GOOD NIGHT, AND GOOD LUCK
1) ACTING
Round characters-- “complex, lifelike, multidimensional, sometimes surprising, and changeable”
Examples: Murrow, Friendly,
Flat characters ---- “simple (stereotypical or minor), one-dimensional, and unchanging”
Examples: (the reporter who admits his exwife has been a communist before they were married), Milo Redulovitch, Sig Mickelsen (the character played Jeff Daniels)
It seems to me that while some characters are indisputably “round” and others indisputably “flat,” some are inbetween
Examples: Paley, Joe and Shirley Wershba, Hollenbeck—though it seems to me that though they’re minor characters, they are fairly round characters.
What about McCarthy?? Flat or round? Perhaps he is a flat character in that he allowed only one side of himself to be seen in his political life. In the film, he is indisputably evil. We don’t learn anything of his personal life, his battle with alcoholism, and so on.
Stars: “famous performers who usually play a major if not the major role” (23)
Example: George Clooney (who ironically in this film is in a supporting actor role. He also directed and co-wrote the film)
ensemble acting -- films which include many important characters, often appearing in scenes together
Versatile actors: “have played a wide range of roles” (Dustin Hoffman, Meryl Streep, Tom Hanks) (24)
Also David Strathairn (compare his performance to real footage of Murrow we saw in class). Jeff Strickler, Mpls. Star Tribune wrote, “We’re not sure if Strathairn is playing Murrow or channeling him. Either way, we’re impressed.”
Strathairn in this film reminds me of Anthony Hopkins playing the title character in Oliver Stone’s Nixon. When at the end of the long performance by Hopkins, Stone included documentary footage of the real Nixon, I realized that I’d forgotten that Nixon did not look like Anthony Hopkins! Hopkins’ portrayal had become more real to me than reality of actual footage.
Clooney on casting Strathairn: “I don’t think famous people should play famous people.”
Character actors -- the text’s definition of character actors is those who “specialize in playing more or less the same type of secondary role.” Robert Downey Jr., Jeff Daniels have become supporting actors we might call character actors. But they are also versatile actors. The same could be said for Gene Hackman (whom we saw in a starring role in The Conversation and a supporting role in Unforgiven.) So it seems to me limiting to say that a character actor cannot also be a versatile actor.
Note, though, that almost all the supporting actors in the Searchers played similar roles in other John Ford films. These include Ward Bond as the Reverend Captain, Olive Carey as Mrs. Jorgensen, and the actor who played Mose Harper. These actors are indisputably clearly “character actors.”
three types of actors we don’t see in this film:
method actors: one who “tries to figure out the character’s biography and psychology and immerses herself or himself in the role” (25) (Marlon Brando, Al Pacino, Robert DeNiro)
cameo: “usually a small part usually limited to one scene and often unbilled” (Touch of Evil: Joseph Cotten, Eva Gabor)
non-professional actors: “people with no training or experience before the camera or theatrical audiences” Child actors are sometimes nonprofessional. Also older European films, or films made on a low budget, such as the original Night of the living Dead).
2) Why was this move shot in black and white? First of all television news of the day was in black and white. Note too the Documentary style of movie (later you’ll read about direct cinema and cinema verite, styles of documentary film that this movie was meant to emulate). Clooney says that he wanted to capture the look and feel of D. A. Pennebaker documentaries like Primary and Salesman. These were characterized by black and white stock, a handheld camera with a lot of pan and zoom shots, rack focus. A lot of tight close up telephoto shots with a corresponding short depth of field, only a little in focus) that emphasize people over setting, faces over bodies—indicating that the conflict in the shot is mental, internal. Also a lot of obstructed view shots (which we saw in Touch of Evil)
As you watch the film, look for scenes that look to you like they’re trying to imitate documentary.
USE AN EXAMPLE : chapter three. ff to 9:00. 9:20 – 11:00*
Note that there’s not a single exterior shot in the whole movie. All 90 minutes is shot indoors. And accept for the secret marriage subplot between the Wershbas, the entire movie is shot at the CBS studio and offices, and at the bar across the street. No back yards, no living rooms, no prairies or mountains or farms. This also allows the filmmakers to seamlessly use the archival footage of McCarthy speaking. It also creates what Clooney called a sense of claustrophobia, adding to the tension of watching the film.
3) Why use real film footage of McCarthy instead of casting an actor to play him?
About this Ken Tucker in a New York Magazine review said: “If Clooney had cast an actor as McCarthy, the portrayal would almost certainly be criticized as over-the-top. As it is, McCarthy’s hammy hectoring stands on its own, while Straithairn does exactly what Murrow did: He simply stares poker-faced at the screen when McCarthy speaks his bullying lies, then turns to the camera to calmly refute the accusations point by point.”
In other words, it would difficult if not impossible for an actor to play McCarthy as he really was and have anyone today believe that such a man actually existed in a position of power fifty years ago!
4. Why use music that’s not related directly to the story, and why show the singer and musicians in the studio?
For one thing, the music that’s used is period music (by that I mean music that would have been performed and heard at the time the movie is set), though that doesn’t explain its use in the film. It’s also true that the jazz vocals set a mood of dark fatalism that seems consistent with the tone of the film—jazz, like serious broadcast journalism, is a vastly underappreciated art. The “live” jazz adds to the documentary feel of the film in that we see the musicians at work. There is no score, no music in the soundtrack other than what’s provided by these players. (contrast this with, say, the Converastion or Far From Heaven or The Searchers). To have off screen music would undercut the illusion of reality, historical reality, that the filmmakers are trying to create.
*SHOW Chapter 18
Music replaces dialogue in this difficult scene in which the news crew learns of the suicide of their colleague Don Hollenbeck, who was hounded to death by the anti communist right. (Something that happened a good deal during the McCarthy era)
1:12:30: Friendly tells Murrow of Hollenbeck’s suicide. The dialogue fades out, intercut to singer. “how high the moon”: the moody jazz underscores the darkness of the characters’ feeling at this moment. “How High the Moon” is usually performed at a very fast tempo; the ballad treatment here, slow and sad, supports what your text calls the implicit meaning of the scene. Cut to Wershba/Downey reading the newspaper column by right wing muckraking columnist, cut to flashback of Hollenbeck committing suicide. Dolly around tight closeup of Hollenbeck (with telephoto lens), all the while we are still hearing both Downey’s reading of the newspaper column and the jazz singer singing.
Cut to Murrow watching singer in recording studio. cut to friendly apparently telling the young reporters of the death of Hollenbeck.
cut back to Murrow, —note reflection shot with singer ‘s image appearing reflected in the glass. All of this with the music behind the image.
Then a sound bridge/cut to Murrow’s elegy for Hollenbeck on the air, as viewed by young reporters. Note rack focus. Why did the filmmakers do it that way rather than shooting Murrow’s speech in the studio as we saw him in similar, earlier scenes? I think it’s because this scene is not so much about Murrow as about the young reporters and their reactions to Hollenbeck’s suicide. Thus we see it the way the reporters saw it.
END 1:16
5. HISTORY AS SOURCE:
READ FROM Phillips p. 203:
“Historical films must make a lot of money to pay for their big budgets”—not GN&L, which I imagine was made relatively inexpensively. Performers like Clooney, Daniels, Clarkson, and Downey were likely making far less money for this film, a labor of love for them, than they would on a piece of mainstream Hollywood entertainment.
“Filmmakers usually omit, change, or add details in the historical film”: Yes, some details in the story in GN&GL had to be omitted, but Clooney uses more fact than fiction and accomplishes this through the high ratio of footage that is actual documentary footage from the day. Plus, all Murrow’s words in the film that are delivered in a news program or in public (his speech at the beginning and end of the film) are his actual words
The film is conscious that Murrow was not perfect, that even this media hero was a party to distortion. We see this in a number of places in the film:
--his “Person to Person” interview with Liberace: Audiences today know that Liberace had a secret gay life. But the character of Murrow asks, “Have you given any thought about getting married?” being a party to Hollywood’s deception about Liberace.
--and then we have all the cigarette smoking in the movie, accurate to the times and the news profession. We have a Kent cigarette ad included in its entirety that tells us “Kent Filters Best” and “it makes good sense” to smoke Kent. Here the filmmaker is reminding us of what is now the most infamous corporate lie of the day, that smoking wasn’t unhealthy. So McCarthy’s was not the only lie of the times. Murrow is pictured smoking, as of course he did.
Robert A Rosenstone. Visions of the Past: The Challenge of Film to Our Idea of History.
(Phillips 206) (read first graph). Any Hollywood film, historical or not, functions to fool us into believing what we see on the screen is true. A “realistic” filmmaking style has evolved to try to create this illusion through continuity editing, , unity of time and space, recognizable sets, etc.
Along with realism, four other elements are crucial to an understanding [of] the mainstream historical film:
--Hollywood history is delivered in a story with a beginning, middle, and end—a story that has a moral message, and one that is usually embodied in a progressive view of history.
(progressive in this case meaning that history is moving in a particular direction, is not chaotic or random)
--The story is closed, completed, and ultimately, simple. Alternative versions of the past are not shown; the Rashomon approach is never used in such work
--History is the story of individuals—usually heroic individuals who do unusual things for the good of others, if not all humankind (ultimately, the audience). In other words, the filmmakers chose for dramatic purposes to center the film around the characters of Murrow and Friendly, not to tell the story of McCarthyism and resistance to it in terms of a broad movement that included many, many people—which of course it was.
--Historical issues are personalized, emotionalized, and dramatized—for film appeals to our feelings as a way of adding to our knowledge or affecting our beliefs.
play 15 miute companion tape.
1:10 Producer Grant Heslov discusses how the filmmakers speculate on history, on the private conversations between characters that we know took place, but of which no one knows the exact content, what was exactly said.
Clooney talks about having Murrow and Friendly’s family around to tell them if they’re getting something wrong. They’re trying to get the facts right.
MEDIA
What kind of comment is the film making about media, particularly TV news, one of our topics for this week and next week when we view Network?
Clooney makes the point in the special feature short that the issue of corporate control of news media in a capital system is still with us, that news now is supposed to be entertain, to make money.
Hersoff said that Murrow foresaw the future of news watered down to be entertainment, an idea which almost no one today would dispute. (If you ever have a chance, watch a newscast or tv documentary from the 1950s and 60s. You’ll be surprised at how much more sophisticated the content and level of language and public discourse. At the lack of “soft news” human interest stories, anecdotes, pieces that appeal to emotion. We’ve slid a long way, and we’re really not even aware of it.)
In GN&GL, Jeff Daniels/Sig Mickelsen tells Murrow: you are editorializing. not giving both sides of an issue--which is true. Although in the world of the film, Murrow is a hero, you could also argue that his editorializing, his analytical, critical style and content, has paved the way for the exploitative, sensationalized, agenda driven reporting of Fox News and its imitators. This is a subject we’ll see more of next week when we watch Network.
Mickelsen says further that the sponsors, Alcoa, will not like that you’re attacking the military.
“We don’t make the news, we report the news” -- Paley says to Murrow
Later, Murrow’s program, See It Now, loses Alcoa as its sponsor. Paley tells Murrow the program is not making money and states further than “people want to enjoy themselves, they don’t want a civics lesson.”
Paley points out that he never censored Murrow’s reporting, to which Murrow replies, “Not saying no is not the same as not censoring.”
SO IN THE END Murrow has fallen victim to what I call “the censorship of the marketplace.” We assume that because we have free speech written into our constitution, that there exists always in America a free exchange of ideas. But GN&GL questions whether unpopular or challenging ideas will be given free reign and be distributed to the public by corporate media that must in the end not only show a profit, but as we’ve seen in the 50 years since the time setting of this film, show the greatest possible profit. In other words, if I can make the corporation ten million dollars by being responsible and trying to tell the truth, and you can make the corporation twenty million dollars by being irresponsible and distorting the truth in accordance with what people want to hear, I will be censored and you will have my air time.
Murrow says to Friendly at the end of this scene with Paley, their boss, “Let’s do our first show about the downfall of television.” We’ll see more about this downfall suggested and discussed next week in Network.
Also at this time in the story, the Senate votes to censure McCarthy. What will happen? Murrow asks. “He’ll sit in the back,” Friendly answers. “They won’t kick him out.” And ironically that’s also what’s happened to Murrow! He’s “sitting in the back,” buried in a Sunday afternoon time slot five times a year. Both men, one a demagogue and coward, the other a courageous reporter, have been silenced by the events of the film, by the contradiction of corporate news.
A couple of final notes:
note the subplot of secretly married couple. Why is it included? It does at least three things:
1) thematically, it’s a parallel subversion to McCarthy’s alleged subversion by communists in government. McCarthy, by the way, in his entire career never uncovered one communist. Not one. But ironically the Wershbas have “subverted” CBS’s policy against employees being married to each other, and have “infiltrated” the network.
2) it allows there to be a woman in the cast, and
3) it provides us with a romantic angle in the movie, which is desirable if not almost required in a Hollywood film
The Film’s Comment on our Recent Political Situation
Critic John Wirt in the Baton Rouge Advocate:
“A rare thing happened at the Monday evening screening I attended. When Good Night, and Good Luck ended, several people in that small but attentive audience applauded.”
Wirt goes on to mention that the Patriot Act, increased internal surveillance by the Federal government has led some to “Confuse dissent with disloyalty”
In the film, Eisenhower speaks of the need for the habeas corpus act, which George Bush has suspended for those held by the government in Guantanamo. (Habeas corpus means that the state can not hold you without charging you with a crime)
John Wirt continues in his review: “In light of a timid American news media that recently abdicated its responsibility to ask politicians and policymakers hard, necessary questions, Murrow's confrontations with McCarthy and CBS' bottom-line minded boss William S. Paley (played in imperial style by Frank Langella) is nearly shocking.” Wirt thus saw the filmmakers as intending a sharp contrast between Murrow’s taking on a dangerous and powerful demagogue, and the current day news media doing no investigation whatsoever of the claims made before the beginning of the Iraq war, instead playing to the popular demand for coverage that emphasized the victory’s of American troops in combat over an investigation of the ethical, political, and legal groundwork for the war, or the practicality of the mission.
GOOD NIGHT, AND GOOD LUCK – George Clooney, 2005
“The McCarthy Era” -- Early to mid 1950s America, during which time paranoia about the threat of atomic warfare and the myth that Communists were subverting our political and cultural institutions led to a climate of fear, capitalized upon by right-wing zealots to further their political careers. Named after Senator Joseph McCarthy of Wisconsin.
ACTING
Look for different types of characters it the film (Phillips 23)
round characters – “complex, lifelike, multidimensional, sometimes surprising, and changeable”
flat characters -- “simple (stereotypical or minor), one-dimensional, and unchanging”
(some in between??)
ensemble acting -- films which include many important characters, often appearing in scenes together
Categories of actors (overlapping):
Stars: “famous performers who usually play a major if not the major role” (23)
versatile actors: “have played a wide range of roles” (Dustin Hoffman, Meryl Streep, Tom Hanks) (24)
character actors: “specialize in more or less the same type of secondary roles” (27) Eg., Ward Bond, Violet Carey, and the actor who plays Mose Harper in The Searchers. Harrison Ford in The Conversation.
[and three categories we don’t see exemplified in this film]:
method actors: one who “tries to figure out the character’s biography and psychology and immerses herself or himself in the role” (25) (Marlon Brando, Al Pacino, Robert DeNiro)
cameo: “usually a small part usually limited to one scene and often unbilled” (Touch of Evil: Joseph Cotten, Eva Gabor)
non-professional actors: “people with no training or experience before the camera or theatrical audiences” (cast of the original Night of the Living Dead)
Why might the filmmakers have chosen to shoot the film in black and white?
Why might the filmmakers have chosen to use actual footage of Senator Joseph McCarthy instead of casting an actor to play him?
Why might the filmmakers have chosen to use music that doesn’t seem directly related to the story, and to show the singer and musicians in the studio, rather than have a film score or use music from an offscreen source (which we’ve had in every film we’ve seen so far)?
HISTORY AS A SOURCE for cinema (Phillips 203-209)
Robert A Rosenstone. Visions of the Past: The Challenge of Film to Our Idea of History.
(Phillips 206)
Historical film is Hollywood drama, the chief characteristic of which is to “make us believe that what we see it the theater is true.”
“Along with realism, four other elements are crucial to an understanding [of] the mainstream historical film:
--Hollywood history is delivered in a story with a beginning, middle, and end—a story that has a moral message, and one that is usually embodied in a progressive view of history.
--The story is closed, completed, and ultimately, simple. Alternative versions of the past are not shown; the Rashomon approach is never used in such work.
--History is the story of individuals—usually heroic individuals who do unusual things for the good of others, if not all humankind (ultimately, the audience)
--Historical issues are personalized, emotionalized, and dramatized—for film appeals to our feelings as a way of adding to our knowledge or affecting our beliefs.”
What kind of comment is the film making about media, particularly TV news?
How might the film be commenting on the political situation of its own day (2005), as well as the 1950s?
Network (Paddy Chayefsky, 1976. Directed by Sidney Lumet)
“Frighteningly, hilariously prophetic! What was originally a satire is a stinging mirror of television news today.”
--Robert Osborne, Turner Classic Movies
PLAY OPENING SEQUENCES
0-1:00
skip to chapter 2 3:27-3:40
skip to chapter 3 5:30-6:26
--voiceover
--establishing shots picture UBS with other three then-existing network
--the news of President Ford speaking about assassination attempts on him: Network is set in the context of the events of the day, like the attempted deportation of John Lennon,
And in the screenplay:
-- reference to a picture of Max and Howard with Murrow, Cronkite, Bob Trout, who were real tv newsmen of the 50s and 60s.
--Diana’s speech about the news events of the day not being covered by the Daily News in order to put Howard on the front page are the real world events of 1975: civil wars in Angola and Lebanon, etc.
--mention of kidnapping of Patty Hearst, a 70s news story. The kidnapping of the famous heiress in Network by the ELA, is the obvious parallel to the Patty Hearst story in real life. Hearst was kidnapped by the SLA (Symbionese Liberation Army)
Satire-- “a representation that indirectly exposes and perhaps ridiculues individual or group thinking or behavior for being foolish, evil, or stupid or for having some other shortcoming” (Phillips 275)
What do characters want, and what are the resulting conflicts between characters?
Diana – primary goal: to take over news division (and, we assume, to further her career)
secondary goal: to have a romantic relationship (“romantic subplot”): she admits late in the film that she “doesn’t know how to do that.”
Max -- primary goal: to defend the independence of the network news division against corporate/entertainment forces
secondary goal: to prevent his friend Howard from being exploited by corporate.
secondary goal: to have a relationship/affair with Diana, a younger woman (romantic subplot)
Frank -- primary goal: to have the news division make money so he can impress his corporate bosses
Howard – Since he’s “mad,” his goals seem to change.
primary goal: initially, to commit suicide since, he’s being fired and his life is his work
primary goal: later, to say what he thinks, for once, on television
primary goal: later still, to fulfill what he sees as his calling to be a prophet
Arthur Jensen – ultimate goal: to achieve a utopian world run by a single corporation
immediate goal: to use Howard Beale to help bring about his ultimate goal
ELA -- wants its own television show (revolutionary subplot)
(from Screenplay by Syd Field)
“A plot-point is an incident or event that hooks into the action and spins it around in another direction. At about 27 minutes into a movie (or 27 pages in the script) the first plot point occurs. Everything in the plot has been set up. Then there is an obstacle that leads the movie into the second act or confrontation portion. Likewise, at about 87 minutes into the movie, there is a plot-point or sudden twist that leads into the resolution of the story.
If you watch and study movies carefully, you will recognize these plot-points when they happen. You will also see how vital they are to the development and resolution of the action.”
(note extra credit assignment based on this)
An Analysis of the Structure of Network based in part on Phillips and Fields
BEGINNING (ACT I) “introduce major characters and encourage viewers to infer their goals” (Phillips 258)
Max is told to fire his old friend Howard Beale because ratings on his newscast have declined.
On his last broadcast, Beale announces on the air that he’s going to commit suicide in one week because his job is his life. (note that no one in the control room is even listening!)
Meanwhile, CCA, a multinational corporation, has bought out the network and Frank Hackett (note the name!) wants to cut costs and get a profit from the news division. The corresponding loss of independence of the news division is kept secret from Max. Max decides to put Howard Beale back on the air so that he can retire with dignity. But Beale instead tells his audience that life is bullshit. Max lets Howard finish the outrageous broadcast, apparently to anger his new corporate bosses.
Diana Christianson (note ironic name, since she’s hardly a picture of Christian charity and love) has also joined the Network, hoping to make it commercially successful at any costs, and thereby further her own career.
Diana wants a show with footage like that the ELA shot of themselves robbing a bank (this introduces the ELA subplot)
Howard Beale’s outburst, not any real news, is lead story on The Daily News and front page of the New York Times.
Ratings go up because Beale says “bullshit” (not allowed to say on tv in 1976, or today for that matter),
PLOT POINT NUMBER 1 (27:00) – Diana convinces Frank Hackett to leave Howard Beale on the air in order to get higher ratings and make money.
MIDDLE (ACT II) “ a series of obstacles that prevent or delay the main characters from achieving their goals” (Phillips 259)
After a few days, the ratings drop as the novelty of Howard is wearing off with viewers.
Diana comes on to Max.
Howard becomes delusional, crazy (in the bedroom scene). He thinks a voice is talking to him telling him to be a mad prophet of the air waves.
Network news show moved to programming (entertainment division), under the control of Diana.
Max wants to protect his friend Howard from being exploited by corporate ratings-driven forces.
Howard’s shows up on the set right at air time, in a rain coat, and asks viewers to open their windows and scream, “I’m mad as hell, and I’m not going to take it any more.”
Howard’s program is surpassed in ratings only by The Six Million Dollar Man, All in the Family, and Phyllis (all of which were top-rated actual tv shows of the day)
Diana makes her pitch to the ELA revolutionaries for the program that will become the Mao Tse Tung Hour (revolutionary subplot)
Max tells his wife about his affair and moves in with Diana (romantic subplot)
PLOT POINT 2 (84:00)
Howard rails against CCA buying the network. Western world funding corporation now buying CCA. His message has shifted.
ENDING (ACT III) “narrative endings show the consequences of the major previous events…that viewers have become curious about” (Phillips 259, 260)
Howard meets Arthur Jensen, the corporate boss, who explains that there are no longer nations in the world, but corporations. He tells Howard he wants him to preach the ideology of the corporate cause.
Howard’s program has now become depressing for viewers so ratings go down.
Max breaks off relationship with Diana because she doesn’t love him. Diana says she doesn’t know how to do that. Max tells Diana she is television incarnate, and Diana speaks of their relationship in terms of a television script, thus tying together the romantic subplot with the main “television” plot.
Diana has the idea of assassinating Howard on the air to get rid of him.
The assassination is carried out by ELA members (thus tying in the ELA subplot with the “television” plot) and for the first time ever a man is killed because he had lousy ratings.
5. “Implicit Meaning” in Network: No nations, no individuals, only corporations
Implicit meaning – “a generalization a viewer makes about a film, or subject in a film.” (Phillips 473)
*1:24:00 chapter 23 (to about 1:28)
Howard Beale’s speech about CCA buying the network, and Western world funding corporation then buying CCA.
--In my interpretation, Howard represents both the insanity of tv commentators who wield influence through showmanship, as well as a true prophet telling us about the danger of the corporate monopoly of media and corporate consolidation of power and money dictating what we see and hear and potentially ruling our lives. In Network, it’s the Arabs who are depicted buying American assets, consistent with the audience’s fears of the day; perhaps if the film were made in the 80s, it would have been the Japanese; if the film were made today, it would have been the Chinese in the role of the outsiders with the money.
Howard Beale can represent both sides of this divide at the same time—a satire of television commentator gurus, and a prophet giving us a good warning of the threat of consolidation of power. It’s like the way the Western can embrace both civilization and savagery, or the way the musical can celebrate both marriage and sexual freedom.
Howard Beale can be insane in terms of the plot, but his message can still have an effect on us.
--Note that in this scene no one is watching Howard, since they only care about making money. “Can you turn that down please,” Frank asks.
*1:32:00 [show this sequence] (to about 1:37)
Beale meets Jensen (Ned Beatty nominated for best supporting actor for this one scene!)
note the deep focus shot of long table
note side/back lighting at end of scene. telephoto shot.
Jensen tells Beale something like,
“You are an old man who thinks in terms of nations and peoples. There are none. Only one vast system of dollars”
“You talk about America and you talk about democracy. There is no America.
There is only IBM, ITT, ATT, Dupont, Union Carbide, and Exxon. Those are the nations of the world today. The world is a college of corporations inexorably determined by the immutable bylaws of business. The world is a business..it has been since man crawled out of the slime.”
In this, Jensen more or less explains the film’s theme (in comic, satirical overstatement)
He has chosen Howard to preach this ideology.
Network foretells what has happened to television and television news in the thirty years since the film’s release. It predicts the rise of a network that offers lurid and sensational programming, a network that offers shows which appeal to the lowest common denominator and brings us “news” that contains more commentary than analysis and which presents a clear political bias that is consistent with the views of the network’s corporate owners. Paddy Chayefsky predicted the inevitability of the formation and rise of Fox news, and perhaps the phenomenon that other networks would follow it downhill.
Note:
--Frank Hacket wants the news division to make money, not lose money. He wants to have news accountable to network, not an independent division, since CCA, a multinational corporation, has bought out the network. Network was written and produced right after a major corporation bought ABC television. At the time this worried people. Now, corporations own all networks and all major media outlets in America, except for PBS/NPR.
--Frank justifies letting the insane Howard remain on the air by saying he is merely adding “editorial comment to our news show.” Before the time the film was made, Walter Cronkite had been voted “the most trusted man in America.” The integrity of television news was above reproach. Now we have opinion disguised as news all over media: O’Reilly Factor, self described “Christian” newscasts which advance a partisan agenda, Rush Limbaugh, Air America, Lou Dobbs, even the McGlaughlin Group on PBS.
--Diana wants angry shows on television, wants to further her career
(Here is where Chayefsky was only half right: he makes it a counterculture program that Diana is pushing, a politically leftist program, reflecting a post sixties mind set. What developed instead was right wing programming to pander to people’s fears instead of their anger. And more programming completely devoid of political content like so-called reality tv shows. I wonder how much a newscaster announcing he will commit suicide on the air is like reality tv? How similar is a group filming itself robbing a bank to American’s Funniest Home Vidoes?
--Diana tells Max that “tv is show biz.” She tells him not to complain that she’s making a joke out of tv news, since when Max is running the newscast, he includes “less than a minute of hard news,” the rest is sex, crime, sports, lost children. This is clearly still true today. How much hard news do you find in 30 minutes of headline news: about 5 minutes? The rest is the Hollywood minute, sports, wall street, human interest stories, and commercials)
--Diana suggests getting writers to write Howard’s jeremiad rants. How similar is this to the so called reality tv programs in which we have cast not “real people,” but mostly young actors looking for a break. Surely these programs are scripted and only made to look spontaneous. Scenes are shot and reshot to get the best visual product, and so on.
--Beale’s speeches are sensational and passionate like tv evangelists.
[one difference being that, as satire, Beale’s speeches are so much more cleverly written than current tv fare]
--Diana wants a Home sex soap opera to be called THE DYKES: a woman hopelessly in love with her husband’s mistress (this seems to predict what we can see on Jerry Springer and much of current day time tv)