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How others will see it. Network is powered by a bravura script and inspired direction by Sidney Lumet. The movie is, however, deeply cynical, and that causes a dramatic gender divide (as well as a lesser generational divide) in the imdb.com user ratings. Women are presumably put off by Dunaway's over-ambitious and unscruplous character. (Or, perhaps, they can't believe she'd chase after the aged Holden.) Older audiences may feel that the film goes too far, particularly in its malevolent depiction of the corporate boardroom.
How I felt about it. Beginning in the early 1950s, the executives of movie studios saw a terrifying threat rise above the horizon. No, not the communists. Worse than that: television.
Nothing posed a greater threat to the studios. Soon, people of all ages stayed at home at nights and weekends, and watched television. The studios tried to adapt, with 3-D movies such as House of Wax, and widescreen films such as This Is CinemaScope. And of course some stars retained drawing power, such as John Wayne and Cary Grant.
Nonetheless, fewer people went to the movies. They stayed home, and watched the westerns, sitcoms, and variety shows. They cared little if the plots were warmed over from the previous episode. The movie studios became angry, and wanted revenge. Films depicted television as insipid and formulaic. This process began, if not earlier, with Dreamboat (1952).
A quarter century later, the bile was as heated as ever. And, as is often the case, it made for good cinema. For if a writer and the studio backers are motivated by anger, the results are generally more interesting than if they are instead merely motivated by a deadline. Deadlines make for boring movies. But exploring anger can be revelatory.
Today, Disney owns ABC, and the battle lines between film and television have blurred with time and tentacled corporate holding companies. The anger is gone now, but Network is a time capsule for the bygone era of television bashing.
During his career, Paddy Chayefsky wrote screenplays for only a few movies. Nonetheless, he won three Academy Awards for Best Writing, was nominated for a fourth, and was the sole writer for all four films. Here was a great writer who had little interest in merely making money. The screenplay for Network had a purpose. He wanted to expose television for the pandering, sensationalist, hackwork that he believed it to be.
Like others who predict the future, Chayefsky took existing trends and exaggerated them to the point of excess. But the future of Network holds up better than, for example, the future of Clockwork Orange, because it depicts the corruption of media by money, instead of the ultimately unrepentant criminal soul, or, as in Westworld, the incorrect usage of advanced technology.
Money corrupts, now and in the future, and thus Chayefsky's vision of television appears chillingly on the mark. "The Mao Tse-Tung Hour" is a reality show like "Cops", except it follows the criminals instead. "The Howard Beale Show," with its unrestrained one-man rants, is a televised version of the Rush Limbaugh radio show. As for entertainment subverting television news, we need to look no further than the 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq, for which commentators became cheerleaders.
It's one thing to accurately skewer television. It's more difficult to do so and write a brilliant screenplay. The major beneficiaries were the actors, given godsend lines by Chayefsky. Ned Beatty garnered an acting Oscar nomination for a single day's work. Beatrice Straight won a Best Supporting Actress award for a speech of under two minutes. Peter Finch won Best Actor for what was really a supporting role. Faye Dunaway won Best Actress, leaving William Holden and Robert Duvall wondering where their Oscar nominations went off to.
The message of Network is that the corporation wins, usually at the expense of the individual, but the individual refuses to believe it. After all, Howard Beale is shot because he persists in trying to alert the public to the dehumanizing corporations. We are defined by what we consume, rather than what we create.