Network Response

Notes on the movie:

“Suicide of the Week” What starts as a joke turns into an actual idea: Death Hour.

The picking and choosing of stories strikes me as oddly selective… dunno about that one.

Howard announces that he will kill himself on the air and only a few people in the production room notice.

Terrorist act described as “sensational”, “terrific”… concern for ratings supersedes concern for victims.

Looking to make a series out of terrorist videos. Young new exec seeks to make “angry” shows.

Endeavor to place News division in with the rest of the Network makes the News accountable not to truth, but to profits.

The new show pitches are all from the same mold: “crusty, but benign…”

Diana sees opportunity in the Beale incident. The rawest truth yet spoken on the news is seen as a means to a profitable end.

“You’re talking about putting a manifestly irresponsible man on television” and Diana just nods.

“Angry man thing”… characteristic of the over-simplification and “bastardization” of what Beale was doing when he cried “bullshit” on the air.

What was once a show about “denouncing the hypocrisies of our times” is at the mercy of ratings and it success measured by its novelty.

A serious suggestion by Dianne to include a psychic in the news. “TV is showbiz”

Beale’s hearing voices. What was once simply the liberating rants of a old news man, could be a nervous breakdown, yet that makes his place on the news all the more “sensational” and all the more necessary in the eyes of the network.

Max views the issue in terms of what’s good for Howard, while Diana and Frank Hackett view it entirely in terms of ratings and profits.

Diana entices the rep from the Communist party into promoting the actions of the Ecumenical Liberation Army, which the rep denounced, but was willing o go through with when Diana promised her prime time to say whatever she wants. The goal of all of this is simply to boost ratings and make a hit, sensational show.
The revised evening news has become a live-audience spectacle with a set more like a game show than a news show. Yet Beale continues to denounce his own medium and admits that there’s no truth in television. However, this all feeds into the Network. Even though he openly tells people to turn off their televisions, the Network continues to rake in the money and the ratings. It’s all spectacle and a noticeably apt parody of modern news.

Diana’s constant talking about the news, even during a romantic tryst is noticeable. The relationship between sex and the way she does her job is significant.

“The only reality she knows comes from a TV set”

The entire radical nature of the show and the ELA is subverted by the commercial bureaucracy of the Network. This is more evidence of the network’s ability to tear down the significance of a powerful message.

The show that the network pushed so strongly ends up shooting them in the foot. They encouraged him to say absolutely whatever he wanted for the sake of ratings and profits and it got out of hand for them.

“The world is a business, Mr. Beale.”

Beale’s prophet-like rhetoric is used to subvert him into a voice for the corporation, which further dropped the ratings.

“… like everything that you and the institution of television touch is destroyed.”

A meeting on what to do about Beale turns into a discussion on how to kill him. The ultimate example of the heartlessness of the network.

“killed for lousy ratings”



Overall, I thought this movie was amazing. There's was a lot to take in, but it was handled very well by the director and the acting really put it over the top. It feels like a seminal piece in American film because of its heavy commentary on culture and society, in this case American media, and because of the compelling acting and true humanity (or lack thereof) that pervaded the entire story.

Perhaps most striking are the similarities between the movie's twisted vision of a potential media future ad the reality. Although modern news is not as ridiculous as the show in which Beale stars, the prevalence of spectacle and fear-mongering, among other ratings-hungry techniques, does provide a contemporary version of the ideas in Network.