Review of Network (1976) by Lee M — 19 Feb 2014

Biting social and media satire brought to life by acclaimed director Sidney Lumet (Dog Day Afternoon). Faye Dunaway stars as the heartless head of the programming department at the Union Broadcasting System. When the head newscaster, Howard Beale (Peter Finch) is told by his best friend and division president Max Schumacher (William Holden) that he'll be fired in two years due to lowly ratings after many years of broadcasting on the air. The next night he says on the air that he'll shoot himself on the air, prompting Max to allow Beale a final farewell before leaving for good. His apology turns into a an angry tirade against politics, the economy, and life itself. Beale's diatribes cause an immediate spike in viewers and ratings of the network, and Diana Christensen (Dunaway) convinces her boss (Robert Duvall) to let her develop a new talk show for the crazed Beale.

What makes Network so entertaining, but still true as a film is that it takes an absurd situation and turns it into something that seems plausible. The rise and fall of the network's experiment is intoxicating every step of the way, thanks in large part to the superb screenplay by Paddy Chayevsky, who won his third Oscar for this film, and the live-wire performances from the entire cast. The cynical realism of the story makes it just as relevant today as it was in 1976.

Peter Finch steals every scene that he's in (which is a lot, mind you), as does Faye Dunaway, and they both deservedly won Academy Awards for Best Actor and Actress, respectively. William Holden also brings a worn sophistication to his role and is easily the most sympathetic of all the characters, just trying to find balance in a business where people lose their minds to power, wealth, and fame.