Plot: What’s it about?
If there was any director in any decade that was the definition of a hot streak with many consecutive films going for much acclaim and awards one of them would be Sidney Lumet as the mid-1970s proved not only award viable but also extremely varied whether it came to a bank robbery gone wrong, a Victorian whodunnit aboard a train or Sean Connery and his band of merry men robbing a building on Labor Day weekend only to discover surveillance following him everywhere he goes. When it came to the bicentennial year, the film that came out of him was simply about television and a figure of television that would go one step further while the others tried to find a way to protect him or exploit him. After all, it’s all in a normal period of seasons in this television Network.
UBS, the fourth channel on the television dial, has been the laughing stock of television. Its programming has always gotten killed in the ratings and there seems to be no hope in site when a corporation is in negotiations of buying UBS and finding ways to profit off it, particularly in the news division. At the same time, newsman Howard Beale (Peter Finch) has been going through trouble professionally and personally and one night in front of a live news audience after hearing that he’ll be let go proposes to kill himself on the air one week from the day. This causes immediate panic amongst particularly with his boss Schumacher (William Holden) who’s own grief with his news division getting cut causes him to leave Howard on the following night in a more outrageous message to the audience from him. With that the ratings are high and now UBS and their main programming boss, Diana Christensen (Faye Dunaway) will do anything they can to boost up the news with him leading with his rants while unknown to them, he’s suffering as it is and its only a matter of time when it’ll all become madness.
This is one of the most unique films to come out of that great era of film where the characters and the writing were at top form. It boasts a wonderful cast with the well deserved nominees and winners along with a few on the outside that did solid work that weren’t honored like Robert Duvall who seems to have something up his sleeve every time as the corporate representative. With every bit of dialogue and with every bit of scene, it’s almost like a very good play translated into a great motion picture and many are given speeches but with every bit of conviction and strength that we the audience can just feel the edge coming so close that the tension can be felt and that’s without using a gun or any violence.
It remains one of the most hookable screenplays with quotable lines and a feeling of “I wonder what’s gonna happen next” with this insane network of crazies. It never goes over the top and keeps a reserve that is saved for the quiet moments away from UBS even though there are some that have their own share of insanity as well. It’s amazing how it foresaw a lot of what we see in today’s television right down to the ones grounded to reality.
Once again, another one of Lumet’s touches works out extremely well for this film, the absence of an original score but rather in its place, a narrator that we never see documenting all that is happening throughout (voiced by Lee Richardson). Through everything, Network makes what could be easily campy and over the top into something more than manageable with a serious film with comic overtones.
Video: How does it look?
“Network” has had a somewhat sordid history on DVD and Blu-ray, but thankfully Criterion’s 4K disc clears up some of those earlier problems (pardon the pun, of course). The 1.85:1 HEVC 4K transfer appears much sharper and more well-defined. Colors seem a bit more energized as compared to the previous editions. There’s a sharpness that wasn’t present in the earlier versions, though it’s not so sharp that it takes away from the film. It still has a 70’s look/feel/vibe to it, which I like, but it now looks as good as it should – which I like more.
Audio: How does it sound?
There’s really only so much you can do with a mono track and though you can add some fancy verbiage like DTS HD Master Audio there, but it’s still really just one channel. Thankfully this one channel provides us with some of the most interesting and entertaining dialogue of the last forty years. If you were to watch the trailer, you’d shudder when you heard the audio, but the track sounds quite natural. Granted, without the benefit of some of the other speakers to back it up, it’s pretty definitive as to what we actually get. It sounds good, though.
Supplements: What are the extras?
- Audio Commentary – Lumet’s commentary goes into little details in the making of the film along with a look back to the director’s early days behind the camera in television. It provides a well informed anecdotal track that stands along the other fine Lumet tracks, as always, worth a listen.
- Paddy Chayefsky: Collector of Words – A feature-length documentary about the screenwriter by Matthew Miele is a new feature added for this Criterion version.
- The Making of Network – This multi part documentary covering all the bases from the writer Paddy Chayefsky and his development of the script to the casting and the little side comments here and there from many of the films players living presently along with the producer and director Lumet putting in his two cents and making for an almost ninety minute look of the film that takes the format of the film and applies it to the documentary in a most different fashion. Nevertheless the time goes by rather quickly during this entertaining documentary that can be viewed in the different parts individually.
- Theatrical Trailer
- Illustrated Booklet – An essay by political commentator and New York Times columnist Jamelle Bouie along with the production notes and photos.
The Bottom Line
A half a century after its release, Network remains as pertinent as ever. In a world in which media outlets are run by billionaires (who seemingly run our country), someone speaking “the truth” is often ostracized. Criterion’s 4K offering gives us the picture we’ve been waiting for and though we’re missing a few supplements from Warner’s Blu-ray, what’s included is worth the price of admission.
