In praise of the movie Network

TCM showed Network the other night, and I recorded it and got around to watching it last night. Has there ever been a more prescient movie? It's just brilliant. One of the best screenplays ever.

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My big issue with "Network" is the same issue I had with "The Social Network."

Both are well-crafted films (Network is better) ... but I really dislike all the characters in those movies. I think they're despicable, so when they crash and burn in their respective plots, I really don't care. At all.

I feel nothing ... other than admiration for the fine work that went into them. Ultimately, I'm left cold, though.

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Updated On: 7/8/11 at 10:26 AM

This film has been in my top 5 all time faves since the day I saw it.

And Chayefsky's screenplay is simply brilliant.

That Rocky beat this for the Oscar is equal to Shakespeare In Love beating Private Ryan.

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Well I would imagine most people agree with you Besty.

The only Oscar winner I truly feel is a complete disgrace is "Gigi".
Forget the Oscar, I think it's one of the worst films I have ever endured. Kinda like Roscoe feels about Chicago.

There is no creepier moment in modern film than an aging Chevalier singing "Thank Heaven For Little Girls" while trolling a public park.

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"That Rocky beat this for the Oscar is equal to Shakespeare In Love beating Private Ryan"

I would say it's more akin to KING'S SPEECH winning over SOCIAL NETWORK. KP was fun but schlock nonetheless -- or as someone on another forum put it: "A what-used-to-be-Sunday-Evening-Westinghouse-special-presentation-of-a-made-for-TV-movie, nothing more." SN is simply great filmmaking.

My pick for worst Best Picture is OLIVER! I could never get through that dreck -- and I tried several times! And to think 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY wasn't even nominated.

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Man, SM2, you and I have completely opposite tastes in those instances.

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Taz, I absolutely love Gigi, but it's definitely a product of its time, both in its setting and the year it was released.

I think way too many people trip out over the "Thank Heaven ..." song, because their minds are going places that were never intended. The lyric is "without them, what would little boys do?", not "old men." And Henri is not trying to get involved with any of them in the park. He is merely admiring these diamonds in the rough. These potential beauties. Nothing more. It's not suggesting or recommending pedophilia, yet that's the knee-jerk reaction from so many today. Perhaps we are too "educated" and inundated with examples, and that's the reason for going straight to a very dark place.

I've given my schpeel on Gigi before ... all about how select young girls and young women were groomed to be courtesans. Women of that era had very few options. They couldn't own property outright, they couldn't vote, or register their own businesses, and social classes were clearly defined with immobile boundaries. You had two choices if you were from Gigi's class: marry the "miller's son" and, if he allowed you to, work in a shop ... or have an ongoing affair with the "Prince of Wales" and live a life of pampered luxury until you could retire early in a chateau ala Madame Armfeldt or Gigi's own Aunt Alicia.

Gaston doesn't pounce on Gigi as a child. He's not even thinking along those lines, until her grandmother and her grandmother's sister point out the potential. Once Gigi reaches a certain age (I'm guessing 15-ish), she starts her classes. And yes, there is tension there, because both Gigi and Gaston are resisting this change in their relationship.

Ultimately, the story says you don't have to be a miller's wife, a shop girl, or a courtesan. You CAN marry the prince and live happily ever after. Sure, it's a fairy tale, just like any other romantic "she marries the prince" stories are.

I still find it beautifully told, beautifully written, acted, directed, and presented. I love its innocence, not its smuttiness. That's why Gigi could never work today. We've lost that innocence and can only jump from "girlhood to bed" without any of the delicate and necessary steps and decisions in between. We don't have that "delicate sensibility" anymore. And most of us can't even project it long enough to appreciate the story.

I'm also not implying that there wasn't ugliness and pedophilia going on in that era. Of course, sadly, there was. But that's not the story being told here, nor is it the outcome of Gigi's situation. I think Colette (the author) found a very sweet and simple way to make a very strong statement.

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Updated On: 7/8/11 at 01:09 PM

I love Gigi. Yes, it has its dark points but shot with such love that it rises above that. Besty has already pointed out much about the film so I won't reiterate.

And as for "Thank Heaven for Little Girls" - maybe because I was introduced to the film long before any understanding of the dynamic Taz menions set in but I never saw anything dirty in the song. It's just an appreciation of their innocent youth which they will lose eventually.

As for the Rocky films - the first and last ones are great. The middle three are more or less forgettable.

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Ugh! Forrest Gump!!! Right-wing reactionary claptrap that was more emotionally manipulative than Titanic and Terms of Endearment combined!!!!

I actaully liked Slumdog Millionaire in the theatre...but I tried to watch it again and I was like, 'WTF was I thinking???'

That was the MILK year, right? SH*T.

I recently watched Network on Netflix and absolutely loved it. I see why folk aruge there are "no likable characters" but for me that's almost like saying "I didn't like it. It was depressing" Do we always have to fall in love with these characters?

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What Besty said.

My issue was Sorkin, who admitted to being something of a luddite never mind never roaming social networking until the film was happening, making it a court room piece. If the script did not say Facebook, you could have believed it was any website. The whole intricacies of Facebook and the culture of social networking is skimmed over and at times ever shooed in with a totally expected 'A-HA!' moment that makes Facebook exist. It did not help the book that it was based on was a pretty terrible book that was practically a gang-up on Zuckerberg. There was also plenty of people pushed out of the film and story.

I still have a hard time believing it took being drunk on Appletinis for Mark Zuckerberg to think Sean Parker was cool when Timberlake made him ooze 'snake oil salesman' (but that casting is a whole other issue together). The only character who was sympathetic that movie Rooney Mara's character, who does not exist in real-life. Eisenberg and Armie Hammer were quite good though, but if not for Fincher's direction I really think the film's flaws would stood out more than it did but the pacing was done in flash to really pick on it (except for that completely out of place English crew scene).

Back to Network, I think the characters were all consumed by television, whether part of the old boy network or the upstarts or the in-betweeners. The negotiations scene for The Mao Tse Tung hour showed how it was even getting to these ultra leftists. Chayefsky and Lumet started on TV so they were certainly partial to the old guard, Holden's character while imperfect gets to moralize and remark on Faye Dunaway's character in the end. It's satire, but the message is there well enough.

I personally think the people who come off the least sympathetic are the anonymous audience who allegedly eat this up. That was a major point of contention in many of negative criticism of the film though Chayefsky argued the Networks were always in the crosshairs of his criticism.

I actually don't feel sorry for the audience (or the greater society, as you put it) for being sheep. They get what they deserve, and they bring the "crap TV" on themselves.

That's the thing about these so-called "powerful" network people. They have NO power or influence at all, unless the viewership enables them.

I also don't lump myself in with them, since I have never followed the trends of viewership on network TV. Not since I was a kid. I don't watch any network shows now. None. Zero.

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