Watching "Network" for the first time

[alexwcovington]

wrong forum

[Systematic Chaos]

1. You always want to be sure to watch it in the right forum!

Sorry, couldn't resist. :)

[Terwilliger]

2. oh this is the forum for "Network"

Network could be considered current affairs with a rewording.

UBS to FOX

Howard Beale to Dan Rather

HO! I WISH! C'mon Dan! Scream it from the rooftops!!!

[JackDragna]

3. If only the people who made the film..

could realize how well they were looking into the crysal ball of what media would become. Infotainment and spectacle, truth replaced by angry people who talk at each other rather than about issues.

[punpirate]

4. Yup...

... I'd bet when that movie was released, Rupert Murdoch said, "one day, that will all be mine!"

[charlie]

5. I haven't seen that film since its original run

and my memories are hazy. The one scene that's stayed with me with clarity though, is Ned Beatty raining God's thunder on Peter Finch:

"YOU have meddled with the primal forces of NAY-CHA, Mr. Beale ... There is no America. There is no Democracy. There is only IBM and ITT and AT&T and DuPont, Dow, Union Carbide and Exxon. Those are the nations of the world today ... the world is a BUSINESS, Mr. Beale."

There was enough truth in that back then to have me nodding in amused agreement. Now it's inescapable reality. Chayefsky was a prophet :scared:

[Atlant]

6. More of that quote...

(Not in order, unfortunately)

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0074958/quotes

Arthur Jensen: They say I can sell anything. I'd like to try to sell something to you.


Arthur Jensen: It is the international system of currency which determines the vitality of life on this planet. That is the natural order of things today. That is the atomic and subatomic and galactic structure of things today! And you have meddled with the primal forces of nature! And you will atone! Am I getting through to you, Mr. Beale? You get up on your little 21 inch screen and howl about America and democracy. There is no America. There is no democracy. There is only IBM and ITT, and AT&T, and DuPont, Dow, Union Carbide, and Exxon. Those are the nations of the world today.


Arthur Jensen: You have meddled with the primal forces of nature, Mr. Beale, and I won't have it! Is that clear? You think you've merely stopped a business deal? That is not the case. The Arabs have taken billions of dollars out of this country, and now they must put it back! It is ebb and flow, tidal gravity. It is ecological balance. You are an old man who thinks in terms of nations and peoples. There are no nations! There are no peoples! There are no Russians! There are no Arabs! There are no third worlds! There is no West! There is only one holistic system of systems; one vast, interwoven, interacting, multivaried, multinational dominion of dollars!


Arthur Jensen: The world is a business, Mr. Beale. It has been since man crawled out of the slime. Our children will live, Mr. Beale, to see that perfect world in which there's no war or famine, oppression or brutality -- one vast and ecumenical holding company, for whom all men will work to serve a common profit, in which all men will hold a share of stock -- all necessities provided, all anxieties tranquilized, all boredom amused. And I have chosen you, Mr. Beale, to preach this evangel.
Howard Beale: Why me?
Arthur Jensen: Because you're on television, dummy. Sixty million people watch you every night of the week, Monday through Friday.
Howard Beale: I have seen the face of God.
Arthur Jensen: You just might be right, Mr. Beale.

[rman]

8. not prophetic

Granted, it has progressed since then. It is worse now then it was then. But the big difference is that now more people are more aware; not just that something is wrong, but there is more awareness of what it is that is wrong. Instrumental in that is the fact that the Neocons are overdoing it, so that it is inevitable more people do notice.

[newyawker99]

9. Congrats rman!! 900 posts

:toast:

[AP]

7. I do not like Network. I think it's BS. The premise is that, for ratings,

a broadcaster is willing to air a reality show about Marxists.

I'm gonna tell you what. The networks won't even run Donahue even though it gets better ratings than the right wing shit they put on TV.

[NashVegas]

10. Oh No?

What do they use for currency in Survivor?

[Lydia Leftcoast]

11. Remember that this was made in 1976

It was shortly after the whole Patty Hearst/Symbionese Liberation Army incident.

Besides, the networks were not as reliably right wing in those days as they are now.

[ronzo]

12. Pay attention at the end.

Look for a familiar face. I don't even think he was in the credits.
:)