Plot
In the 1970s, terrorist violence is the stuff of networks' nightly news programming and the corporate structure of the UBS Television Network is changing. Meanwhile, Howard Beale, the aging UBS news anchor, has lost his once strong ratings share and so the network fires him. Beale reacts in an unexpected way. We then see how this affects the fortunes of Beale, his coworkers (Max Schumacher and Diana Christensen), and the network.
Keywords: adultery, anger, assassination, banquet, bare-breasts, bed, bedroom, black-comedy, board-meeting, boeing-747
"NETWORK"... the humanoids, the love story, the trials and tribulations, the savior of television, the attempted suicides, the assassination -- it's ALL coming along with a galaxy of stars you know and love!
Not since the dawn of time has America experienced a man like Howard Beale!
Television will never be the same!
Prepare yourself for a perfectly outrageous motion picture!
Diana Christensen: Hi. I'm Diana Christensen, a racist lackey of the imperialist ruling circles.::Laureen Hobbs: I'm Laureen Hobbs, a badass commie nigger.::Diana Christensen: Sounds like the basis of a firm friendship.
Diana Christensen: I'm interested in doing a weekly dramatic series based on the Ecumenical Liberation Army. The way I see the series is: Each week we open with an authentic act of political terrorism taken on the spot, in the actual moment. Then we go to the drama behind the opening film footage. That's your job, Ms. Hobbs. You've got to get the Ecumenicals to bring in that film footage for us. The network can't deal with them directly; they are, after all, wanted criminals.
Diana Christensen: The time has come to re-evaluate our relationship, Max.::Max Schumacher: So I see.::Diana Christensen: I don't like the way this script of ours has turned out. It's turning into a seedy little drama.::Max Schumacher: You're going to cancel the show?::Diana Christensen: Right.
Louise Schumacher: Do you love her?::Max Schumacher: I don't know how I feel. I'm grateful I can feel anything. [his wife flinches] I know I'm obsessed with her.::Louise Schumacher: Then say it. You keep telling me that you're obsessed, you're infatuated. Say that you're in love with her.::Max Schumacher: [pauses] I'm in love with her.
Louise Schumacher: Then get out, go anywhere you want, go to a hotel, go live with her, and don't come back. Because, after 25 years of building a home and raising a family and all the senseless pain that we have inflicted on each other, I'm damned if I'm going to stand here and have you tell me you're in love with somebody else. Because this isn't a convention weekend with your secretary, is it? Or - or some broad that you picked up after three belts of booze. This is your great winter romance, isn't it? Your last roar of passion before you settle into your emeritus years. Is that what's left for me? Is that my share? She gets the winter passion, and I get the dotage? What am I supposed to do? Am I supposed to sit at home knitting and purling while you slink back like some penitent drunk? I'm your wife, damn it. And, if you can't work up a winter passion for me, the least I require is respect and allegiance. I hurt. Don't you understand that? I hurt badly.
Nelson Chaney: All I know is that this violates every canon of respectable broadcasting.::Frank Hackett: We're not a respectable network. We're a whorehouse network, and we have to take whatever we can get.::Nelson Chaney: Well, I don't want any part of it. I don't fancy myself the president of a whorehouse.::Frank Hackett: That's very commendable of you, Nelson. Now sit down. Your indignation is duly noted; you can always resign tomorrow.
Nelson Chaney: The affiliates won't carry it.::Frank Hackett: The affiliates will kiss your ass if you can hand them a hit show.
Howard Beale: I don't have to tell you things are bad. Everybody knows things are bad. It's a depression. Everybody's out of work or scared of losing their job. The dollar buys a nickel's worth, banks are going bust, shopkeepers keep a gun under the counter. Punks are running wild in the street and there's nobody anywhere who seems to know what to do, and there's no end to it. We know the air is unfit to breathe and our food is unfit to eat, and we sit watching our TV's while some local newscaster tells us that today we had fifteen homicides and sixty-three violent crimes, as if that's the way it's supposed to be. We know things are bad - worse than bad. They're crazy. It's like everything everywhere is going crazy, so we don't go out anymore. We sit in the house, and slowly the world we are living in is getting smaller, and all we say is, 'Please, at least leave us alone in our living rooms. Let me have my toaster and my TV and my steel-belted radials and I won't say anything. Just leave us alone.' Well, I'm not gonna leave you alone. I want you to get mad! I don't want you to protest. I don't want you to riot - I don't want you to write to your congressman because I wouldn't know what to tell you to write. I don't know what to do about the depression and the inflation and the Russians and the crime in the street. All I know is that first you've got to get mad. You've got to say, 'I'm a HUMAN BEING, God damn it! My life has VALUE!' So I want you to get up now. I want all of you to get up out of your chairs. I want you to get up right now and go to the window. Open it, and stick your head out, and yell, 'I'M AS MAD AS HELL, AND I'M NOT GOING TO TAKE THIS ANYMORE!' I want you to get up right now, sit up, go to your windows, open them and stick your head out and yell - 'I'm as mad as hell and I'm not going to take this anymore!' Things have got to change. But first, you've gotta get mad!... You've got to say, 'I'm as mad as hell, and I'm not going to take this anymore!' Then we'll figure out what to do about the depression and the inflation and the oil crisis. But first get up out of your chairs, open the window, stick your head out, and yell, and say it: "I'M AS MAD AS HELL, AND I'M NOT GOING TO TAKE THIS ANYMORE!"
Diana Christensen: By tomorrow, he'll have a 50 share, maybe even a 60. Howard Beale is processed instant God, and right now, it looks like he may just go over bigger than Mary Tyler Moore.
Max Schumacher: You need me. You need me badly. Because I'm your last contact with human reality. I love you. And that painful, decaying love is the only thing between you and the shrieking nothingness you live the rest of the day.::Diana Christensen: [hesitatingly] Then, don't leave me.::Max Schumacher: It's too late, Diana. There's nothing left in you that I can live with. You're one of Howard's humanoids. If I stay with you, I'll be destroyed. Like Howard Beale was destroyed. Like Laureen Hobbs was destroyed. Like everything you and the institution of television touch is destroyed. You're television incarnate, Diana: Indifferent to suffering; insensitive to joy. All of life is reduced to the common rubble of banality. War, murder, death are all the same to you as bottles of beer. And the daily business of life is a corrupt comedy. You even shatter the sensations of time and space into split seconds and instant replays. You're madness, Diana. Virulent madness. And everything you touch dies with you. But not me. Not as long as I can feel pleasure, and pain... and love.::[Kisses her]::Max Schumacher: And it's a happy ending: Wayward husband comes to his senses, returns to his wife, with whom he has established a long and sustaining love. Heartless young woman left alone in her arctic desolation. Music up with a swell; final commercial. And here are a few scenes from next week's show.::[Picks up his suitcases and leaves]
Joseph Simon "Joe" Donnelly, Sr. (born September 29, 1955) is the U.S. Representative for Indiana's 2nd congressional district, serving since 2007. He is a member of the Democratic Party. Donnelly announced Monday May 9, 2011, that he would run for the United States Senate seat that is held by Republican Richard Lugar.
Joe Donnelly was born and raised in Massapequa, New York. He graduated from Notre Dame in 1977 and earned his law degree from Notre Dame Law School in 1981. He practiced law until 1996, when he opened Marking Solutions, a printing and rubber stamp company.
Donnelly held two public positions before deciding to run for US Congress. From 1988 to 1989 he served on the Indiana State Election Board, which was charged with ensuring accurate election results. He served on a local school board from 1997 to 2001, serving as president of the board from 2000 to 2001.
He ran a campaign for Indiana Attorney General in 1988, but lost at the Democratic state convention. He also ran an unsuccessful campaign for the Indiana State Senate in 1990.
Gregory James is an American guitarist and composer from San Francisco, CA. He has performed or recorded with musicians such as Vince Guaraldi, Ray Charles & Chico Hamilton, and opened for acts such as McCoy Tyner, Sérgio Mendes, Max Roach, Stan Getz,Mark Isham and Steve Smith’s Vital Information. James has also recorded ten albums. He is primarily a jazz musician, but experiments with fusing styles such as flamenco and pop.
At the age of 11 Gregory James began studying guitar with David LeRoy Smith, and by 15 was performing around San Francisco with artists like Amandio Cabral, Eddie Duran, and Vince Guaraldi. After moving to New York in the 1970s he signed with Inner City Records, and in 1978 released the debut of the Gregory James Quartet, Alicia, with bassist Andre St. James, drummer Randy Merritt, saxman Barry Shulman, and percussionist Baba Daru. In 1982 James formed the Rogue Records label in San Francisco. He later went on to study flamenco guitar with Jason McGuire and to record with artists such as Kai Eckhardt, Benny Reitveld,Ron Miles, Paul McCandless, Mark Russo, Peter Michael Escovedo, Marc and Paul Van Wageningen, Jenny Scheinman, DJ Fly and Rasaki Aladokun.