Movies LTTP: I'm as mad as hell I never saw Network, and I wasn't gonna take it anymore

[SaysWho?]

 

There are so many movies that I know I'm interested in seeing but I never spend time just trying to watch it. That was rectified last week.

 

This was great! Peter Finch obviously has a standout role, especially for the most famous line from the movie, but Faye Dunaway is a scene stealer herself. Which I guess means there's not a scene stealer if so many are good, but seriously, she did stand out to me! Hell, Robert Duvall as the villainous Frank Hackett does a hell of a job making you hate the guy. And Ned Beatty is here for a scene or two and has a memorable and unexpected moment.

 

But as written about a billion times, this isn't "perfectly outrageous," at least not to the level it was in 1976.

 

 

Reactions from the higher-ups at the network were so expected that it was honestly funny that this was a satire at one point. I mean, we haven't gone to the levels of Network, but Howard Beale basically became a televangelist, and those people consumed airwaves all the way up to the presidency, really. Using people as a ratings win and then regretting that decision when they turn against you is the story of 2016. And Howard's just saying what people feel? Where have we heard this?

 

Also, I usually find 1970s movies to be paced much slower than today's movies, but this zipped by. The movie has such an energy to it that besides the technology and sound, the atmosphere felt contemporary, and it was all the better for it.

 

The 'outrageous' 40-year-old film that predicted the future

WWW.BBC.COM

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Forty years ago this month Network was released to widespread acclaim. But its shocking satire turned out to be eerily prescient, writes Nicholas Barber.

 

[CayceG]

I watched Network a couple years back for the first time. Of all the great scenes in that movie, the scene where Ned Beatty explains the capitalist system to Beale is one of the greatest. The camera work in that scene alone adds so much to his powerful performance. 

 

 

The movie, and this scene specifically, was so on point. 

 

"There is no America. There is no democracy. There is only IBM and ITT and AT&T and Dupont. Dow, Union Carbide, and Exxon..."

[thewhyteboar]

I'm glad you watched it and liked it! It's one of my favorites (I'm still mad Rocky beat it for best picture [Network is better, deal with it]). It has some of the most adult writing I've ever encountered--I don't mean adult in the titillating way, but simply the way the relationships are written. Beatrice Straight is a goddess, and her 5 minute performance is one for the ages. Max's speech to Diana when he breaks up with her is another all-timer, and probably one of the most prescient: it strips bare how evil and demeaning the drive to succeed at all costs can be, when the price you must pay is your own humanity.

[thewhyteboar]

If you want to watch another incredible movie starring William Holden, may I suggest The Wild Bunch.

[SaysWho?]

1 hour ago, CayceG said:

I watched Network a couple years back for the first time. Of all the great scenes in that movie, the scene where Ned Beatty explains the capitalist system to Beale is one of the greatest. The camera work in that scene alone adds so much to his powerful performance. 

 

 

The movie, and this scene specifically, was so on point. 

 

"There is no America. There is no democracy. There is only IBM and ITT and AT&T and Dupont. Dow, Union Carbide, and Exxon..."

YES.

 

The camera work felt like you were a dinner guest listening to his deranged (but factual) distillation of the economy and Howard’s purpose as a cog in this. And then of course the lighting on Beatty’s character.

[Reputator]

Yeah The Network is one of those movies I think about off and on. The things it has to say (other than the murder conspiracy plot) are so prescient and endlessly relevant. In a way it's the most modern movie of the 1970s.

 

Glad you saw it because it seems like the kind of movie you should definitely have seen, @SaysWho?.

[Ghost_MH]

I have nothing to add other than I've had so much Zelda on the brain, I read this as Link to the Past before Late to the Party. It was very confusing.

[stepee]

58 minutes ago, Ghost_MH said:

I have nothing to add other than I've had so much Zelda on the brain, I read this as Link to the Past before Late to the Party. It was very confusing.

 

I actually always read it as “link to the past” and ascribe the same meaning to it since it still works and that usage was here first.

[SaysWho?]

On 5/29/2023 at 10:18 AM, Reputator said:

Yeah The Network is one of those movies I think about off and on. The things it has to say (other than the murder conspiracy plot) are so prescient and endlessly relevant. In a way it's the most modern movie of the 1970s.

 

Glad you saw it because it seems like the kind of movie you should definitely have seen, @SaysWho?.

 

You'd think, but the only movies that really stand out that I've seen that someone probably thinks I should have seen are All The President's Men and Almost Famous, actually. Almost Famous in large part because of this unassuming kid with the power of the press that scares a rock band, and the former for obvious reasons.

 

It took me years before I started watching The Newsroom, but I dipped out I think in the middle of season 2 of that one.

[Kamusha]

It's one of those classic movies that is so influential that is influential that it's fun when you finally get around to it because you can see how much of in impact it's had on what you already love. You can't have Anchorman without Network.