Rating of
4/4
*Sarah* - wrote on 12/29/08
Howard Beale (Peter Finch) is an ageing TV anchorman for UBS who is fired, effective in two weeks, after his ratings have been steadily deteriorating. He reacts to this by sensationally announcing on live television his intention to commit suicide on air. In doing so, Beale becomes a major TV icon and one of the most valuable assets to the Communications Corporation of America (CCA), the company that is gradually taking control of UBS. As a result he is given his own show as 'the mad prophet of the air-waves'. He appears live on television every week-day evening to tell the real truth to the people of America. The programme is a huge success but Beale uses his power to make startling revelations about CCA, leaving the company executives with a serious problem.
This has to be one of the best movies that I've seen for a while. Smartly written, brilliantly acted and contains one of the best quotes in cinema history. Outstanding! Sydney Lumet's cynical treatise on the moral and ethical decline of televison hinges on the somewhat naive belief that things will ever run differently. Even so, Network is a brilliant satire of the lurid lengths televison will go to to appease its coperate overseers as well as the complicity of its vast, passive, viewership.
Greed comes into play alot in the film. The characters of Christenson amongst others become so greedy and forget about the implications of what they are doing. That is excelt what televison does. Network could have come across as hypocritical and patronising if the director and writer hadn't done such an oustading job of depicting the worl of televison as sleazy and corrupt. The writing has kept the bitter, desperate acts and darkly comic pervervisities coming at such a brisk clip that you barely realise that the film is not just a portryal of the televison providers but us, the televison viewers. This makes you really want to throw out your TV sets and toss it out into the streets, but the film's major points is that we can's. The fact that we are so visually engaged by televison it makes us keep coming back to it.
Network contains some of the best performances I've seen. Most notably Peter Finch's performance as Howard Beale, who portrayas a man who has been destroyed by televison. Faye Dunaway also delivers a strong performance as perhaps a strong matriach, a modern woman so to speak. I also enjoyed the performance of William Holden, who I haven't really seen in many films.
What was so oustanding about this films was the fact, despite being made 31 years ago, it's still relevant today. Making it, not just one of the greatest films ever made and now one of my favourites of all time, but a timeless classic that will always be remembered.
9/10
HIGHLY RECOMENDED
