Network

Netflix inspired some customer ire recently when the movie delivery service raised the membership fee for accounts renting DVDs. When I heard about this, my first thought was, “People still rent DVDs from Netflix?” Well, my parents are still on AOL so I guess anything is possible.  I signed up for Netflix in the summer of 2004 when even @NJFilm2011 thought DVDs in the mail was a bit sketchy (he’s come round since then), but switched over to the streaming only service option 2 years ago.

I admit, there are few new releases on demand but most aren’t available from Netflix in DVD format in the first month after release, and after all, I do live less than 2 miles from my library where movies can be reserved and rented for free. The hours of entertainment my kids got streaming That 70s Show, Dexter, and Arrested Development more than made up for the dearth of new movies for Mom, and I began to discover older movies I haven’t seen since their release that are only better decades later.

Network is just such a movie.  Made in 1975, I didn’t see it until the major television networks showed it in the late 70s and even then I don’t think I appreciated the underlying message.  Known primarily for the “Mad as Hell” speech which eerily echos the same issues we’re facing as a country today – unemployment, undervalued dollar, banks going bust – what really struck me was how prescient the programming decisions of the fictional UBS staff members are.  Howard Beale’s rants about the condition of government, business and society in his time and ultimately how corporations will be our savior could play well to Tea Partiers and Fox News viewers today.  ”The Mao Tse Tung Hour” with it’s YouTube like amateur video of revolutionaries robbing a bank complete with a kidnapped heiress (a 70s terrorist requirement) combined with the reality TV style communist party functionaries could be a hit online if you update the dogma and hairstyles.

I won’t give the ending away, and be warned, every major character gets at least one passionate Don Draper style speech which is a bit wearing on the viewer by hour two especially Robert Duvall’s rants delivered at top volume.  These days we can fast forward (or watch scenes on YouTube) but don’t miss William Holden’s speech at the end as he walks out on Faye Dunaway.  In this scene, he tells her she’s “television incarnate”, leading a scripted life of limited emotion and expectations.   Earlier when they go away together and she babbles about ratings and programming decisions (even while they have less than passionate sex), he observes that hers is the first generation to define their lives based on what they see on the tube.  From a member of the Greatest Generation, this is no compliment.

Watching this movie 35 years after it’s release, I know it’s too dark to ever be remade, but if it were, how easy to substitute the internet for television in it’s bleak portrayal of human existence.  In the world of Network, the TV generation (of which I am a part) became more interested in the characters in sitcoms and dramas than the people in their community, encouraged the cult of celebrity, and got a dose of war and government corruption at the end of each day.  Like Howard Beale points out, we were glued to the tube at the expense of family dinners and human interaction, and we needed more and more sensational programs to keep us interested.

You can thank us for 24 hour news channels and reality TV.

Is the internet the natural progression arising from our need for more extravagant and lurid entertainment as an updated Network might suggest? Will it ultimately supplant traditional TV viewing and programming?  Or has it brought back the human interaction that the TV took away from its millions of viewers in the 1970s? Inquiring minds want to know … comment here and stay tuned for the next post where our blogger bravely extends online networks to the next level –  the real world!