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Speaker 2: You know, Josh, I remember one of the first bonding
Speaker 2: experiences that producer Sam and I had was we were
Speaker 2: at a get together for a wedding. We were groomsmen,
Speaker 2: maybe I don't know, or we were just hanging out
Speaker 2: with friends. A friend of ours was getting married and
Speaker 2: we were hanging out with other people involved in the wedding,
Speaker 2: and we were like in the same canoe. And that
Speaker 2: meant we got to talk movies the whole time we
Speaker 2: were young film spotting. Film spotting had just begun maybe
Speaker 2: or I don't know, film spotting had even begun at
Speaker 2: this point, and yeah.
Speaker 3: It had.
Speaker 2: And we started talking about our favorite movies. And Sam
Speaker 2: informed me that not only was he not a fan
Speaker 2: of Fay Done Away, he didn't really like the movie
Speaker 2: Network and you didn't. And yet now I came out
Speaker 2: of the canoe. I wanted to, and and yet I
Speaker 2: continued doing the show with him, and our our friendship
Speaker 2: has somehow stayed, It survived all of these years, and
Speaker 2: I was a little bit worried. I didn't know when
Speaker 2: we got together. Later in twenty twenty one, did this
Speaker 2: seven from seventy six series looked at seven films from
Speaker 2: that great movie year. We were going to talk about network.
Speaker 2: I wondered, could history repeat itself? Could I sit down
Speaker 2: for a conversation with you, Josh, and you might tell
Speaker 2: me that you don't appreciate this movie one of my
Speaker 2: all time favorites, and was I was? I just gonna
Speaker 2: have to be crushed all over again.
Speaker 3: Well, I don't want to spoil anything because listeners are
Speaker 3: about to hear it. But I think in this conversation,
Speaker 3: Faye Donaway gets her due.
Speaker 2: I think that's fair. She got her due. Then I'm
Speaker 2: pretty sure a Best Actress nomine. The film was nominated
Speaker 2: for Best Picture. And we're playing this from the archive
Speaker 2: as we continue our Oscars theme leading up to the
Speaker 2: Academy Awards here in March. But we also want to
Speaker 2: acknowledge the passing last week of Robert Duvall who is
Speaker 2: part of this great ensemble? Featured in Sydney Lamette's Network.
Speaker 2: So here it is. It came to theaters fifty years
Speaker 2: ago this November. Our review of Network.
Speaker 4: Last night, Howard Beale went on the air and yelled
Speaker 4: bullshit for two minutes, And I can tell you right
Speaker 4: now that Tonight's show will get a thirty share at least.
Speaker 4: I think we've lucked into something.
Speaker 2: Oh, for God's sakes, Diane, you suggest we've put that lunatic.
Speaker 5: Back on the air yelling bullshit.
Speaker 4: Yes, I think we should put Bill back on the
Speaker 4: air tonight and keep him on. Did you see the
Speaker 4: news this morning? Did you see the times We've got
Speaker 4: PRISCE coverage on this You couldn't buy for a million dollars, Frank,
Speaker 4: that dumb show jumped five rating points in one night.
Speaker 4: Tonight's Show has got.
Speaker 2: To be at least fifteen was released in the fall
Speaker 2: of seventy six. It went on to be nominated for
Speaker 2: ten Oscars, tied with Rocky for the most nominations. It
Speaker 2: included Best Picture and Director, winning four Beatrice Straight for
Speaker 2: Best Supporting Actress, Fae Dunaway for Best Actress, Patty Chaievsky
Speaker 2: for Best Original Screenplay, and Peter Finch won Best Actor posthumously.
Speaker 2: He died in January seventy seven, not long after the
Speaker 2: movie was released. It received a total of five acting nominations,
Speaker 2: which actually hasn't happened since William Holden and Ned Batty
Speaker 2: also were nominated, and we'll probably talk about it at
Speaker 2: least a little bit. I'm gonna say Robert Duvall deserved
Speaker 2: a nomination as well, really really yeah, oh love him
Speaker 2: in this movie. Okay, how best to describe Network to
Speaker 2: the uninitiated.
Speaker 5: There's the plot.
Speaker 2: Finch's veteran news anchorman, Howard Beal, is forced to retire
Speaker 2: because his ratings have gone soft. He announces his firing
Speaker 2: on TV and then states that he's going to kill
Speaker 2: himself live on television and then in the world created
Speaker 2: by Chaievsky, Beal go on to become a rating sensation
Speaker 2: as the mad profit of the airwaves, thanks to his
Speaker 2: famous on air declaration that he's mad as hell and
Speaker 2: I'm not going to take this anymore.
Speaker 5: The characters.
Speaker 2: There's the ambitious young network executive Diana Christensen played by Dunaway,
Speaker 2: Holden's old school Newsigzec, who tries in vain to retain
Speaker 2: his own personal integrity and the integrity of the news division,
Speaker 2: Duval's money obsessed corporate hatchetman, and Baby's sinister board chair.
Speaker 2: And then there's a band of terrorists called the Ecumenical
Speaker 2: Liberation Army, who are given a series called The Mause
Speaker 2: Tungue Hour. The movie was critically acclaimed at the time,
Speaker 2: though there were dissenters. Roger Ebert loved it, writing, so
Speaker 2: the movie's flawed, so it leaves us with loose ends
Speaker 2: and questions that finally doesn't bother me because what it
Speaker 2: does accomplish is done so well, is seen so sharply,
Speaker 2: is presented so unforgivingly, that Network will outlive a lot
Speaker 2: of tidier movies. Pauline Kale did not love it. The
Speaker 2: entire picture is Chaievsky sticking his head out the window
Speaker 2: and yelling. She wrote, here's my thought. They solely on
Speaker 2: those conclusions. Anyway, they're both right now. Josh, you somehow
Speaker 2: weren't sure if you'd seen Network before. Let's answer that first,
Speaker 2: had you? I?
Speaker 3: Yes, I had. It wasn't just the compilation of famous
Speaker 3: clips that had piled up in my mind that often
Speaker 3: show up during Oscar ceremonies. I think it was like
Speaker 3: a go to over the years, some of these scenes. No,
Speaker 3: I did indeed see this whole movie before, glad to
Speaker 3: see it again.
Speaker 2: Then, what of Ebert's point that Network will outlive a
Speaker 2: lot of tidier movies. Neither of us can speak to
Speaker 2: what it was like to watch it in the seventies
Speaker 2: or the eighties, but I can tell you that it
Speaker 2: resonated differently watching it in twenty twenty one versus when
Speaker 2: I saw it originally, which would have been around nineteen
Speaker 2: ninety three or ninety four. A listener voicemail will provide
Speaker 2: some further provocation on that front.
Speaker 6: Hey, Adam and Josh. It's Josh Weinhold from South Bend
Speaker 6: sharing some thoughts on Network, which has been one of
Speaker 6: my all time favorites since I first saw it late
Speaker 6: one night in the college newspaper office more than fifteen
Speaker 6: years ago. At the time, I was transfixed by the
Speaker 6: pression depiction of the entertainmentification of news and of corporate
Speaker 6: interest putting the almighty dollar ahead of the public good.
Speaker 6: Returning to it this week, though, I was left wondering
Speaker 6: whether we've now gone far beyond anything Patty Shayefsky could
Speaker 6: have predicted. I was struck by how unifying Howard Beale's
Speaker 6: rage is. His ratings only grow larger as he embodies
Speaker 6: the public's collective anger and frustration, but his only agenda
Speaker 6: is to punch up. He never seeks to turn his
Speaker 6: audience against one another. Our cultural landscape now is littered
Speaker 6: with figures who are mad as hell and not going
Speaker 6: to take it anymore, but they rile up their audiences
Speaker 6: in an effort to divide. When the primal forces of
Speaker 6: nature begin reshaping Beale's message, his audience falls away. But
Speaker 6: in the twenty first century, those primal forces have mastered
Speaker 6: tactics that drive their audiences to channel their rage at
Speaker 6: each other. So, guys, I'm wondering whether you find Network's
Speaker 6: social satire as sharp as ever, or if, like me,
Speaker 6: you worry that society has collectively jumped the shark, which,
Speaker 6: come to think of it, sounds like a show Diana
Speaker 6: Christiansen might pitch for next year's Fall lineup.
Speaker 2: As long as that show culminated with losers getting fed
Speaker 2: to sharks, Diana christian Sid would undoubtedly green light it.
Speaker 2: Josh Chicago, how do you respond to Ebert and to
Speaker 2: Josh from South Bend.
Speaker 3: Well, I do think Network captured what we're a wash
Speaker 3: in today as well. I don't think what we see
Speaker 3: in the movie we're pretty much living in. I think
Speaker 3: the movie captures that. Essentially, we add reality television, right,
Speaker 3: it was just kind of on the forefront. Now we
Speaker 3: have reality television, which is the major development i'd say
Speaker 3: since Network came out. So I don't know. I think
Speaker 3: it was ahead of its time and still, you know,
Speaker 3: very much of its own time. I guess my quibble
Speaker 3: maybe with Josh is that I don't see Howard Beale
Speaker 3: as this champion of the everyman who's always punching up.
Speaker 3: I think there are moments when he's a true prophet
Speaker 3: in that sense, right, that would be a true prophet,
Speaker 3: But there's also moments where he's a false prophet. There's
Speaker 3: moments where he's he's a lot like our current Fox
Speaker 3: News hosts, and ultimately, to me rewatching this, he's more
Speaker 3: of a convenient prophet, which I think is a little
Speaker 3: different than maybe how Josh sees him. But I'll get
Speaker 3: to that maybe those distinctions a little bit later. To
Speaker 3: his point about Network as a satire and This speaks
Speaker 3: to the longevity that Ebert predicted as well. Undeniably, that's
Speaker 3: the strength of this film. That is where it's clicking,
Speaker 3: where its points are most effectively made and taken, where
Speaker 3: we can see the wisdom of this movie. Dunaway probably
Speaker 3: the other strength of the film. I would say, I'm
Speaker 3: sure we'll get to her. Partly this is because the
Speaker 3: satire is still dead on still applies. Also because think
Speaker 3: of all the really good films Network has inspired, these
Speaker 3: movies that diagnose the great American illness. Now, they all
Speaker 3: do it in different ways. I'm thinking of something like Idiocracy,
Speaker 3: I'm thinking of Bamboozled, I'm thinking of Sorry to Bother You.
Speaker 3: In recent years, these are all movies that tweak our
Speaker 3: enslavement to screens and the way that allows us to
Speaker 3: be manipulated, mostly as consumers. You know, Network wrote that
Speaker 3: script first, and I think that's why it's great now
Speaker 3: about that script though, about Chefski's script this time, I
Speaker 3: gotta say it's maybe where Oscar winning. I know I
Speaker 3: had a few issues just in terms of basic structure,
Speaker 3: but also when it comes to that profit element. But
Speaker 3: back to you first, Adam and what you kind of
Speaker 3: make of Josh's question.
Speaker 5: Well, there's so much to get to. First.
Speaker 2: I do think we see a difference to Josh's point
Speaker 2: in the pre Arthur Jensen sermon Howard Beale and the
Speaker 2: post Arthur Jensen sermon Howard Beale, and it largely lies
Speaker 2: in that populist ethos. He's talking first about rising up
Speaker 2: against oppressors, corporate oppressors. He's talking about individualism, and then
Speaker 2: after Arthur Jensen, he's saying, you know what, corporations, they
Speaker 2: really do run everything. There's no hope. The individual is dead.
Speaker 2: He's saying, everything we've ever come to believe, whether it's
Speaker 2: t who are not about America is dead and you
Speaker 2: should forget it. So I think I do understand where
Speaker 2: Josh is coming from.
Speaker 3: There.
Speaker 2: Another thing I'll say that just occurred to me is
Speaker 2: we've been watching these seventy six movies out of order,
Speaker 2: pretty random. We started with all the President's Men, then
Speaker 2: we went to Taxi Driver, and now to this. And
Speaker 2: it's an interesting progression, isn't it. Because in Network they're
Speaker 2: talking about this malaise. Certainly Howard Beale is tapping into
Speaker 2: how disillusioned everyone in the country seems to feel. He
Speaker 2: even references watergates. So when all the president's men, we
Speaker 2: see the making of this, the making of the country's undoing.
Speaker 2: And then in Taxi Driver you see someone like Travis Bickel,
Speaker 2: and you wonder, how would he react to Howard Beale
Speaker 2: if he wasn't just watching Soul Train or whatever is on,
Speaker 2: including like an old detective show or a soap opera
Speaker 2: or something. Maybe he'd be watching the news and he'd
Speaker 2: be the guy who would go to the window and yell.
Speaker 2: And some of these revolutionaries that we see. We talked
Speaker 2: about this with Bickel being this man of isolation, God's
Speaker 2: lonely man, and what we see just a few years
Speaker 2: later here in Network is a group of people coming
Speaker 2: together to rise up, maybe with a little bit more
Speaker 2: political purpose than Travis Bickel actually has. But anyway, I
Speaker 2: thought that I thought that progression was at least notable.
Speaker 2: I don't know if you were thinking about it too well.
Speaker 3: Bickel is absolutely in the audience for Beelle's false prophet phase,
Speaker 3: you know, where he is just telling folks to get angry.
Speaker 3: And I think it's very telling, and I love that
Speaker 3: you brought it around to Bickle because what does he do.
Speaker 3: Even in one scene where he tells them to express
Speaker 3: their rage, he even says something I can't remember the
Speaker 3: line exactly, but something like I don't know what you
Speaker 3: should do. After that, he gives them no direction. There's
Speaker 3: no like target, even good target. So if you think
Speaker 3: about you know, it's a limited truth that Beale is
Speaker 3: preaching when he's that false prophet and just telling people
Speaker 3: to express their rage. I think even that late night
Speaker 3: scene where he has this visitation, he hears this voice.
Speaker 3: The voice even says, we're not talking about eternal truth
Speaker 3: or absolute truth or ultimate truth. We're talking about impermanent, transient,
Speaker 3: human truth. So that's a limited truth. That is just
Speaker 3: the rage. He doesn't give them any direction, he doesn't
Speaker 3: give them any hope. It's unchanneled, unfocused rage. And what
Speaker 3: does that result in? It results in Travis Bickel, It's
Speaker 3: exploited by people like Diana, by other media outlets, It's
Speaker 3: exploited by corporations, as we'll see. You know, that last
Speaker 3: phase of Beal is tricky because he is being manipulated
Speaker 3: by ned Bades corporate over lord, even as he's sort
Speaker 3: of speaking his own truth at the same time, right,
Speaker 3: So he's this false prophet who's being manipulated. And then
Speaker 3: you know, we've lived through politicians recently doing this, garnering
Speaker 3: populist rage, not directing it anywhere truthful, just telling it
Speaker 3: to be vented. And that's where that's where the profit
Speaker 3: thing is tricky, because he doesn't really become a true
Speaker 3: prophet to me until those sequences you were talking about
Speaker 3: Adam where he he starts to bite the hand that
Speaker 3: has created him.
Speaker 5: Well, that's how you really see it.
Speaker 2: Yes, absolutely, And I guess I will just say this,
Speaker 2: and I don't know if we're really splitting hairs or not.
Speaker 2: I think that sense of truth not being transient and
Speaker 2: being limited and just at least trying to get people
Speaker 2: to not be apathetic but to actually be angry, that's enough.
Speaker 2: Isn't that actually more honest than suggesting that he does
Speaker 2: know what should take right now? And so that's my
Speaker 2: thing with Beale is that I do at least think
Speaker 2: that he is never really a false prophet, or at
Speaker 2: least this is what I'm kicking around, Josh, the idea
Speaker 2: that he's not false, because even if what he is
Speaker 2: saying or the underlying message, we could quibble with or
Speaker 2: say isn't clear sighted enough or actually productive in any way.
Speaker 2: He believes it, unlike a prophet who knowingly is spreading falsity.
Speaker 2: I believe what he's tapping into. I believe that he
Speaker 2: believes it. And even this is where the contradiction comes in.
Speaker 2: And I think the complexity of the script and what
Speaker 2: I love about it so much is that even when
Speaker 2: he's then completely contradicting himself a few nights later, after
Speaker 2: meeting with Ned Badies Arthur Jensen, he's still saying the truth.
Speaker 2: In fact, he might actually be saying what's more of
Speaker 2: an actual truth. It's just not what the people want
Speaker 2: to hear. It's not what any of us would want
Speaker 2: to hear.
Speaker 7: The time has come to say, is the humanization is
Speaker 7: such a bad word.
Speaker 4: Look it's good or bad, that's what is.
Speaker 2: So the whole world is becoming humanoid creatures that look human,
Speaker 2: but art the whole world, not just us.
Speaker 7: We're just the most advanced country, so we're getting there first.
Speaker 2: The whole worlds.
Speaker 7: People are becoming mass produced, program numbered in sense things.
Speaker 3: Yeah. I think that's the tricky thing with Feel as
Speaker 3: a character is he was he was more of a
Speaker 3: tool for me. This time around, I didn't ever really
Speaker 3: get a sense of, you know fully, what he did believe,
Speaker 3: where he was losing control of his senses legitimately becoming
Speaker 3: mentally ill, and where it was this existential force actually
Speaker 3: speaking to him. Those things got mixed because I felt
Speaker 3: like he kept being used depending on how the screenplay
Speaker 3: wanted him to be used. And I guess, you know, yes,
Speaker 3: he's not a false prophet in the sense of like
Speaker 3: you know, Robert Mitcham in The Night of the Hunter,
Speaker 3: where he's you know, he's preaching this false gospel, but
Speaker 3: he's not a true prophet, because true prophets speak truth
Speaker 3: to power, and and he becomes one, as I was saying,
Speaker 3: when he does start telling the audience that you are slaves,
Speaker 3: and he starts hinting about the corporate machinations going on
Speaker 3: in the background that get him into trouble. That's the
Speaker 3: power he's he's rousing at that point, and that's why
Speaker 3: ned Batty brings him into the into the boardroom for
Speaker 3: that amazing scene and you know, gives him that booming speech.
Speaker 3: So it's but he starts talking truth to power, he
Speaker 3: does become a true prophet. But I still think at
Speaker 3: the end of the day, he registered mostly for me
Speaker 3: this time around, as this convenient prophet because he's a
Speaker 3: tool of Chaievsky's screenplay, which is, you know, this is
Speaker 3: didactic cinema, and I'm trying to come around on that.
Speaker 3: You know, I've always been a little bit hesitant to it,
Speaker 3: even though one of my favorite struggle even though one
Speaker 3: of my favorite filmmakers, Spike Lee, is you know, maybe
Speaker 3: the king of didactic cinema. Okay, and so like the
Speaker 3: message here, I totally as we've talked about, is pressient
Speaker 3: on point needed necessary. But in watching Beale this time around,
Speaker 3: I did feel like this was just this figure. We
Speaker 3: didn't get to really know him as a character or what,
Speaker 3: especially how the movie begins with just these two guys
Speaker 3: going out for a drink and really rooted in their
Speaker 3: shared past together. Eventually we no longer really the movie
Speaker 3: doesn't seem that interested in Beale as a person. He
Speaker 3: becomes this this figure that can be used depending on
Speaker 3: what points the screenplay wants to make. They're great points,
Speaker 3: they're fascinating points. This Finch is amazing and delivering them.
Speaker 3: I love the transition he makes from this morose older
Speaker 3: guy to the televangelist to the guy who's really likely
Speaker 3: lost his mind. I mean the performance is good, yes,
Speaker 3: but it's a convenient figure for the screenplay. Is how
Speaker 3: it struck me.
Speaker 5: I don't see it that way.
Speaker 2: I definitely see it as more ambiguous by design. And
Speaker 2: actually one of the strengths, as I was mentioning earlier,
Speaker 2: in that there's a moment. For example, it's when he's
Speaker 2: giving the I'm attis Hell's speech and we cut to
Speaker 2: Diana fade unaway reacting like this over zealous, proud mother
Speaker 2: who knows that she can milk this for whatever she wants,
Speaker 2: and we as viewers, I think most of us look
Speaker 2: at that character and say, Okay, she's on the wrong
Speaker 2: side of this. So if she's reacting positively, well that's
Speaker 2: not necessarily a good thing. Well then you've got on
Speaker 2: the other side William Holden's character, who's scoffing at it
Speaker 2: and who thinks it's an embarrassment and can't believe anyone
Speaker 2: would be weighed by it. And the reality is is
Speaker 2: that as a viewer, I'm right in the middle where
Speaker 2: I'm going, Well, he's kind of making a lot of sense.
Speaker 2: But he also is off his rocker and probably should
Speaker 2: be in a home or at least getting some kind
Speaker 2: of treatment, and he definitely shouldn't be getting more airtime.
Speaker 2: And yet I like what he has to say. I
Speaker 2: find myself reacting viscerally to what he's saying. So I
Speaker 2: think that that is complexity that really draws me into Network.
Speaker 2: And in terms of the didacticism, definitely this time first
Speaker 2: time I'd seen it. As I mentioned, since probably ninety
Speaker 2: three or ninety four. There are definitely parts that seem overwritten.
Speaker 2: There are moments that seem overacted. There are parts where
Speaker 2: Chaiefski through Beal is perhaps not just attacking corporatism and
Speaker 2: capitalism runnam Uk, but relying on a little xenophobia to.
Speaker 5: Unify his American audience.
Speaker 2: There are problematic aspects of Network I see it, and
Speaker 2: none of it overrides I'll use that word again. It's prescience,
Speaker 2: its perceptiveness, its sense of humor, and the entire brilliant
Speaker 2: satirical DNA that is its foundation. And satire is a
Speaker 2: word that I think often gets used or misused to
Speaker 2: describe a lot of different types of art or content,
Speaker 2: if you will. But with Network, I'm talking about the
Speaker 2: pure stuff, the acute but outrageous, swiftly in let's solve
Speaker 2: poverty by selling poor kids to the rich for food stuff. There,
Speaker 2: simply for me, isn't a better piece of cinematic satire
Speaker 2: that ending. I'm going to give people listening radio or
Speaker 2: podcast a chance here in a sackle, give you the
Speaker 2: cue to turn the radio off for fifteen seconds, or
Speaker 2: hit the jump ahead button on your phone if you
Speaker 2: haven't seen it, but here it is.
Speaker 3: So what do we do about this beel son of
Speaker 3: a bitch?
Speaker 2: I suppose we'll have to kill him.
Speaker 3: I don't suppose you have any ideas on the Diana.
Speaker 4: Well, what would your fellows say to an assassination? I
Speaker 4: think I can get the Mauzi tuned people to kill
Speaker 4: be for us.
Speaker 7: It's one of the shows.
Speaker 4: In fact, it'll make a hell of a kickoff show
Speaker 4: for the season. We're facing heavy opposition on the other network.
Speaker 2: That ending is so incredible and chilling watching a group
Speaker 2: of TV execs deciding to murder one of their personalities
Speaker 2: live on TV with the same gravity and solemnity they'd
Speaker 2: give to ordering takeout. Is it realistic? Of course not.
Speaker 2: It's absurd, But is that Yes, I get it, that
Speaker 2: is the line it's walking, but it's also not something
Speaker 2: we actually believe is probably taking place. But that's the
Speaker 2: entire point, is Diana Christensen being so consumed with her
Speaker 2: work and her ambition that she literally talks only about
Speaker 2: TV deals and ratings while on a Romean weekend get
Speaker 2: away with her lover, including during sex Realistic. No, it's absurd,
Speaker 2: but I do think that absurdity and that irony is
Speaker 2: why Network's message is so lucid and so potent. And
Speaker 2: I mentioned that it resonated differently this time. When I
Speaker 2: saw it originally in the nineties, it felt sort of
Speaker 2: groundbreaking and clairvoyant enough in what it foretold about journalism
Speaker 2: and the media and infotainment about the unchecked power of corporations.
Speaker 2: But it's not like those things were new in the
Speaker 2: nineteen seventies. Chaievsky just envisioned the inevitable sad trajectory. What
Speaker 2: was amazing at that time was to see him predict
Speaker 2: the rise of reality TV, as you mentioned, which was
Speaker 2: then flourishing in the nineties. Diana's obsession with taking real footage,
Speaker 2: real events and turning them into programming creating stars out
Speaker 2: of quote unquote real people. I do know that An
Speaker 2: American Family aired in nineteen seventy three on PBS, but
Speaker 2: I couldn't believe how right Chaievski was when I saw
Speaker 2: it back in the nineties. And now you watch it
Speaker 2: in twenty twenty one and you recognize that it's not
Speaker 2: just reality TV, it's user generated content. It's reality as
Speaker 2: captured by the people experiencing the events in nineteen seventy six.
Speaker 2: In this movie, it's a terrorist group with one person
Speaker 2: shooting a bank robbery with a movie camera. Now right,
Speaker 2: we see insurrectionists storming the Capitol. Every single one of
Speaker 2: them has the phone in their hand and they're shooting video.
Speaker 2: They're streaming to Facebook or Twitch or whatever platform they choose.
Speaker 2: And that is what really struck me this time. When
Speaker 2: you hear Howard Beale talking about the madness of it
Speaker 2: all and talking about the illusion of television and trying
Speaker 2: to tell people to turn their TV sets off and
Speaker 2: saying this tube is the gospel. It can make or
Speaker 2: break presidents. And he has that great line where he
Speaker 2: says the tube is the most awesome, goddamn propaganda force
Speaker 2: in the whole godless world, and woe is us if
Speaker 2: it ever falls into the hands of the wrong people. Well, today,
Speaker 2: Howard Beale wouldn't get anybody to go to the window
Speaker 2: because if they had the TV on at all to
Speaker 2: the news, it would just be background noise as they
Speaker 2: stared at their phones. You know, replaced turn off your
Speaker 2: television sets with turn off your phones. It's really no
Speaker 2: different except it's actually it's more ubiquitous, more dangerous, more desensitizing,
Speaker 2: and even more disconnected from reality.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and that's why I said the American sickness is,
Speaker 3: you know, more screens than actually specifically television. And you
Speaker 3: bring up the insurrectionists, you know, that's an example of
Speaker 3: the unchanneled rage. How much of that footage that we
Speaker 3: saw was of these morons just like wandering around once
Speaker 3: they got in because they some of them had principal
Speaker 3: not principle, that's the wrong word, but specific reasons for
Speaker 3: being there. But how many others of them got in
Speaker 3: there once their rage was vented. They didn't know what
Speaker 3: they were supposed to do. And I guess that's like
Speaker 3: those sequences of the people yelling out the windows, that's
Speaker 3: the kind that's the exact same kind of rage we're
Speaker 3: hearing there. I want to go back to that scene
Speaker 3: where they're talking about having beel murdered, the corporate execs,
Speaker 3: the TV execs. The reason I said it's believable is
Speaker 3: and here we should probably give Lolumet some credit is
Speaker 3: just how that I can't remember exactly how many edits
Speaker 3: there are, but it's a very casually blocked scene where
Speaker 3: they transition so seamlessly from these boring corporate discussions of
Speaker 3: ratings points and so forth, into well, how are we
Speaker 3: going to kill him? And like, their tones don't shift
Speaker 3: that nothing dramatic happens with the camera, it doesn't no
Speaker 3: music like it's now it's just evil is And that's
Speaker 3: the satire. And the other satire that was so perfect
Speaker 3: that I had really forgot about was how much of
Speaker 3: the subplot involved this communist activist played by Marlene Warfield,
Speaker 3: who Diana recruits to find this footage you're talking about
Speaker 3: from other from extremist groups that she has connections with,
Speaker 3: and we get that great scene where Warfield is negotiating
Speaker 3: with the leader of this extremist group and some TV
Speaker 3: execs over I forget, I forget what the term is,
Speaker 3: but it's something I don't even know what it means.
Speaker 3: I think it was something like a distribution charges or rights.
Speaker 3: And she's delivering this warfield as Laurene Hobbs is the
Speaker 3: character's name. She's delivering this like it's a fiery speech,
Speaker 3: a revolutionary speech. But they're talking about distribution charges.
Speaker 6: I'm not giving this pseudo insurrectionary sectary and a piece
Speaker 6: of my show.
Speaker 7: I'm not giving him script appooval and I'm sure actually
Speaker 7: ain't cutting him into my distribution charges and fascist.
Speaker 4: Can you see the filling in the sand renal jail
Speaker 4: wake out demonstrating a rising up of the seminal prisoner
Speaker 4: class infrastructure. You can blow the seminole prison of class
Speaker 4: infrastructure out your ass. I'm not knocking down my goddamn
Speaker 4: distribution charges. Man, give her the fucking overhead clause.
Speaker 3: That is the sort of like sorry to bother you,
Speaker 3: bamboozled idiocracy level satire that is so rich in network
Speaker 3: that I think is just great. Now, I do wanna.
Speaker 3: We mentioned Dunaway a couple of times, and I just
Speaker 3: love how she devours this movie.
Speaker 5: Me too.
Speaker 3: You know what I think she's doing here. We've characterized her.
Speaker 3: You know a couple of ways we could. You could
Speaker 3: call her driven, brazen, unscrupulous. She really made me wonder
Speaker 3: if she was a model for those sleazy business types
Speaker 3: that Michael Douglass would specialize in during the nineteen eighties,
Speaker 3: because I got such vibes from her like that. And
Speaker 3: then there's great little moments she gives when her boss
Speaker 3: Duval is talking about his hesitancy about putting Bille this
Speaker 3: is early on on the air, and says something about
Speaker 3: how we're talking about putting a manifestly irresponsible man on television.
Speaker 3: As he's saying that, Lumette cuts to Dunaway and her eyebrows,
Speaker 3: her iconic eyebrows just go like higher and higher, like
Speaker 3: every word, yes, every word he uses to to argue
Speaker 3: against this gets her more excited. That's about the possibility.
Speaker 3: So yeah, just the fact you mentioned the scene on
Speaker 3: the Romantic Getaway with Holden where she's just talking business.
Speaker 3: She's like this dead eyed, great white shark, just zeroing
Speaker 3: in on her career. It's the only thing she can
Speaker 3: think about. And it's just an amazing performance.
Speaker 5: It really is.
Speaker 2: But as histrionic or as shrill as the performance sometimes is,
Speaker 2: and no matter how much we I think probably most
Speaker 2: viewers anyway loathe her as a character. There are these
Speaker 2: quieter moments, in these subtler moments, where she's really remarkable.
Speaker 2: I love the scene, for example, where she comes to
Speaker 2: Max Schumacher William Holden's office late at night and it's
Speaker 2: really their first encounter and she basically seduces him.
Speaker 3: That's where I got the Douglas vibes.
Speaker 2: There you go, right, it's all calculation, But at the
Speaker 2: same time, there's nothing here's that word again, there's nothing
Speaker 2: actually false about it. I believe every single word she's saying.
Speaker 2: And there's a self awareness to it and a self
Speaker 2: awareness to the performance that matches the overall self awareness
Speaker 2: of the movie, obviously, including the relationship between her and
Speaker 2: Schumacher and the way Chaievsky frames it in terms of
Speaker 2: this conceit of a TV melodrama and the way that
Speaker 2: that plays out. And that brings us to near the
Speaker 2: end of the film, that last big scene, that last
Speaker 2: big throwdown with done Away and Holden. She's getting monologued at,
Speaker 2: she is getting destroyed. Chaievsky doesn't really give her anything
Speaker 2: to do. This is Holden as his mouthpiece getting to
Speaker 2: tell off the heartless cold television generation. And as you're
Speaker 2: watching it, I'm thinking, how do you, as Faye done Away,
Speaker 2: how do you play this scene without just being a
Speaker 2: doormat or being a witch. And that delivery of her
Speaker 2: line where she says, then don't leave me, it's actually bracing,
Speaker 2: I think in that it's an expression of actual emotion,
Speaker 2: but it's subtle. It is really subtle. It feels like
Speaker 2: a real moment. And here again is the ambiguity. It's
Speaker 2: so real because I don't know that I actually believe
Speaker 2: that she means it. I don't think she knows means it.
Speaker 2: Is that the line where there's a thing come through?
Speaker 2: Does she have a little hiccup in that line where
Speaker 2: there's a pause. If it's not that line, it's another
Speaker 2: one in that scene where she lets us know exactly
Speaker 2: what you're pointing at, Adam, is that she's either trying
Speaker 2: to convince herself or you know, she's not there yet herself,
Speaker 2: because one thing about Diana is she never lies right
Speaker 2: even in that that's early See she is in his office,
Speaker 2: she's telling him, this is what I want to have
Speaker 2: happened tonight. If you're interested, great, if you're not great.
Speaker 2: This is what I want to do in terms of
Speaker 2: our business partnership, and throughout the movie she never lies
Speaker 2: to anyone, So there's something admirable there. And I do
Speaker 2: think she's great in that climactic scene between them, and
Speaker 2: I was having the same.
Speaker 3: Thoughts as you. I think the scene overall as written,
Speaker 3: and you know, you can't hold it against Holden because
Speaker 3: it's the material he's given. I just don't think it
Speaker 3: works because I can forgive Beale becoming Shchewsky's mouthpiece because
Speaker 3: it is this sort of prophetic figures we've been discussing,
Speaker 3: but Holden is supposed to be more rooted down to earth,
Speaker 3: a character we can relate to, and he gradually transitions.
Speaker 3: Another scene is between he and his wife. We mentioned
Speaker 3: Beatrice Strait, who won the Oscar. There's a scene between
Speaker 3: them as well where they start talking about, you know,
Speaker 3: how their life is resembling this melodrama script that Diana
Speaker 3: is writing. And you can just see the screenplay so
Speaker 3: much over those scenes. As good as the actors are,
Speaker 3: and so that climactic one between Holden and Dunaway, as
Speaker 3: good as she is in it, I don't think it.
Speaker 3: I don't think their relationship overall works because it's kind
Speaker 3: of caught in between trying to bring some character, some
Speaker 3: real people into this story and still having it stand
Speaker 3: metaphorically for the larger points Chewski wants to make. And
Speaker 3: I think it can never quite manage those two things
Speaker 3: at once.
Speaker 7: Your television and Karna Diana indifferent, suffering and sensitive to joy.
Speaker 7: All of life is reduced to the common rubble of
Speaker 7: banality or murder, death. All the same to you is
Speaker 7: bottles of beer, and the daily business of life is
Speaker 7: a corrupt comedy. You even shatter the sensations of time
Speaker 7: and space and two split seconds and instant replays.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I definitely watching that scene this time. And this
Speaker 2: is where I mentioned some scenes maybe being overwritten in
Speaker 2: that last big showdown between them, when Holden says, after
Speaker 2: living with you for the last six months, I'm turning
Speaker 2: into one of your scripts. Well, this is not a script, Diana.
Speaker 2: There's some real, actual life going on here. I said, Okay,
Speaker 2: that's a mouthful for an actor to actually sell convincingly,
Speaker 2: and I'm going to say that for the most part,
Speaker 2: Bill Holden does it. It works well enough for me,
Speaker 2: but it did stand out for me this time, Josh.
Speaker 3: You know what is kind of the issue at the
Speaker 3: very beginning about their relationship is that Holden doesn't discover
Speaker 3: anything new about Diana that would lead him to either
Speaker 3: get that involved with her or to leave her. Everything
Speaker 3: he quote unquote comes to find out about her, he
Speaker 3: knows the second she walks into that office. So I
Speaker 3: don't think the whole like convention of having them give
Speaker 3: this arc to their relationship doesn't work because there is
Speaker 3: no ark to it. He knows anything about her already.
Speaker 2: No, And I think that's completely accurate. And maybe because
Speaker 2: of that, I was paying even more attention to it
Speaker 2: this time and why I was invested in that relationship
Speaker 2: at all, or why I believed it in terms of
Speaker 2: the script, And I think this time I recognize that
Speaker 2: it can work if you see it in the scope
Speaker 2: of the whole script where Diana has no real genuine
Speaker 2: affection for him or sees this relationship as anything profound,
Speaker 2: but she does need to be tethered to reality in
Speaker 2: some way. What he says as mousehole as it is,
Speaker 2: it is, it is accurate. I believe that anyway about
Speaker 2: her character, and I also believe exactly what he says
Speaker 2: to his wife that this is the last chance for
Speaker 2: him at something, some kind of feeling, maybe no different
Speaker 2: than Peter Finch saying I still matter, and I'm going
Speaker 2: to express myself, even if it's just a bunch of rage.
Speaker 2: He's saying, you know what, You're not just going to
Speaker 2: push me out the door. I'm not just going to
Speaker 2: be this zion of TV news and I'm just going
Speaker 2: to go out to pasture. This is sort of my
Speaker 2: last chance to prove myself as the still kind of
Speaker 2: virile man of action. And she is only a response
Speaker 2: to that because she really can't be anything else. There
Speaker 2: is no way in those scenes I mentioned earlier, the
Speaker 2: romantic weekend getaway where he is actually having a good time,
Speaker 2: but he is playing along. He is playing along because
Speaker 2: I think he needs it and she needs it, just
Speaker 2: as he does say to her late in the film.
Speaker 2: So I guess that's how I convinced myself, Josh, of
Speaker 2: what Chayevski was after with that couple.
Speaker 3: All right, So convince me why Duval is so great
Speaker 3: in this because I had some I'm glad you said
Speaker 3: I struggled with his performance.
Speaker 2: It's one of those performances that I just love every
Speaker 2: moment of it. I don't know how to completely articulate it,
Speaker 2: but there isn't a line reading or a set of
Speaker 2: grimaces or expressions I didn't find surprising and just fun
Speaker 2: as hell. When he says, for example, to the guy
Speaker 2: playing Nelson Cheney, the president of the network, the ineffectual president,
Speaker 2: he says, we're not a respectable network. And he says, well,
Speaker 2: I don't want any part of it. I don't fancy
Speaker 2: myself the president of a whorehouse. And Hackett says, that's
Speaker 2: very commendable of you, Nelson. Now sit down, your indignation
Speaker 2: is duly recorded. You can always resign tomorrow, and just
Speaker 2: very calmly puts him completely in his place. That's one
Speaker 2: of the scenes I love. But it's honestly, it's just
Speaker 2: watching him in agony as he is hearing what Howard
Speaker 2: Beale said on the airwaves, knowing that Arthur Jensen is
Speaker 2: going to call him back to New York the next
Speaker 2: day and he's gonna probably get fired, and you just
Speaker 2: see how it's tearing him apart. It's all in the
Speaker 2: way he kind of grits his teeth, the way he
Speaker 2: smiles in a completely false way.
Speaker 5: It's just Duval. It's just Dumal to me, it's a
Speaker 5: pure Duval performance. I'm finished any second.
Speaker 3: That phone's gonna ring and Clarence Mcalane's gonna tell me
Speaker 3: mister Jensen wants me in his office tomorrow morning so.
Speaker 5: It can personally chop.
Speaker 3: My head off.
Speaker 2: Four hours ago, I was a sun gun at Cca,
Speaker 2: mister Jenson's hand picked golden boy, the air Apparent.
Speaker 3: Now I'm a man operation.
Speaker 4: Let's get that to Howard feel.
Speaker 3: I like how Dunaway snaps him out of it because
Speaker 3: I was thinking, like, please, please stop. We get the point.
Speaker 3: He keeps struggling for more metaphors for how much trouble
Speaker 3: he's in, how far he's fallen. It's so overwritten and overperformed.
Speaker 3: I can't remember a guy with so little hair constantly
Speaker 3: pushing back his hair in movie. It's like, there's nothing there, Bobby.
Speaker 3: I mean, you can keep going for it. I don't know.
Speaker 3: I think that he it's it's a movie of a
Speaker 3: lot of performances that are didactic, but he's the only
Speaker 3: one I found who was kind of overdoing the material,
Speaker 3: which didn't which didn't need, you know, much doing at
Speaker 3: all I did, like on his desk, I like the touch.
Speaker 3: This is nothing to do with the performance. But what
Speaker 3: does the sign say on his desk, I kindly refrain
Speaker 3: from smoking in this room. And it was just a
Speaker 3: nice visual, like joke. Here's this guy who's supposed to
Speaker 3: be the hard ass in the movie, right right, and
Speaker 3: then he has that in nineteen seventy six, he has
Speaker 3: this on his desk, please referring from smoking here actually
Speaker 3: the hardass in the movie. We got to talk about
Speaker 3: ned Baty's scene.
Speaker 5: Oh my good, incredible.
Speaker 3: That is where Loumette pulls out the filmmaking stops. I
Speaker 3: feel under percent know, the lights go down in this boardroom.
Speaker 3: He sits beal down. He's going to ream him out
Speaker 3: for for going on air and talking about the corporations
Speaker 3: and so forth, and he gives this, what is that
Speaker 3: a corporate cosmology? Is that the phrase he throws at him.
Speaker 3: It's this, I mean, there's the profit of evil is
Speaker 3: what That's what ned Baty is and and Loumette frames him.
Speaker 3: There's all of these glowing green reading lamps on this
Speaker 3: long conference table, and it's just like there's these oracles
Speaker 3: of globalism chanting around ned Baty as he booms from
Speaker 3: mount capitalism.
Speaker 6: You have meddled with the primal forces of nature, mister
Speaker 6: mel and I won't have it.
Speaker 2: Is that clear.
Speaker 3: You think you've merely stopped a business deal.
Speaker 7: That is not the case.
Speaker 6: The Arabs have taken billions of dollars out of this
Speaker 6: country and now they.
Speaker 5: Must put it back.
Speaker 6: It is flow, title gravity, it is psychological balance. You
Speaker 6: are an old man.
Speaker 3: I totally forgot that scene as well, and it's astonishing.
Speaker 2: It's incredible. And let's give credit here to the cinematographer,
Speaker 2: the great cinematographer Owen Royceman who in the seventies just
Speaker 2: gonna mention some of the titles in addition to Network,
Speaker 2: the French Connection, The Heartbreak Kid, The Exorcist, Three Days
Speaker 2: of the Condor. And I agree that's the standout scene
Speaker 2: in the movie in so many ways. But in terms
Speaker 2: of the filmmaking, utilizing the boardroom table and the space
Speaker 2: with those lights you mentioned, I was watching it thinking,
Speaker 2: like we discussed with all the President's men, are they
Speaker 2: using a diopter here? And I don't think they are,
Speaker 2: but it's almost a diopter effect where because of those
Speaker 2: lights and where the camera is positioned almost underneath them,
Speaker 2: shooting through them. It seems that ned Baby is very
Speaker 2: distant while also right on top of you, right on
Speaker 2: top of Beale, just overpowering him. And it really does
Speaker 2: make you think of Jensen in that scene as a director.
Speaker 2: You know, he brings him into that space for a reason.
Speaker 2: He dims the lights, he positions himself just so and
Speaker 2: starts his oration and then that line where he finally
Speaker 2: then breaks and says, am I getting through to you
Speaker 2: is hilarious.
Speaker 5: That's the line of the movie.
Speaker 2: And you know, I think it's easy without psychoanalyzing too
Speaker 2: much here or reading too much into his personal biography.
Speaker 2: I don't know a whole lot about Patty Chaiaevsky other
Speaker 2: than I will say I read Davidskoff's book about the
Speaker 2: making of Network, very good, very fun read. I also
Speaker 2: read the biography of Bob Fosse, and he was really
Speaker 2: intimate friends with Patti Chaiyevsky. So I have a little
Speaker 2: bit of background, and it's easy to see the Howard
Speaker 2: Beale in Patti Chaiyevsky. It's easy to see the William
Speaker 2: Holden in this scene. I'm watching Arthur Jensen and thinking
Speaker 2: not only of you know, Lamette and the symmetry to
Speaker 2: a director, but I'm thinking about Chaievsky as a storyteller,
Speaker 2: where you've got that kind of fire and Brimstone Preacher,
Speaker 2: the didacticism of that I'm here to impart a very
Speaker 2: important message that you better listen to. But he's also
Speaker 2: trying to frame it as a storyteller. He's considering how
Speaker 2: to best get through to his audience, and in this case,
Speaker 2: that's how Jensen sets up the entire scene. So yeah,
Speaker 2: I think that's one of the standouts, and I think
Speaker 2: Baby is incredible in it.
Speaker 3: All right, real quick, one last question I got for you.
Speaker 3: The occasional narration. The whole the movie begins with this
Speaker 3: voiceover narration, kind of a TV announcer setting things up,
Speaker 3: and I think it comes back five or six times
Speaker 3: more again than I remembered. Why do you think that's there?
Speaker 3: Is it just another kind of metaplay on TV tropes
Speaker 3: that they wanted to layer in because other than that,
Speaker 3: I was kind of like, well, it's not really giving
Speaker 3: us anything.
Speaker 2: New, No, and it really probably isn't necessary. I'm not
Speaker 2: sure that it really moves anything along, but there is
Speaker 2: something about the framing of it, that device, that self awareness.
Speaker 2: I think maybe if it was actually used just a
Speaker 2: little bit more than it was, it probably would have
Speaker 2: been very annoying. But as it is the beginning, the end,
Speaker 2: a couple key moments in between his transitions, I didn't
Speaker 2: have a problem with it watching it this time.
Speaker 3: Yeah, Yeah, just stood out to me. And again I'm
Speaker 3: thinking it's you know, they're referring to their lives as
Speaker 3: a script of Diana's, and here the movie obviously has
Speaker 3: a script. It's also being narrated as a script, so
Speaker 3: it fits.
Speaker 2: Yeah, going back to Lumett and Reusman for a second. Actually,
Speaker 2: while I was thinking about this today, I put it
Speaker 2: on in the background here at my desk, just so
Speaker 2: I could kind of be watching Network and maybe, you know,
Speaker 2: gathering something through us Moss, Josh and you what really
Speaker 2: struck me When I think about Network, and I just
Speaker 2: watched it two nights ago, I in my head think
Speaker 2: about how dark it is. I think about the scenes
Speaker 2: like with Jensen. I think about the scenes in the
Speaker 2: boardroom at the end. I think about the scenes on
Speaker 2: Howard Beale's set when he's the mad Profit and it's
Speaker 2: all dark and so artificially lit, and I was kind
Speaker 2: of shocked to go back and have it on, and
Speaker 2: I'd keep looking up at the screen, and through the
Speaker 2: first half or so of the movie, it is very
Speaker 2: evenly and brightly lit, and Lumette is constantly and Reisman
Speaker 2: are constantly relying on natural light to tell this story.
Speaker 5: It really isn't that dark at all.
Speaker 2: It's only as the movie itself gets darker and darker
Speaker 2: and everybody gets it seems a little bit more corrupted.
Speaker 2: That then it's like every moment is a TV set moment.
Speaker 2: But earlier in the movie, if you go back and
Speaker 2: look all of those scenes in offices or that take
Speaker 2: place with that suy, Yes, there's a ton of natural
Speaker 2: light always coming into the room.
Speaker 3: Yeah, they're in this corporate high rise. These are day meetings,
Speaker 3: and so that's kind of the setting. And then you're right,
Speaker 3: we transition into the studio, more more things take place
Speaker 3: at night, and the movie overall grows darker.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and you mentioned the script, and I understand you're
Speaker 2: wrestling with the didacticism little bit, but there is a
Speaker 2: poetry to it. And I use that word because I
Speaker 2: did catch part of an interview today where Chaievsky has
Speaker 2: asked about the poetry of the script and whether or
Speaker 2: not audiences will accept it, And I think what I'm
Speaker 2: getting at, or I want to get at, is just
Speaker 2: the language of the script, the word choices, the way
Speaker 2: it doesn't feel natural all the time, and yet the
Speaker 2: way the characters deliver it, it does feel like it
Speaker 2: makes sense within this world. There's a line of Duballs
Speaker 2: actually that I've quoted fairly often throughout my life, and
Speaker 2: when you think about quotable lines from network, nobody would
Speaker 2: ever point to this one.
Speaker 7: Right.
Speaker 5: There's all these lines.
Speaker 2: I'm mad as Helle, and for me, there are times
Speaker 2: where if someone says something to me where they're trying
Speaker 2: to qualify how firmly I feel about something or how
Speaker 2: firmly someone else feels about something. And there's that line
Speaker 2: at the end where they ask him just one more time, well,
Speaker 2: how did mister Jensen really feel about Howard Beale?
Speaker 3: Like?
Speaker 5: Can we fire him?
Speaker 2: Says I would describe his feelings as intractable and at
Speaker 2: a man time. Now, nobody uses that phrase in real life, right,
Speaker 2: But in this movie it makes sense, and it makes
Speaker 2: sense that it's pushing on the audience in that way,
Speaker 2: it's the kind of film that makes you maybe actually
Speaker 2: go home and get out the dictionary and try to
Speaker 2: understand what some of the characters are saying. I'll also
Speaker 2: mention a little moment. It's a complete throwaway moment, and
Speaker 2: I don't even know if it's one Lumette was very
Speaker 2: conscious about, but it I think gets at some of
Speaker 2: the subtle choices that really make this movie what it is.
Speaker 2: When they show I think his name's Edward Ruddy and
Speaker 2: he's the head of the company and he's who everybody
Speaker 2: reports to. At this point, he's in kind of a
Speaker 2: power struggle with Frank Hackett, with Duval's character, and he
Speaker 2: goes to meet with William Holden's character in his office.
Speaker 2: I think he might even be going at this point
Speaker 2: actually to ask him to come back after he's fired him.
Speaker 2: He's about ready to leave and this is his last
Speaker 2: day at ubs.
Speaker 5: And he goes in.
Speaker 2: But he doesn't just show him walk into the office.
Speaker 2: He doesn't just show him sitting down or having a
Speaker 2: conversation with William Holden. He shows him enter the floor
Speaker 2: and walk up to the receptionist and walk past like
Speaker 2: four people all just doing their jobs and in every case.
Speaker 2: You see how all of those people react to him.
Speaker 2: They are all deferential, they all show their respect to
Speaker 2: him because he's the boss, the big boss, And in
Speaker 2: a movie that really is in a lot of ways
Speaker 2: about power, who has it, who's losing it, you do
Speaker 2: need to see that nothing is even really said, it's
Speaker 2: just all in the blocking of that and the movement
Speaker 2: of those characters. You see how they defer to him
Speaker 2: as the man in charge.
Speaker 3: Well, and this goes back to Beatty too, right, because
Speaker 3: we're constantly trying to track these layers of authority that
Speaker 3: you're talking about. Who's over who, how are they related professionally?
Speaker 3: Who's really holding the cards here? And it is communicated
Speaker 3: in details like that we only see before that boardroom scene.
Speaker 3: Batty's character once very briefly at another board meeting. He
Speaker 3: gives a few words of approval, and then he disappears
Speaker 3: and we hear him referred to. But then when we
Speaker 3: get him, it's like we've left. This goes back to
Speaker 3: the filmmaking too. We've left those daytime offices where there
Speaker 3: are all these you know, these little ways of showing
Speaker 3: deference and who's in charge, and now we are in
Speaker 3: this I don't know. It's a totally different building. It's
Speaker 3: almost gothic.
Speaker 5: Yeah, a little light NDErs down.
Speaker 3: It's like, okay, if there's a guy at the top
Speaker 3: or the bottom. I think we finally found it when
Speaker 3: Baty shows up.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I don't know if it was by accident or
Speaker 2: not either, but I even noticed today when it was
Speaker 2: on in the background that the same type of green
Speaker 2: lights that are in that Ned Baty scene with Peter Finch,
Speaker 2: which I'm sure have an exact name that I'm not
Speaker 2: aware of, where you pull the sting and reading lamps.
Speaker 2: That's what they say library meeting lamps, like at a library.
Speaker 2: They are the same kind of lights. That seemed to
Speaker 2: me almost in the scene where you have Faye Dunaway
Speaker 2: being feeded is like she's some politician who's just won
Speaker 2: the presidency. There's all these red lights on the table,
Speaker 2: just like those green ones. And that's where everything does
Speaker 2: kind of get a little bit more sinister. As I said,
Speaker 2: network is available to stream on most platforms. I wonder
Speaker 2: if Patty Chayevski would be happy about that or not.
Speaker 2: It also plays on a loop over at the UBS network.
Speaker 2: You can look for that on your cable provider. For
Speaker 2: more on our seven from seventy six Best Year ever series,
Speaker 2: visit Film Spotting dot Net Slash seven from seventy six.
Speaker 2: We do only have one more seventy six title to
Speaker 2: get to before we complete our seventy seven Best Picture
Speaker 2: nominee homework. We are going to talk about the eventual winner, Rocky,
Speaker 2: that will come here in a couple.
Speaker 3: Of weeks, and his name is Sylvestre Stallone, but you
Speaker 3: will always remember him as Rocky.
Speaker 2: I mean, Josh, it does seem from my glance at
Speaker 2: Box that Sam had a change of heart back in
Speaker 2: March twenty twenty one.
Speaker 5: He gave Network four.
Speaker 3: And a half stars, four and a half that. Yes,
Speaker 3: that was a wild swing of heart for Sam. I
Speaker 3: love it.
Speaker 2: Yes, yes, now of course, maybe he's going to tell me, no,
Speaker 2: I'm mixing up my memory and it was some other
Speaker 2: film I adored, But I'm pretty sure it was Network
Speaker 2: that he was not a big fan of. And it
Speaker 2: hurt me. It really cut me deep. If you would
Speaker 2: like to dig into the film Spotting archive and hear
Speaker 2: other conversations like that one, well you can do that.
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Speaker 2: our monthly bonus shows. You get a weekly newsletter, you
Speaker 2: get early ed free shows, and a lot more. To
Speaker 2: join Josh, what do they have to do to join?
Speaker 3: Very simple, Film spottingfamily dot com. All your options, the
Speaker 3: various tears you can choose from, are right there. So
Speaker 3: check it out and join the family.