Awesomest. Movie. Ever.

In 1976, when the Sidney Lumet-directed film was released, aside from sweeping the Academy Awards for acting that year, Network was critically acclaimed as a scathing satire of what the communications industry COULD become.

Today, the film might as well be a documentary.

There's not much I can say about Network that hasn't already been said, so I'm going to strictly confine myself to singing the praises of the scriptwriter. Paddy Chayefsky did a marvelous job weaving the tale of the most heartless, soul-sucking TV executives ever to walk the earth and how they make a fortune marketing the 6:00 news as an entertainment hour stripped of all information. The reporters are all replaced by psychics and freaks. The most ironic thing is that the main attraction of the show is the lead anchor, who goes off on leftist rants every night, decrying the evils of television--the very artifice that allows him to enter people's homes; the very power structure that makes money from him yelling about how much everyone hates it. Pure genius.

Even if you haven't seen the film, you've probably heard its most famous line ("I'm mad as hell, and I'm not going to take it anymore!"). That's commonplace by now. We've already consumed it into the mass unconscious. What I was more impressed by seeing it again this past weekend, was the second major monologue of the film--when the big Network executive chastises lead anchor, Howard Beale, for publicizing the fact that the Network was just sold to an Arab corporation. It is a fantastic piece of writing, and certainly bears reprinting.

For your reading pleasure, here is Paddy Chayefsky's manifesto:

"You have meddled with the primal forces of nature, Mr. Beale, and I won't have it, is that clear?! You think you have 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, multi-variate, multi-national dominion of dollars! Petro-dollars, electro-dollars, multi-dollars, reichmarks, rins, rubles, pounds and shekels! It is the international system of currency which determines the totality 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 twenty-one 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. What do you think the Russians talk about in their councils of state - Karl Marx? They get out their linear programming charts, statistical decision theories and mini-max solutions and compute the price-cost probabilities of their transactions and investments just like we do. We no longer live in a world of nations and ideologies, Mr. Beale. The world is a college of corporations, inexorably determined by the immutable by-laws of business.

"The world is a business, Mr. Beale. It has been since man crawled out of the slime, and 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..."

Brilliant... and terrifying. This is what we should be teaching in grammar school. Forget American history. Forget world history. This is the way things are--for better or worse.

I don't know if I should laugh at it or cry.

Long Haired Sally

Do you know Sally? Sally--that girl with reaaaalllly long hair? If you met her, you’d remember. She’s got, like, the longest hair of anyone I know. Whatever. So Sally has not had the best of luck with men. Like most of us, she’s had a pretty rough time in New York. Big surprise, eh? But anyway, she met this guy Steve a while ago, and… well, you wouldn’t think there was anything else to talk about. Oh, Steve this, Steve that, Steve, Steve, Steve. I haven’t even met the guy—none of us have—but she won’t shut up about him. Apparently they went to high school together in Jersey, and Steve was voted most handsome. Ha, ha. Yeah. But they didn’t hang out together back then. I think she knew him but… yeah.

So Sally goes up to Maine this summer—her parents live in Kennebunkport—so she goes up to see them this summer, and who does she run into? Steve’s a forest ranger. He, like, tests the pH balance in the water or something? I don’t know. But of course… Mr. Handsome, Class of ’95… and the sparks fly.

But now he’s in Maine, so he’s like, this bearded, you know, like, mountain hunk… and she can’t stop talking about him, and things… you know, have gotten a little out of hand. Every time you go out for a drink with her, out comes Steve. I mean, something eventually had to be said. We were at Alec’s birthday dinner last week, Sally came. And it was like, “come on!” It’s like, “we are not even here for you, Sally, you are a guest at Alec’s birthday. None of us even know Steve!” So finally, Greg said something… I mean, not in those words, but he was just like, “yeah, OK, enough, Sally.”

Well. She starts crying. Right there at the dinner table! I mean, Sally’s an emotional girl, but come on, girl. Get a grip!

So that’s why Greg had to go out with her for drinks tonight. Kind of “I’m sorry,” sort of thing. Isn’t that funny? Yeah, well, now I wanna meet Steve.