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Robert Duvall embodies this corporate-level mandate of madness as Frank Hackett, overthrowing the leadership of the fictional UBS network — a fourth-place TV outlet which desperately needs and finds a "big-titted" ratings hit to turn its failing profits and sagging ratings chart upsidedown. Hackett conspires with Christensen to bet UBS' future on Beale's surprise ratings bonanza and ride his popularity all the way to the bank, or until he's no longer their sacred cash cow, whichever comes first. Acting award nominations abound in the stellar cast, with Beatrice Straight winning the Best Supporting Actress Oscar as Max's loyal and betrayed wife, Dunaway winning Best Actress, and Ned Beatty earning a nomination as Best Supporting Actor portraying corporate overlord Arthur Jenson. NETWORK got 10 Oscar nominations in total including Best Picture, Best Director (Lumet), Best Cinematography (Owen Roizman) and Best Editing (Alan Heim), all very well deserved in an amazing year where the popular underdog story ROCKY won Best Picture honors away from ALL THE PRESIDENT'S MEN, BOUND FOR GLORY, TAXI DRIVER and NETWORK. You can pick your favorite from that list 35 years later, but whichever you choose that list remains heady company of a great year within a breakthrough decade of American cinema.
I'll preserve the ending unspoiled for those lucky viewers who have not yet enjoyed NETWORK in all its satirical splendor, but suffice it to say that the stunning finale seems logically reached thanks to the funhouse mirror corruption of culture which precedes it. Howard Beale's bizarre and fascinating journey is one wild ride and, in what may be the best compliment one can give to any film, the ending so magnificently caps this cautionary tale that viewers return to watch it again and again. Who doesn't experience times when opening the window and screaming "I'm mad as hell and I'm not going to take this anymore" seems like the most sane reaction to the world around us, or to our lives within us? As Christensen puts it, Beale articulated a popular rage which was her programming desire all along: to encourage the madness which society inhibits to run amok and free of restraint. We all go a little mad sometimes, and often it's a helpful, healthy release. NETWORK brilliantly demonstrates what happens when too many of us go mad all at once, and follow a popular media personality down the rabbit hole and through the looking glass of the TV screen, where we become the entertainment for others watching along. The years ensuing since NETWORK have indeed only gotten curiouser and curiouser, but the film itself remains a plainly enjoyable work of genius. BLU-RAY PRESENTATION Like many films of the 1970s which embraced their distinctive visual style of grainy film stocks and more naturalistic lighting schemes, NETWORK possesses a slightly gritty look (mostly in its first half) which was quite deliberate on Lumet's and Roizman's part as the director wished to "corrupt" the film's appearance: opening with a natural, unglamorous cinematography style to establish the reality of Beale and Schumacher's lives, and slowly progressing to increasing artificiality and romanticized lighting and colors as Diana seduces Max and his world falls. As the corporate cosmology of Arthur Jenson and CAA corrupt UBS and all those who work there, the look of NETWORK becomes, according to Lumet, as slickly produced and commercially aimed as "a Ford commercial." This Blu-ray 1080p high-definition transfer in 1.85:1 widescreen aspect ratio faithfully preserves this cinematic style shift for better and occasionally worse. The opening scene shadows in the bar appear hazy and blown out in their underexposed fashion, though one might argue this look mirrors the piss-drunk state of Max and Howard as they mourn the downfall of their lives and the passing of their shared Golden Years. Yet at other times, especially Beale's audience with Jenson in the corporate board room, this surreal summit has never looked more beautiful and subversively mystical before. Many such moments of this Blu-ray transfer elevate NETWORK to visual heights never achieved or appreciated in even the best DVD editions previously offered. If NETWORK shows a limitation of its time, it's the film's audio track which is presented here in DTS-HD Master Audio 1.0 mono, though the sound quality itself is mostly excellent for the period. One might argue that a crisp, clear monaural audio track only supports a story centered on 1970s-era television as we all heard and watched it at the time, but 21st century audiophiles might feel somewhat disappointed that Warners didn't even upconvert it to a 2.0 field. FilmEdge maintains that anyone distracted by such limitation should just give the film five minutes and any such technical worry will evaporate quickly as the undeniable joy of the story hooks them for the duration. Additional audio options include Dolby Digital 1.0 French and Spanish, with available English SDH, French and Spanish subtitling. BONUS FEATURES Like ALL THE PRESIDENT'S MEN, Warner Home Video transfers the Bonus Feature contents of its 2006 DVD release to supplement this Blu-ray edition with six quality standard-def featurettes which can be played individually or as one complete "play all" documentary collected under Behind the Story: The World and Words of Paddy Chayefsky is a 12-minute featurette largely told by producer Howard Gottfried who recounts his early days in television with Chayefsky and its subsequent corporate takeover, accompanied by archival film and stills of the writer before and during NETWORK's production. The Cast, The Characters explores both facets of the film with current interviews of Dunaway, Beatty, Lance Henrikson (one of the William Morris agents) and Lumet discussing their insights on their roles as well as reflections on working with Holden and Finch. Mad as Hell! Creation of a Movie Moment gets specific about Howard Beale's iconic newsdesk rant as Lumet recollects how Peter Finch exhausted himself enacting the madman's monologue. While it's great tribute to Finch's talent that he mastered the scene in less than two takes, it's also touching how his exhaustion unknowingly foretold of the actor's ill health which resulted in his death before he was awarded an Oscar for his work. Director Lumet details The Experience of rehearsing with the cast before production shooting began, a rare luxury in studio filmmaking which of course paid off in critical praise for the multiple award-nominated ensemble. The Style engages duel observations by Lumet and cinematographer Roizman on achieving the director's evolution of corruption as the films visual aesthetic, with the photographer praising Chayefsky's detailed scene descriptions as inspirations for his lighting and composition of shots as important translations from page to screen. 2006 comments By Walter Cronkite reflect on the frightening accuracy of NETWORK's view of television and news, contrasted or at least compared to the TV era when Cronkite, Lumet and Chayefsky began. In an all-too rare treat in these bonus extras, author Paddy Chayefsky himself appears in a 14-minute segment from Dinah! as talk host Dinah Shore interviews the writer after NETWORK opened in theaters to great critical and audience reception. Viewers who don't know Chayefsky the person may be surprised to learn how soft-spoken the acerbically witty scribe was as he describes both his fears of a dehumanized society and his straightforward responsibility to entertain his audiences first and foremost. Fans of the film's director will rejoice in the 54-minute Private Screenings with Sidney Lumet special hosted by TCM's Robert Osborne, recapping Lumet's personal and professional biography with insights on how his career advanced toward and beyond NETWORK. The film's 3-minute Theatrical Trailer closes out the copious Bonus Feature treasury. REVIEW SUMMARY Whether audiences appreciate or even perceive this film's prescient ability to warn its 1976 viewers about the media-mad world we live in today, NETWORK mightily succeeds on its own merits as one of the best written, acted and directed dramas of its time, before or since. Many critics and fans consider it Paddy Chayefsky's crowning achievement in a career studded with artistic accomplishment and branded with his unique talent for combining words into dazzling collisions of emotion and humanity. Director Sidney Lumet likewise raised the bar in his own career by helming this outrageous satire of cultural self-examination, grounded in a tragi-comic cautionary tale of love, loneliness and self-preservation. Peter Finch's "I'm as mad as Hell" speech may well ring out in the halls of Great Movie Quotes for decades, but his indelible performance amid a dream ensemble of talented actors like William Holden and Faye Dunaway ensured that these characters' appeal live on long after a timely catch phrase fades. NETWORK stands out among an astonishing class of films from 1976, the entire '70s decade of masterful American cinema, and modern filmmaking continuing into the 21st century. Though it pre-dated the saying, NETWORK is indeed must-see viewing on Blu-ray.
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Both Chayefsky and Lumet insisted their 'satire' was instead "sheer reportage," according to the director's commentary track and interviews, though this claim may well cheat both creators of their razor sharp prescience of where television was inexorably headed and what indeed it would become in the surprisingly near future. Writer and director use the language, format and artificial pomp of television to ground the film in a foundation of technical accuracy which helps sell the subsequent madness that follows. Social and cultural commentary aside, Chayefsky's script literally sings with some of the wittiest, most delightful and articulate dialog written for film, and the top shelf cast enact these characters with gripping, involving dramatic honesty despite the story's deliberately heightened reality. As outrageous as the extremes get surrounding the imbued, imbalanced Beale on his lauded rise and tragic downfall, the human condition — in all its glories and shortcomings — remains the film's unwavering attraction. NETWORK isn't satire for spectacle's sake, nor does lose its grip on harsh reality for cheap laughs: its outrageous excesses are reached sensibly step-by-step in this corporate circus ring, and the laughs often catch in one's throat for how eerily recognizable the jokes are next to our daily media environment.
