Network

"It's not a bug, it's a feature". It's a modern turn of phrase. It comes from computers and video games, but it can be applied anywhere to describe when something that seems not only negative but broken is actually an intentional design choice. A good example in movies would be post-boom slasher movies of the 80's like Edge Of The Axe or The Mutilator. They weren't reliant on tropes (silent killer, unnecessary nudity, rampant gore) because they were poorly written movies; they were, by design, aiming for the base essentials of the genre and nothing more. I bring up this concept because it sums up how I feel about Network. I have issues with some of it, but after thinking about it overnight, I think I've come to the realization that what I perceive as flaws are intentional design choices. Network centers around Howard Beale, a news anchor for a fictional fourth network that is in dead last and bleeding money. When he's notified he's being let go, he tells the audience he will commit suicide live on air in a week's time. He's allowed to go back on the air and apologize, but instead launches into a profanity-filled tirade about life being "bullshit" (he uses that specific word a number of times). It pops a huge rating spike, so programming executives get the idea to keep him and refashion his program to him ranting about modern society, backed with some carnival sideshow acts like a fortune teller. It also looks at the people around Howard, such as his best friend and the head of the news department, who thinks leaning into Howard's obvious growing mental illness and turning it into entertainment is disgusting; a driven junior executive looking to make a name for herself at any cost; and an executive looking to stave off the barbarians at the gate in the form of a corporate takeover. Network's themes and messaging are not subtle in any way, shape, or form. The script is all about attacking the pervasive, persuasive, and corruptive nature of television. There are only two people in this movie's sizeable cast who could be classified as protagonists; Beale (Peter Finch) and Max Schumacher (William Holden), Beale's best friend and the head of the news department at the network. And even then, both have beach-ball-sized asterisks next to that designation; Beale's breakdown turns him into a blustering wannabe prophet that is clearing suffering from delusions of grandeur. Schumacher, meanwhile, has a moral compass as far as business goes ... but then cheats on his wife with Faye Dunaway's hungry junior exec Diana Christensen. So, the two heroes are compromised, which I guess makes them more well-rounded? But it also means they're skirting the line between likeable and not, and only get pushed over to the positive because everybody else in this movie is terrible. All of the TV execs are focused on the obvious -- ratings and money -- which, fine, it may be a BIT over-dramatized for effect, but I imagine real TV execs don't hold the audience in high esteem. It just doesn't leave much for the audience to warm up to. Hell, even Beale may not be a protagonist by the end, as he certainly doesn't seem bothered by the fact that his show has a supporting cast of a supposed psychic, someone literally cosplaying Mata Hari, and a computer. That's, however, a consequence of something else about the script: none of the characters have depth. We know Beale resents being put out to pasture because of his rant. But after he's brought back and the show is a success, how does he feel? Is the messianic mania he exhibits on his show real or an act? It certainly seems theatrical, given that he ends all his rants with passing out, but maybe he has exhausted himself into a black-out. We don't know, and the movie's not interested in showing us. Diana is the hoary "career-driven ice queen" template we've seen so many times, making her feel like a crude sketch ... until the last ten minutes, when she shows both a level of vulnerability that's never been hinted at, and an unbelievable bottomlessness to her desire to stop at nothing to achieve or preserve success. These new character facets are drop out of nowhere, in back to back scenes, contradicting each other in the worst possible way. But maybe that's the point? Maybe the horrible cruelty is a way to cover up the hurt she feels inside? Again, wouldn't know because Network never bothers to explore it. Robert Duvall's Frank Hackett doesn't get enough screen time to be anything but perpetually angry. Only William Holden's Max gets anything close to an arc. All the characters are here to push forward the themes, the strident anti-television messaging on display. A part of why characters are kept from developing past being plot devices is that every significant character has a monologue, sometimes more than one, and they're all delivered as sermons on the mountain. Dunaway has one, Holden has a couple, Devall has one or two, supporting actress Beatrice Straight, who appears in all of two scenes, has one, Beale has at least four. Ned Beatty appears as the chairman of the corporate owners of the network, and he has one of the most preposterous monologues I've ever heard, coming off like a cult leader or false prophet in a C-grade Biblical epic. He literally starts it off with "you are tampering with forces of nature you do not understand!". It, and all the others, are incredibly delivered and well-acted. Everybody in the cast nails the assignment, and those who earned Oscars did so admirably. It says something that a movie that pontificates so often and so loudly, to the point of self-parody, still manages to be captivating, even when (like Beatty's) the dialogue is as corny as a farm in Nebraska. But still, some of these speeches GO ON AND ON. Beale's "I'm as mad as hell" speech repeats that phrase at least half a dozen times, and it's tiring. Moreover, it's hard to believe it would inspire anybody to actually go to the window and do that, but the movie insists that it not only happens, but does so NATIONWIDE. Millions of people, opening their windows at 10 at night, yelling that like the town crier. Lengthy pontification also ties into part of the overall theme of condemning television. Specifically, Network not only has a dim view of the TV industry and TV in general, it has a dim view of TV AUDIENCES. It thinks you are dumber than dirt. An easily led automaton, soaking up whatever TV execs will dump in your brain. It really thinks some cranky old man rambling off an incoherent diatribe will pull ratings greater than any sitcom, drama, any sporting event. Network really believes the American television-viewing public to be so sheep-like and malleable, that they'll care enough to be angry about a multi-national conglomerate buying the company that owns the network and send telegrams (six million of them) to the White House in protest. Yes, we have seen many examples over the decades of people falling for the stupidest crap they see on TV -- politicians, televangelists, advertisements, and so on. But Network's assumption about the levels of gullibility of the American public is condescending. There is very much an air of "preaching to the unwashed masses" in the speeches of this movie. But again, I have to circle back to the first line of this review. Maybe that's the point? That TV executives see viewers as mindless zombies underwriting their bottom line. Hamsters hitting the bar on the food pellet dispenser, without a care in the world for the quality of what comes out, as long as it satiates our hunger. Maybe this movie meant to mock them, not us. I'd like to believe that, if it didn't spend so much time feeling preachy and arrogant .. but is that supposed to be a reflection of how TV executives feel? I don't know. The line between feature and bug with this movie is hard to discern. Is it a satire, an expose, or a sermon? Are the characters cold and shallow because they're poorly written and crowded out in a wordy script, or are they meant to be that way because that's who they've become? Is Beale an innocent victim of an uncaring system, a delusional old fool, or is he a hypocrite that benefits from a system he was all too willing to condemn until there was a reason not to? I don't know. It leaves me somewhat ambivalent to the movie. I love the acting. That kept me going the entire ride. But I wanted this movie to take a stand. Either be a satire so I could laugh with it, an expose so I could nod knowingly, or a sermon so I could dismiss it. But maybe it's not meant to BE any of those. Maybe ambiguity and flexibility are the design. Maybe being formless and up to interpretation is a feature of the movie, and my desire for it to have a defined form is the bug. But it sure doesn't feel that way.