Oscar-winning films are usually quickly forgotten. When this doesn’t occur, it often has something to do with those films possessing a certain special quality. In the case of Network, the 1976 drama directed by Sidney Lumet, that quality was prophetic.

The film was made at a time when the media landscape in the United States was very different from today’s. National television comprised just three major broadcast networks – NBC, CBS and ABC – and for decades attempts to launch a fourth network failed. The plot deals with UBS, a fictional fourth network that managed to stay on air, albeit with increasing financial difficulties and declining ratings. The narrator and nominal protagonist of the film is Max Schumacher (played by William Holden), president of the UBS news division, who has the unpleasant duty of informing his old friend and veteran news anchor Howard Beale (played by Peter Finch) that he is to be fired. When Beale informs the audience of this during his regular broadcast, he adds that he will shoot himself the next time he goes on air. The incident creates quite a stir and UBS’s viewing figures rise. Beale is talked out of suicide, but his farewell address on air degenerates into an angry anti-establishment rant which generates even more publicity and sympathy among viewers. Diana Christensen (played by Faye Dunaway), the ambitious head of the UBS programming department, sees this as an opportunity and persuades her bosses to give Beale another chance by rebranding him as the “mad prophet of the airwaves”. Beale is given a news show in which his rants are accompanied by psychics and entertainers. Ratings soar, but the increasingly unhinged Beale crosses the line after attacking banks and a multinational corporation linked to UBS, and he is persuaded to adopt a more establishment-friendly attitude. As his ratings begin to fall, Diana has already found an alternative in a group of murderous Maoist terrorists who are to star in their own television show.

At the time of its premiere, Network was advertised as a comedy. Today’s viewers tend to see it as a rather serious drama, and for many this is the ultimate proof that Paddy Chayefsky, in his Oscar-winning script, correctly predicted the future. What looked like satirical exaggeration of mid‑1970s trends – the dangerous blending of news and entertainment, the heartless pursuit of ratings through sensationalist stories about violence and sex, the exploitation of raw emotion at the expense of thoughtful debate – now looks like banal and depressing reality. The trends that replaced old statesman-like anchors such as Walter Cronkite with blonde bombshells, comedians and partisan hacks coincided with the gradual but unstoppable rise of reality television, which would culminate in a reality‑television star being elected as US President. Unsurprisingly, Network’s reputation has only grown since November 2016, and clips from it are often used to illustrate everything that is wrong with the world today.

While Network portrays what turned out to be the future, its origins lie in the past – specifically in the beginnings of Chayefsky’s career as a television writer in the early 1950s. In that period, sometimes unironically called the Golden Age of Television, television sets were relatively expensive and signals were still limited to large urban centres like New York; audiences were wealthier, more educated and had more refined tastes than the average population. This led networks to dedicate large segments of their programming to opera, ballet, classical music concerts, debates about foreign literature or prestigious television plays, including those written by Chayefsky. A quarter of a century later, American television had already been transformed into an institution driven by the need to attract the “lowest common denominator” through incredibly tasteless talent shows, sitcoms with jumping sharks and drama series about bikini‑clad models fighting crime. Chayefsky was bitter, and that bitterness, combined with his insider knowledge, resulted in the most devastating portrayal of American media institutions. Chayefsky was fortunate to work with Lumet, another early television veteran who had wisely switched from the small to the big screen, using the increased creative freedom of 1970s Hollywood to deliver a series of strong, socially conscious and often anti‑establishment films like this one.

At the time of its premiere, the most attractive aspect of Network was its acting. Peter Finch delivered an incredibly powerful performance, which later became legendary partly because of his untimely death, which made him the first actor to receive a posthumous Oscar for Best Actor. Faye Dunaway also displays remarkable talent in her energetic portrayal of a career‑driven woman who would stop at nothing to achieve her goals, a performance that also won an Oscar. Holden, who plays the former idealist turned cynic, is also very good but is predictably overshadowed by those two, as is Ned Beatty in his short but memorable role as the UBS corporate overlord who successfully lectures Beale on the true nature of the world. Holden nevertheless serves an important purpose by portraying the only relatively ‘normal’ character with whom the audience can relate. This effect is, however, undermined by an unnecessary subplot involving a romance between Schumacher and Diana, along with an even less necessary subplot about the effect this affair has on Schumacher’s wife Louise (played by Beatrice Straight). Although this episode could have been omitted, it nevertheless served its purpose by earning another Oscar, this time for Straight in a rather brief performance.

Network is an imperfect film, but its prophetic reputation is well‑deserved, so it is unlikely to lose its relevance and importance in the years to come. The problems that have erupted in today’s world have been accumulating for a long time, and it is, sadly, very likely that what Network warned us about will only be remedied after an equally long period.

RATING: 7/10 (++)

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RATING: 7/10 (++)

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