in their councils of state -- Karl Marx? They get out their linear programming charts, statistical decision theories, minimax solutions, and compute the price-cost probabilities of their transactions and investments, just like we do. We no longer live in a world of nations and ideologies, Mr. Beale. The world is a college of corporations, inexorably determined by the immutable bylaws of business. The world is a business, Mr. Beale. It has been since man crawled out of the slime. And our children will live, Mr. Beale, to see that perfect world in which there's no war or famine, oppression or brutality -- one vast and ecumenical holding company, for whom all men will work to serve a common profit, in which all men will hold a share of stock, all necessities provided, all anxieties tranquilized, all boredom amused.”*Wow… First off, I want to say a massive rest in peace to Robert Duvall, despite his short screen-time in this film, his presence is absolutely brilliant. And he is a fantastic actor. Sidney Lumet is simply one of the best to ever do it. A man who was clearly obsessed over how individuals interact with systems. Something which is so clearly portrayed fantastically through all of his films. Perhaps none more-so than Network.  This film is basically just Sidney Lumet, and the absolutely brilliant writer Paddy Chayefsky basically saying a big fuck you to Network Corporations and the way they run. A satire of the exploitative nature of television. Prioritising ratings and shares rather than giving one fuck about mental health. Nobody dares to actually help Howard, they instead package him as a product to be sold for entertainment and to drive ratings up. And the second their little cog starts to operate in a different way than they intended, they dispose of the product like it’s a piece of garbage. Completely dismissing the fact that a human being is involved.  That monologue that I quoted above is easily my favourite scene of the movie. A brilliantly written piece about how capitalism has essentially replaced humanity and politics. The world is just a place defined by profit maximisation rather than ideology. Unfortunately, despite this masterpiece being released in 1976, this reality is just getting deeper and more relevant. Further reiterating what I love about Lumet, he chose to direct films that were so ahead of their time! This is easily one of the best scripts ever put to screen. An enormously deserved oscar for Paddy Chayefsky. Monologue after Monologue, but Monologues that quite literally bend the basic bullshit rules of writing. Conventionally screenplays are criticised for having too many speeches, but this completely breaks that. The rants from Howard and the different monologues from characters like Max, Diana and Jensen are used fantastically to drive the narrative and to create fantastic performances. This man literally predicted the future. So ahead of its time. The acting is fucking surreal in this movie. Diana Christensen is an absolute standout! A complete epitome of moral emptiness. Perfectly displays a character driven by numbers. The scene where Max was taking her back to his house and she was constantly talking about numbers and ratings and shares was just done perfectly. The acting in Sid’s films never fails to disappoint me.  TREMENDOUSSSSS!!!!