Network (Lumet)
It was like _gic. A film that weaves careful compositions, contrasts in breadth of spaces, and a cynical, frequently detached viewpoint into the Western world today.
But it does get preachy after a while. If the audience acts as choir, then Peter Finch isn't the only one screaming a blunt message at us. The same category includes William Holden, Ned Beatty, and Faye Dunaway: an all-star cast for straightforward commentary. I generally take issue with most direct advice; honestly, though, this weakness doesn't damage the film, which communicates its comparison of the old West with the new West through more subtle means. I also have no complaints about the message itself: the post-modern scream-louder-than-everyone-else complex ought to receive demolition. Yet Lumet needed to find the best balance between exposition and honest dialogue. He did, but the film barely steals a 5-star rating as a consequence of the script itself.
—Easy enough to sweat over a no-hands-barred story, of course. The rest of the movie works well enough to put modern treatises on the subject to shame. After consistent camera droning over ensconced TV sets and the endless monotony of work and people at UBS, even Diana's first awkward meeting with Max visually benefits from a backdrop of lit office rooms from other news towers, all looking like Polaroid-filtered TV sets. Moments like those proliferate throughout the experience—like at the beginning and ending of the film, where images arrive through TV screens stranded in metaphysical space—and they create a sort of stylized landscape through which the common man becomes a puppet to infinite surroundings. This all underscores the trapped romance between ephemeral Diana and fixed Max, which sells the main theme of cultural divide between two frames of mind.
It's incredible that such a film could work within a dated context and still communicate an incredibly important message about perception. —That the film won numerous Oscars for describing the same dreaded world the Academy voters live or have lived in equally impresses. Network certainly can't reach the philosophical heights of films like 2001 and Iphigenia, but Lumet and his team show consummate confidence throughout this picture. Little harm to think that more films like these haven't come around as frequently as they should.
Joe Bob sez check it out!
*****
