Peter Finch goes bonkers after watching a few samples of early 21st-century U.S. television news shows.
Five-time Academy Award nominee Sidney Lumet, also the recipient of an Honorary Oscar in 2004, will be the special guest at the "Monday Nights with Oscar" screening of the anti-TV, anti-human imbecility 1976 comedy-drama Network. Lumet will be on hand to take part in a post-screening conversation with Hollywood Reporter columnist and classy Turner Classic Movies host Robert Osborne — who also happens to be the official biographer of the Academy Awards. The event will be held on Monday, March 19, at 7:30 p.m. at the Academy Theater in New York City.
The frighteningly prescient Network stars Academy Award winner Peter Finch as Howard Beale, an aging television news anchor who, mad as hell, threatens to commit suicide on-air after being fired for poor ratings. Not even "intelligent" bombs being dropped all over Baghdad could be more fun. Beale’s suicide threats bring in a large number of viewers — the same type of human-looking amoebas who spend their days and evenings watching Larry King and other television clowns discuss the details of Anna Nicole Smith’s death and burial place.
Enter ambitious network gal Faye Dunaway, who undeservedly won a best actress Oscar, and who knows that pornography sells. Nope, not explicit sex — explicit idiocy.
Paddy Chayefsky won a best original screenplay Oscar for his cynical — and spot-on — look at human degradation on all levels. Lumet, for his part, received his third Academy Award nomination. (Lumet was also nominated as a director for Twelve Angry Men, 1957; Dog Day Afternoon, 1975; and The Verdict, 1982: he received an additional nod for his — and Jay Presson Allen’s — adapted screenplay for Prince of the City, 1981.)
In addition to Finch and Dunaway, Beatrice Straight won the best supporting actress Oscar that year. Network is one of two movies — the other being the 1951 drama A Streetcar Named Desire — to boast three wins in the acting categories. Finch also made history by becoming the first actor to win a posthumous Oscar. (He suffered a fatal heart attack two months before the ceremony.)
Network also received Oscar nominations in the following categories: Actor in a Leading Role (William Holden, in what may well be the finest performance in his long career), Actor in a Supporting Role (Ned Beatty), Cinematography (Owen Roizman), and Film Editing (Alan Heim).
Now, don’t laugh. The Academy picked Rocky over Network (produced by Howard Gottfried) and Taxi Driver as the best film of 1976. Will those guys ever learn?
The print for this screening of Network is provided courtesy of Warner Bros.
The Academy Theater is located at 111 East 59th Street in New York City. Tickets for the screening are $5 for the general public and $3 for Academy members and students with a valid ID.
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