Sidney Lumet and Paddy Chayefsky\'s 1976 satire imagined live televised breakdowns, terrorism-as-content, and corporate ventriloquism as the network business model. Every prediction the film made about American media has come true with terrifying precision.
Sidney Lumet films Howard Beale's 'I'm as mad as hell' broadcast as the genre's foundational monologue. The film's argument: the medium will use everything it can hold, including the speech.
An essential entry — Network embodies exactly what this collection is about.
A pivotal entry in this collection — Network represents exactly what makes this theme essential viewing.
Sidney Lumet imagined a news anchor screaming on-air and a network monetizing his breakdown. Half a century later it is just called cable news. Howard Beale’s "mad as hell" speech is now everyone’s daily Twitter draft.
