I watched Network again last night, for the first time since the film first came out. I remembered that it was a good movie with a lot of good acting, but given that the things this film predicted about television have all come true - and been surpassed in spades - I was expecting that its indignation over the commercialization of television news would seem quaint and certainly dated.
Good heavens, was I wrong. This movie hasn't lost its edge a bit in 30 years. William Holden as Max Schumacher is the only real human being, and he wanders through this film looking slack-jawed, as if he'd landed in Toon Town and can't quite believe his eyes. As it turns out, he has: the cartoonish, conniving antics of Robert Duvall and Faye Dunaway leave all of us laughing guiltily.
This is Brett's pick.
I watched this movie today. Wow, it was really good. The acting was incredible. I came in having seen these two youtube clips: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=90ELleCQvew and http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MTN3s2iVKKI . So I thought the movie would just be Peter Finch playing Howard Beale running around being awesome. Not so much. That character was in fact not awesome. He was tragic. And William Holden, playing Max Schumacher was incredile. Everyone reviewing this movie talks about how right Howard Beale is in those two scenes I linked above in describing today. But that isn't what made the movie for me. Instead, it is Howard's speech on the death of individuality, the scene that precedes it (afraid to give any spoiler, but I was blown away by it), and Max's own take on the subject as he talks about love with Faye Dunawaye's character, Diana Christiansen. The only negative of the whole movie for me was the second to last scene, which was meant to be farfetched but I don't think the director captured how that scene should have felt correctly.
ReplyDeleteStill though, an incredibly good movie.