Few Hollywood productions have been as utterly prescient as director Sidney Lumet’s cinematic masterpiece “Network” (1976), a chillingly serious satire about the television business in the 1970s and where it was ultimately headed in years to come. Written by TV pioneer Paddy Chayefsky, this winner of four Oscars on 10 total nominations provides a comical but cynically disturbing look inside the workings of a fictitious American television network. In telling this story, the film eerily forecast the direction this medium would take in the decades that followed with remarkable accuracy, stunningly predicting such developments as the tabloidization of TV, the consolidation of media ownership, the impact of foreign influence and investment, and the dumbing down, sensationalism and line-blurring of its content in both its entertainment and journalistic programming. It also nailed developments outside the television business with great clarity by focusing on the pivotal role that TV played (and would come to play) in those occurrences. And, even though it’s something of a nostalgic time capsule of the period in which it was filmed, the picture has held up remarkably well (it gets better with every viewing for me), even unwittingly providing viewers with an ironic and unsettling metaphor for the ubiquitous rise of social media (with TV serving as a stunningly fitting stand-in). Chayefsky’s Academy Award-winning script is positively brilliant, epitomizing what good screenwriting can (and should) be. And its casting is about as good as it gets, earning Oscars for the performances of Faye Dunaway, Peter Finch and Beatrice Straight, along with well-deserved nominations for William Holden and Ned Beatty and noteworthy accolades for Robert Duvall and Marlene Warfield. In fact, I’m stunned that this offering lost out to “Rocky” for best picture and that nominee Lumet was passed over for the best director award. Those oversights aside, however, I was nevertheless privileged to view this offering at a retrospective screening in honor of the filmmaker’s 100th birthday to a nearly sold-out audience. I’m pleased to see that this celluloid gem still garners so much viewer attention nearly 50 years after its release and that it’s attracting the interest of moviegoers of all ages. This is an absolute must-see for avid cinephiles, as well as highly recommended viewing for anyone who truly wants a poignant, insightful look at what’s truly going on in the world around them, particularly when it comes to the workings of said world and the selective filtering of information about it. “Network” just might deservedly open a few eyes – and raise quite a few eyebrows at the same time.

Peter Finch is superb here as the increasingly puritanical television news anchor ("Beale") who, having been told he was about to be fired decided on air to tell the audience he was going to shoot himself on live telly. Next night - yep, he was allowed back - he declared that it was time the viewing public got off their sofas and declared they had "had enough" with lazy government and corporate greed. His long suffering boss "Max" (William Holden) wants to have him looked after (medically) but the ambitious PR executive "Diana" (Faye Dunaway) sees an opportunity amidst all this evangelicalism and convinces the station's new boss "Hackett" (Robert Duvall) to remove "Max" and to reinstate "Beale" with his own hour long news hour programme complete with it's own soothsayer! Initially, this all sounds too barmy to be real, but in true television tradition - it catches on. The audiences soar, the advertisers and sponsors love it. For once, the news division isn't haemorrhaging cash! Can this be sustained though? "Beale" is entirely out of control and nobody - even his own network - is safe from his ranting and raving. Sooner or later he is bound to overstep the mark - and then the dominoes are going to topple spectacularly. To be honest I found the story to become more and more preposterous as the potent points about avarice, venality and success at all costs became subsumed into a denouement scenario that was pretty ridiculous. That said, this isn't really about the story so much as the performances from Finch, Holden, and the frequently scene-stealing Dunaway who delivers some pithy monologues with the sharpness of hound's tooth! Even now, almost fifty years later, it still resonates as conversations about true journalism versus commercial pandering showing no sign of ever abating, let alone finding a solution that adequately satisfies both. It also swipes quite nicely at the audience - the anything for a peaceable life brigade who get their news from television so long as they like what they hear! I would have like to have seen more of Finch, but as it is, this is a cracking and characterful look at what makes some of us tick (or not!).

The UPS network is a television network that suffers from a lack of viewership. This led to the layoff of a group of their employees, including the great media night news presenter, Howard Beale, and this led to the events of a psychological impact on Beale, so he promised that he would commit suicide in front of the camera the next day. The conditions and conditions of the network changed after Beale's decision to commit suicide in front of the camera the next day. The film takes us through the changes that occur to the network after this incident. How did Howard get the situation to the brink, how does the network deal with the crisis, and how do they benefit from the incident, or in a more correct, how do they exploit it to increase the number of views and return the network to the most powerful television network in America. The film focuses on 4 characters, the first character is Diana Christensen, a character who doesn't care about high principles in the media and tries in various ways to do anything, even if it is bad, in order to make the network gain more views, a character that surprises you a lot because of her orientations. The second character is Howard Beale and the internal factors that led him to stand in front of the camera, fragile and mind-bending. Is it personal or is the network related? The third character, who are the members of the network and the fate of the company, what are the things they will do in order to save the network from collapse and raise viewing rates and ratings, even if at the expense of harming others, literally anything? The last character is the viewers. How do they want to attract viewers to the network as long as possible to ensure higher profits and the viewer to stay for as long as possible? This requires many things that you will see in the movie. What I liked about the film is that the film was able to mock companies, criticize societies, and focus on the weakness of people through its story and not through direct messages. The highest number of views. What we see now in the media in the 21st century, we see that this is true, although the film says that it is based on fictional events. How do the minds of the media founders play with the minds of the viewers through the television screens that reach every home? It was formulated well. Are people only looking for entertainment, even if it is at the expense of harming others? All these ideas and questions are employed in a coherent story and seen through its complex characters.