Network (1976)

Actors: Ned Beatty (actor), Arthur Burghardt (actor), Bill Burrows (actor), John Carpenter (actor), John Chancellor (actor), Jordan Charney (actor), Walter Cronkite (actor), Ed Crowley (actor), Jerome Dempsey (actor), Andrew Duncan (actor), Robert Duvall (actor), Todd Everett (actor), Peter Finch (actor), Gerald Ford (actor), Wesley Addy (actor),

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, atomization, banquet, bare-breasts, bed, bedroom, black-comedy, board-meeting
Genres: Drama,
Taglines: "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!

Quotes:

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.

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!"

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]