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:INFO.half
Network (1976)
Chayefsky wrote it as an absurd exaggeration of television news. Every absurdity in it has since been implemented.

:STATS
[icon:CLOCK] Runtime | 121 minutes
[icon:STAR] Director | Sidney Lumet
[icon:CHART] Budget | $3.8 million
[icon:TRENDING_UP] Box office | $23.7 million worldwide
[icon:FIRE] Cinematography | Owen Roizman

:QUOTE [quotetype:plain, subtitle:Howard Beale · Network · 1976]
I'm as mad as hell, and I'm not going to take this anymore.

:INFO
Ratings As The Only Value
An anchorman is fired for low ratings, announces on air that he will kill himself on the following Tuesday's broadcast, and becomes the most valuable asset the network has. From there the film simply follows the incentives. A news division is moved under entertainment, a programming executive builds a lineup around a terrorist cell and a psychic, and the prophet in the raincoat is kept on air while he is visibly unwell because the numbers are good. Chayefsky's dialogue is written to be performed at full volume and Lumet shoots it with progressively more artificial lighting as the film goes on, so the picture itself turns into television. Nothing in it was plausible in 1976 and nearly all of it is now standard practice.

:JOURNEY
Watching Network
3 Discarded
5 Ignited
4 Monetised
4 Staged
5 Corrected
5 Solved

:NOTE.half
Peter Finch died two months before the ceremony and became the first actor to win Best Actor posthumously. His widow accepted it.

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Ned Beatty is on screen for about five minutes and was nominated for the boardroom monologue, which Chayefsky wrote as a single unbroken speech and Lumet shot with the lights coming up on cue.

:LINK
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0074958/
Network on IMDb: full cast and crew