Sidney Lumet's scathing multiple Oscar nominee NETWORK is the movie that predicted the advent of `trash TV.' This being the 1970s, pre-AIRPLANE!, its satire is not a bellylaugh parody but rather a stern, grownup Swiftian broadside, shock-and-awe dialogue still capable of making the pulse quicken, even if some of the details are hardly farfetched anymore, in the 21st-century tubescape of voyeuristic `reality shows,' sleazycore gossip channels, news sensationalism and circus-freak daytime talk. Kids who come home from school to Jerry Springer might wonder a little bit what the fuss is all about.
But NETWORK bristles with righteous anger, featuring especially caustic dialogue by magisterial writer Paddy Chayefsky, who was one of the great script authors of early television drama. By the mid-1970s he didn't like what he was seeing, and the narrative takes place in a post-Watergate atmosphere of darkest cynicism, homegrown terrorism, Third-World atrocities, oil shortages, inflation, recession, amorality and all-around bad news. Just about every character, even minor ones, gets to do angry oratory that could blister wallpaper.
The network of the title here is a mythical, low-rated, fourth TV channel called Fox...no, just kidding, it's UBS, operated by a giant company called CCA. The order comes to lay off the aging UBS nightly-news anchorman Howard Beale (Peter Finch), newly widowed (sounds like it wasn't a happy marriage anyway; none of them here are). Beale reacts by announcing live on the air that he'll shoot himself on his farewell broadcast.
