Following one of Jay Rosen’s recent talks on the people formerly known as the audience, there were some comments on the movie Network (1976) over on Stephaniii’s blog. I felt like an unequal contributor in this discussion because I’d never seen the classic film, so I decided to remedy this with a visit to my local video store.
I’m not going to review the film here, other than to endorse it heartily, both as a reflection on American anxieties in the 70s, and as a speculation on the logical outcomes of that period’s dominant ideologies. If you want to know more about it, check out Rotten Tomatoes. But let me act as a human recommendation engine, and suggest that if you liked Network, you might like the British television series The Prisoner (1967) or the J.G. Ballard novel The Atrocity Exhibition (1970).
One surprise about the movie was that the famous speech — “I’m mad as hell and I’m not going to take this any more” — does not occur at the end. I guess that a lifetime of Hollywood movies has given me certain structural expectations.
Here is another scene from further along in the film, where the owner of the network explains global capital:
You’re welcome to imagine Thomas L. Friedman talking in this way. As John Ralston Saul has said, watch out for things that are sold as inevitable.
Thanks for the link Dave!