Peter
Finch wins a posthumous oscar for his portrayal of 'Howard
Beale'
Network (1976) is a
brilliant criticism of the hollow wasteland of television
journalism where entertainment value and ratings are more
important than quality.
The story centers around
unstable, used-up veteran news anchor Howard Beale (Peter
Finch) of the fictional fourth-place network, the United
Broadcasting System (UBS-TV). With floundering ratings, he is
told he will be terminated in two weeks. He goes for a drink
with the head of the network news, Max Schumacher (William
Holden). Beale threatens to kill himself right in the middle
of his news broadcast, and Max flippantly remarks that it
would boost ratings, not thinking seriously about the threat
and its consequences.
The next night, Beale tells
his viewers on the news show that he has been fired and will
commit suicide during his final broadcast a week later.
Ladies and gentlemen, I
would like at this moment to announce that I will be
retiring from this program in two weeks' time because of
poor ratings. Since the show was the only thing I had
going for me in my life, I have decided to kill myself.
I'm going to blow my brains out right here on this
program a week from today.
The next day, he tells
network executives that he will apologize for his behavior
and he is given another chance.
When he reappears on the
air, he tells his viewing audience:
Yesterday, I announced
on this program that I was going to commit public
suicide. Admittedly, an act of madness. Well, I'll tell
you what happened. I just ran out of bullshit..It's all
bullshit - the country, life in general, the world.
Schumacher defends the
words of his friend to the network: "He's saying life is
bullshit, and it is, so what are you screaming about?"
The network's ratings sky-rocket and fan mail piles up.
Beale's icy-cold, VP of
Programming, Diana Christensen (Faye Dunaway) exploits the
situation, proposing to build the network even further with
Beale billed as the "Mad Prophet of the Airwaves."
She is opposed by Max Schumacher who tells his wife, Louise
(Beatrice Straight) how he feels about Diana:
I'm not sure she's
capable of any real feelings. She's television
generation. She learned life from Bugs Bunny.
During subsequent
broadcasts, Beale's fan support and ratings continue to soar
as his image makes him "an angry prophet denouncing the
hypocrisies of our times," giving on-the-air editorials
about the problems of the world, energizing millions of
previously apathetic Americans. Beale doesn't feel that he
has turned mad, but rather inspired by a Voice:
It's not a breakdown. I
have never felt so orderly in my life! It is a shattering
and beautiful sensation! It is the exalted flow of the
space-time continuum, save that it is spaceless and
timeless and of such loveliness! I feel on the verge of
some great ultimate truth.
He delivers a much-quoted
commentary on television:
Television is not the
truth. Television is a goddamn amusement park. Television
is a circus, a carnival, a traveling troupe of acrobats,
story tellers, dancers, singers, jugglers, sideshow
freaks, lion tamers and football players. We're in the
boredom-killing business.
He also encourages his
audience to turn their televisions off:
You dress like the
tube, you eat like the tube, you raise your children like
the tube. It's mass madness. You maniacs. You are the
real thing - turn them off. Right in the middle of this
sentence I am speaking.
On the night of Beale's
proposed suicide, he delivers the nation's battle cry with
this memorable line:
All I know is that
first you've got to get mad. You've got to say, I'm a
human being, goddammit! My life has value! So I want you
to get up now. I want all of you to get up out of your
chairs. I want you to get up right now and go to the
window, open it, and stick your head out, and yell, 'I'm
as mad as hell, and I'm not going to take this anymore!'