Network By Joanna E. Rapf

Sidney Lumet’s “New York Times” obituary headlined him as a director of “conscience,” and from his first movie, “Twelve Angry Men” (1957) to his last, “Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead” (2007), he explored deeply flawed characters wrestling with moral choices. Sometimes he seemed to specialize in angry men, like Al Pacino’s character, Sonny, in “Dog Day Afternoon” (1975) stir- Ratings-hungry programming executive Faye Dunaway watches her news anchor ring up a crowd with his ev- fall apart on the air. Courtesy Library of Congress Collection. ocation of “Attica, Attica!” or like Peter Finch’s Howard Beale yelling, “I’m mad as hell and I’m not going to long speech is intact. “The world is a business, Mr. take it anymore,” an outcry that has since become Beale,” and Beale has been chosen to articulate this part of American vernacular, in “Network”’s explora- doctrine to the masses. “Why me?” he asks. The tion of the amorality stemming from ambition and answer is simple: “Because you are on television, greed in the television industry. dummy.”

“Network” is generally seen as Lumet's greatest Lumet has always said that the material of his movie commercial success, and it won four Oscars: 1) for (and he calls them “movies” and not films) "must in- original screenplay by Paddy Chayefsky, 2) best ac- volve me personally on some level." He asks, "What tress, Faye Dunaway, 3) best actor, Peter Finch, is the movie about?" and he is not talking about plot. and 4) best supporting actress, Beatrice Straight. "What is it about emotionally?" "What does the mov- The movie was also nominated for best picture, and ie mean to me?" (Lumet 10). For “Network,” he put it Lumet for best director, William Holden for actor, this way: "The machines are winning. Or, to borrow Ned Beatty for supporting actor, Alan Heim for edit- from the NRA: TV doesn't corrupt people; people ing, and Owen Roisman for cinematography. How- corrupt people" (Lumet 14). The powerful indoctrina- ever, it had a hard time getting made, not just be- tion scene described above, with Beatty exclaiming, cause of its inflammatory content, but also because “You have meddled with the primary forces of na- Chayefsky’s script had so many long speeches in it. ture, Mr. Beale,” shows just how extreme the corrupt But as a director, Lumet says he loves long speech- forces of people will go. es and he knows how to make them visually inter- esting, such as when Ned Beatty, as the cynical Screenwriter Paddy Chayefsky and Lumet knew head of the world’s largest corporation tries to win each other from their TV days--in fact, one of Lu- over TV anchorman, Howard Beale, to his way of met's earliest successes in TV was a Chayefsky ad- thinking about global economics. We see a long, aptation. They both knew television well and had the shiny wooden table, a low line of green lights, a dark same reservations about it: that it is reluctant to deal room, and the illuminated face of Beatty as he in- with meaningful material, focusing too exclusively on tones his belief that there is no democracy, no the bottom line. In an interview with David Sterritt, America, only large corporations such as IBM, Lumet called TV “the perfect excuse for the lack of Dupont, and Exxon. Lumet’s camera focuses on personal responsibility.” This, he says, is “what our Beatty’s face against the darkness and follows him picture is all about,” and why Chayefsky saw the me- as he slowly walks towards Beale who is sitting dium as an ideal vehicle for looking at the flaws of alone at one end of the table. There is an occasional American life. Lumet once described his collaborator cut to Beale’s face in stunned non-reaction, but the as, “the sane man yelling in an insane world” and “Network” is his rant.” (Rapf 71). more about divorce than you do" (Lumet 43). Lumet had been divorced several times. Chayefsky was the producer on the movie, and he brought the script to the director. Its tidy three-act Stylistically, the director and his cinematographer, structure even refers to itself when, in what Lumet Owen Roisman, made the look of the movie reflect calls a "marvelously written and acted scene,” em- its content. It is about corruption in the television battled TV producer Max Schumacher (William industry, so they "corrupted the camera." The movie Holden) tells his wife (Beatrice Straight) about his starts with an almost naturalistic look but as it pro- affair with co-worker Diana Christensen (Faye gresses, the camera set-ups become more formal, Dunaway). “Is this the middle of Act II, where the more rigid, and the lighting becomes more and more scorned wife kicks the husband out? Will it have the artificial. Finally, the next-to-last scene is lit like a happy ending with him returning contrite?" Yes, it commercial. The camera set-ups are static and will, and he implies that Diana, in many ways, is the framed like still pictures. Lumet says, "The camera surrogate screenwriter, shaping the individual sto- also had become a victim of television" (Lumet 85). ries, the individual acts. She is the manipulator, the one in control, right to the very end. Cold and unfeel- “Network” may still be the most scathing indictment ing, she uses the people around her to boost ratings of television ever made. It begins in the dark and and her career. When Max turns on Diana at the end gives us a nightmare world where the daily business and describes her as "madness incarnate," he also of life becomes a surreal comedy. In a 2003 inter- expresses what may well be Lumet's feelings about view Lumet once commented that “Network” is not living in a corrupt, mechanized, media world. satire, but “reportage. The only thing that hasn’t hap- pened in that movie is that we haven’t shot anybody In discussing his collaboration with Chayefsky, on the air. . . But, you know, you get these reality Lumet has stressed how all during production a series going a little bit further and it’s going to hap- movie is constantly being rewritten. For him, a direc- pen” (Rapf 186). Chayefsky was “always prescient.” tor is writing as he shoots the picture, although he When the writer died of cancer in 1981, Lumet re- disparages the auteur theory as "nonsense." Making flected: “When I look around at some of the absurdi- movies, he says again and again in interviews, is a ties of our lives, at the grotesque times we live collaborative process and he values all his collabora- through, I constantly wonder what Paddy might have tors, from the screenwriters to the grips. He obvious- done with them. He would've had too much to write ly worked closely with Chayefsky on “Network,” in- about. I miss him every day” (Lumet 43). cluding him on the set and during the rushes. In his book, “Making Movies,” Lumet writes of him with Works Cited great affection: Lumet, Sidney. “Making Movies.” New York: Vintage He was a man who cared passionately Books, 1996. about his work and about Israel. When we were casting, I suggested Vanessa Rapf, Joanna E., Ed. “Sidney Lumet Interviews.” Redgrave. He said he didn't want her. Jackson: Univ. of Mississippi Press, 2006. I said, "She's the best actress in the English-speaking world!" He said, The views expressed in this essay are those of the author and do not "She's a PLO supporter." I said, "Paddy, necessarily represent the views of the Library of Congress. that's blacklisting!" He said, "Not when a Jew does it to a Gentile” (42).

But the tables could also be reversed in the wonder- Joanna E. Rapf is an Emerita Professor of English and Film & Media Studies from the University of Oklahoma. ful give-and-take the two men shared in doing the She has published several essays on Sidney Lumet and movie. In the scene discussed above in the middle edited a volume of interviews with him, including one of of Act II, when Max tells his wife he's in love with her own. She also has books on Buster Keaton, “On the someone else, Chayefsky started to make a critical Waterfront,” and is co-editor of “The Blackwell Companion comment. Lumet writes in “Making Movies” that he to Film Comedy.” Her articles and essays on diverse film held up his hand and said, "Paddy, please, I know subjects have appeared various volumes and journals.