Follow TV Tropes

Following

Context Film / Network

Go To

1%% Image selected per Image Pickin' thread: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/posts.php?discussion=1617715983059065700
2%% Please do not replace or remove without starting a new thread.
3%%
4[[quoteright:305:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/network_poster.png]]
5%%
6->''"Because less than 3% of you people read books! Because less than 15% of you read newspapers! Because the only truth you know is what you get over this tube. Right now, there is a whole, an entire generation that never knew anything that didn't come out of this tube! This tube is the Gospel, the ultimate revelation."''
7-->-- '''Howard Beale'''
8
9''Network'' is a 1976 satirical drama film written by Creator/PaddyChayefsky and directed by Creator/SidneyLumet. It is a harsh critique of (among other things) television and the short-attention-span culture over which it presides, [[StrawmanNewsMedia the media in general]] and its pandering to the LowestCommonDenominator, the homogenization of American entertainment by giant conglomerates, and the executives who treat the nightly news as a profit center instead of a public service. Initially a skewering of the sensationalization of broadcast news already happening even then, the film became prescient of the state of the industry over the ensuing decades.
10
11The film's main story centers around Howard Beale (Creator/PeterFinch), an evening news anchor at the struggling TV network Union Broadcasting System, or UBS. After being given two weeks notice that he's getting laid off due to declining ratings, Beale announces on a live newscast that he is going to kill himself. UBS fires him immediately, but Max Schumacher (Creator/WilliamHolden), the head of the news department and Beale's best friend, protests; the network ultimately decides to give Beale one last broadcast, presumably so he can have a dignified farewell. Beale takes this opportunity and runs with it by launching into an on-air rant about how life is "bullshit" -- which causes his ratings to skyrocket, prompting UBS to immediately renew his contract. During a subsequent broadcast, Beale preaches to his audience with the now-famous line "I'm as mad as hell, and I'm not going to take this anymore!", which soon becomes [[MemeticMutation his]] [[CatchPhrase mantra]]. UBS quickly turns Beale's news program into a live talk show, with segments on gossip, astrology, and opinion polls -- and Beale himself billed as the "mad prophet of the airwaves."
12
13In the meantime, ambitious UBS programming executive Diana Christensen (Creator/FayeDunaway) decides to capitalize on Beale's success, convincing ruthless network president Frank Hackett (Creator/RobertDuvall) to merge the news and entertainment divisions so that she can manage Beale's show and create a new program, ''The Mao Tse-Tung Hour'', aimed at the new audience that Beale is bringing in. She also enters a relationship with Schumacher, who must [[LoveTriangle choose]] between her and his wife Louise (Beatrice Straight). Things get even more complicated when Beale delivers an on-air rant against an imminent deal to merge UBS' corporate parent with a Saudi Arabian conglomerate, which draws the attention of quasi-messianic company chairman Arthur Jensen (Creator/NedBeatty).
14
15Nominated for ten UsefulNotes/{{Academy Award}}s, ''Network'' is notable as one of only three films (''Film/AStreetcarNamedDesire'' and ''Film/EverythingEverywhereAllAtOnce'' being the others) to win for three of the four acting categories: Finch won Best Actor posthumously (with Holden also getting nominated), while Dunaway and Straight won Best Actress and Best Supporting Actress respectively. (Beatty was nominated for Best Supporting Actor, but lost to Creator/JasonRobards for ''Film/AllThePresidentsMen''). Chayefsky, meanwhile, won Best Original Screenplay.
16
17The film was adapted into a [[ScreenToStageAdaptation stage play]] in 2017 starring Creator/BryanCranston as Howard Beale, for which he won the Tony Award for Best Performance in a Leading Role by an Actor in a Play.
18
19Compare ''Film/AFaceInTheCrowd'', another satire on mainstream media and media demagoguery from nearly 20 years prior, but nowhere near as cynical.
20
21If you're searching for information on the various companies that broadcast television, see {{Networks}}.
22----
23
24!!"YOU have meddled with the primal Tropes of nature, and YOU! WILL! ATONE!" :
25* ActorAllusion: In the film, Max and Diana refer to their affair as "a many-splendored thing" - an inside joke, since Creator/WilliamHolden had starred in ''Film/LoveIsAManySplendoredThing''.
26* ActuallyPrettyFunny: Max Schumacher's wife, Louise, is understandably devastated upon learning that her husband has been carrying on an affair with Diana. However, when Max begins recounting how Diana has concocted a number of plot outlines for how their relationship will play out, one of which ends with Max killing himself, Louise can't help but be somewhat amused.
27* AdoredByTheNetwork: In-universe, Arthur Jensen forbids UBS from firing or taking Beale off the air after Beale starts preaching Jensen's ideology even though it's causing the network to have bad ratings.
28* AllPartOfTheShow: The studio audience isn't horrified by Howard's {{Fainting}} at the end of his rants because they presumbaly view it as this. And no doubt [[spoiler:it took a while for them to realize his assassination was genuine]].
29* AllPsychologyIsFreudian: Diana mentions having seen a psychoanalyst for seven years and as a result, now has a father complex.
30* AllThereInTheManual: Before Creator/PaddyChayefsky wrote the screenplay, he created extensive backstories for the main characters, and even drew up an entire weekly programming grid for UBS. Some of the network's programs were the drama ''[[Series/PoliceWoman Lady Cop]]'', the sitcom ''[[Series/ChicoAndTheMan Pedro and the Putz]]'' and the back-to-back game shows ''Celebrity Canasta'' and ''Celebrity Mah-Jongg''. Very little of all this ended up in the finished film.
31* AnswersToTheNameOfGod: Implied by Jensen at the end of his rant/sermon.
32-->'''Beale:''' I have seen the face of God.
33-->'''Jensen:''' You just might be right, Mr. Beale.
34* AntiHero: All three of the leads. Howard Beale is a shining example of a ClassicalAntiHero.
35* ArcWords: "Fifty share" (talking about ratings),[[note]]Meaning that of all homes where people were watching TV, 50% of them would be watching Beale.[[/note]] "mad as hell", etc.
36* ArsonMurderAndJaywalking:
37-->'''Diana:''' You had less than a minute of hard national and international news. It was all sex, scandal, [[IfItBleedsItLeads brutal crime]], sports, [[LittlestCancerPatient children with incurable diseases]], and lost puppies.
38* BadBoss: Hackett. How bad is he? [[spoiler: He orders Beale assassinated because his ratings aren't high enough.]]
39* BeleagueredAssistant: Max has Harry, Diana has Barbara. Both are the level-headed lieutenants who bear the brunt of the impulsive decisions of their bosses.
40* BettyAndVeronica: For Max, his homely wife (Betty) vs. IceQueen Diana (Veronica).
41* BlackComedy: For all its effective dramatic scenes, this is a brutally hilarious satire of the media that grows more prescient by the year.
42* BookEnds: The first and last shots of the movie are a four-way split screen of the four networks (NBC, ABC, CBS, and the movie's fictional UBS), with the narrator talking about Howard Beale.
43* BrickJoke:
44** "What are we going to call it, ''The Mao Tse-Tung Hour''?"
45** As a subtle CallBack: Max tells Howard a hilarious story about jumping out of bed, throwing his raincoat over his pajamas and rushing to report on a bridge. Guess what Howard Beale wears when he delivers his famous speech?
46** When Hackett fires Max, Max claims that Hackett will be fired in turn by Arthur Jensen for Howard Beale's outbursts. But Hackett argues that it would be stupid of Jensen to fire him over the only show that's getting good ratings on the network, and asserts that Jensen would tell him, "That's very good, Frank. Keep it up." Sure enough, after Hackett delivers his ratings report during a meeting later in the film, Jensen tells him, "Very good, Frank. Exemplary. Keep it up."
47*** Which then gives an extra irony layer to the fact that Hackett eventually gets criticized by Jensen for suggesting to do precisely what the ratings demand.
48* BunnyEarsLawyer: Howard after getting fired, so much. He delivers the news in his ''[[PajamaCladHero pajamas]]''.
49* CastingGag: Mary Ann Gifford is played by Kathy Cronkite, daughter of Howard Beale's CBS rival Creator/WalterCronkite.
50* CharacterFilibuster: Every main character gets at least one, and most of Beale's appearances on TV are to deliver filibusters.
51* ChekhovsGunman: The Ecumenical Liberation Army. [[spoiler: Literally.]]
52* ChewingTheScenery: Howard in full rant mode, Jensen in full preaching mode, and Louise finally exploding at Max, which even earned Beatrice Straight an Oscar despite only five minutes of screen time.
53* ComicallyMissingThePoint: Beale tries to spell out to his audience that television is manipulating them and says, "We'll lie like hell". It doesn't get through to them.
54* CoolOldGuy: The president of the network, [[TyrantTakesTheHelm until he's replaced by Hackett.]]
55* CorruptCorporateExecutive: Frank Hackett couldn't care less about the condition of Howard Beale (or anyone else) as long as the ratings keep coming in. When Diana is asked whether she and Hackett are having an affair, she laughs it off with, "Frank Hackett has no loves, lusts or allegiances that are not directly related to becoming a CCA board member. I'm not even a stockholder."
56* CrapsackWorld: Beale's (in)famous "[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q_qgVn-Op7Q I'm as mad as hell]]" speech is a several-minute diatribe about how the world has gone straight to hell and what pisses him off even more is that people have put their heads in the sand and done nothing about it. Worse yet, it's a hell of a ratings booster but people ''still'' do nothing about it, [[spoiler:and it opens a precedent for increasingly sociopathic network ideas, culminating with (by the time the film ends) ''abetting terrorists and using them as killers for hire'']].
57* CreatorBreakdown: In-universe, as Howard Beale has a nervous breakdown on live television [[ThereAreNoGoodExecutives that the network encourages]].
58* DeadlineNews: Beale threatens to kill himself during a live news broadcast. Later, [[spoiler:the network executives have Beale assassinated on-air since his ratings are declining and the chairman refuses to cancel his show]].
59* DisproportionateRetribution: [[spoiler:Howard Beale is ''assassinated on air'' for declining ratings on his show and a refusal by the network chairman to cancel it.]]
60* DownerEnding: "This was the story of Howard Beale, the first known instance of a man who [[spoiler:was killed because he had lousy ratings]]." Could border on BittersweetEnding though, as [[spoiler: Diana earlier mentioned UBS being investigated by the U.S. government (see the Fridge tab), and a smartened-up Max leaves Diana, [[MaybeEverAfter perhaps salvaging his marriage to Louise as well.]]]]
61* DramaticThunder: During the "I'm mad as hell" scene.
62* DrivenToSuicide: Howard, almost.
63-->'''Howard Beale:''' I would like at this moment to announce that I will be retiring from this program in two weeks time because of poor ratings. Since this show is the only thing I had going for me in my life, I've decided to kill myself. I'm going to blow my brains out right on this program a week from today. So tune in next Tuesday. That should give the public relations people a week to promote the show. You ought to get a hell of a rating out of that. Fifty share, easy.
64* DysfunctionJunction: Every single character in this film is screwed up in their own way.
65* {{Eagleland}}: One of the most nihilistic Type Twos ever seen. Although honestly, the film is just as applicable in Europe or Asia as it is in America:
66-->'''Jensen:''' There is no America. There is no democracy. There is only IBM and ITT and AT&T and Du Pont, Dow, Union Carbide and Exxon.
67* EasyEvangelism: Jensen converts Beale to his (completely opposed) philosophy with one speech. He does cheat a bit, by stealing lines from the original "revelation" as Beale had earlier related it on his show.
68* EmotionlessGirl: Diana, in Max's opinion. See TheReasonYouSuckSpeech.
69* EvilIsHammy: Arthur Jensen.
70-->'''Arthur Jensen:''' YOU have meddled with the primal forces of nature and [[PunctuatedForEmphasis YOU! WILL! ATONE!]]
71** This was such an iconic moment for Ned Beatty that when he died in 2021, Creator/TurnerClassicMovies used it in their yearender ''TCM Remembers'' [[https://youtu.be/t52GYAl8xjg clipreel]].
72* ExecutiveMeddling:
73** An in-universe example. [[spoiler:Jensen convinces Beale to drop his fiery populist message because he's railing against a merger of CCA (the corporation that owns UBS) with a Saudi Arabian conglomerate — a merger that the deeply-in-debt UBS needs to stay afloat.]] All he really does is explain his own philosophy in terms Beale instantly accepts. The message is still just as fiery, he just switches sides.
74** Twice, a decision to fire Beale is overruled by executives higher on the ladder. The second time [[spoiler: the network responds by deciding to murder Beale rather than keep him on the air]].
75* {{Expy}}: Like Chayefsky's earlier screenplays for ''Film/TheAmericanizationOfEmily'' and ''Film/TheHospital'', the main trio of characters consists of: a once-ambitious man working for a large institution who's turned into a burned-out cynic with a chaotic personal life, a beautiful woman he falls for whose poised exterior covers up the fact that she's also messed-up, and an older respected man who's become mentally ill and is prone to delusions.
76%% * {{Fainting}}: Beale tends to do this mid-rant.
77* FreakOut: Beale's having a nervous breakdown on live television. Instead of getting him the help he needs, his bosses ''encourage it'', and he eventually goes completely [[{{Cloudcuckoolander}} Coo-Coo]].
78* {{Foreshadowing}}: In the first five minutes Beale and Schumacher joke about putting murders, suicides and terrorists on the air.
79* GeorgeJetsonJobSecurity: In Diana's debut scene:
80--> '''Diana:''' And, by the way, the next time I send an audience research report around, you'd all better read it, or I'll sack the fucking lot of you, is that clear?
81* GetOut: Said by the wife in the [[https://youtu.be/kzj1ViCA6RI?t=77 breakup scene]] in the kitchen.
82* GrandInquisitorScene: The confrontation between Howard Beale and Arthur Jensen.
83* GrumpyOldMan: Beale. All of his rants are about how the world has gone straight to hell and everybody's got a part in it.
84* HappilyMarried: Max and his wife have a happy marriage, although it takes him until the end of the film to realize it.
85* TheHeroDies: [[spoiler:Beale gets machine-gunned by terrorists on live television as a ratings stunt.]]
86* HeWhoFightsMonsters: Laureen Hobbs, though she despises capitalist organizations, agrees to work with UBS to spread the Communist message and get money for the Party. By the end of the film, her group has become so intertwined with the network that it's hard to tell the two apart.
87* HiddenDepths: Admit it, you didn't expect ''that'' from Arthur "Very-good-keep-it-up" Jensen.
88* HighPoweredCareerWoman: Diana Christensen is a darkly amoral example.
89* TheHorseshoeEffect: Jensen's utopian vision of the globalist future goes so far into idealized capitalism that it's functionally identical to idealized communism. Everyone together working for one giant corporation that fulfills every human need where everyone owns a single share of stock.
90* HypocrisyNod: Beale criticizes television while on television. At the end of his speech, he orders his viewers to turn their television sets off.
91* IceQueen: Diana. She's every bit as sociopathic as all other executives that appear (barring Max, and even he's no saint).
92* IgnoredEpiphany: Near the very end, after discussing [[spoiler: having Howard killed]], Hacket has a small moment where he then asks if anyone else has another idea as to how [[spoiler: they'll get rid of Beale]], seemingly realizing just how twisted and extreme their solution is. Unfortunately, his question is presented so passively that it seems while he is indeed hesitant to go through with it, he either doesn't care enough to stop it, or is too uncomfortable to go up against everyone else who’ve now sided with his idea, which is carried out.
93* InCaseYouForgotWhoWroteIt: The opening credits list the title as ''Network by Paddy Chayefsky''. When the screenwriter is also co-producing, he can get away with things like that.
94* KarmaHoudini: The entire successful conspiracy to [[spoiler:murder Howard Beale]].
95* KentBrockmanNews: PlayedForDrama, as it's a sign that Beale is in the midst of a full-fledged [[invoked]] CreatorBreakdown -- one that the UBS executives are more than happy to feed, given the ratings spike that resulted from it. Once the executives realize that his unhinged rants are bringing in better ratings than "serious" reporting ever was, they wind up turning their news department into a three-ring circus and {{retool}}ing their nightly news program into an [[PompousPoliticalPundit opinion]][=/=]VarietyShow hosted by a HotBlooded Beale, while the rest of UBS' programming is taken over by increasingly trashy {{reality show}}s (''avant le lettre'', as this movie was made in 1976).
96* LargeHam: [[WorldOfHam Almost every main character]], with Peter Finch's Howard Beale being the mightiest of them all. Enforced with Jensen, who deliberately emulates Beale himself to manipulate him.
97* LeaningOnTheFourthWall: Max says that the younger woman he's having an affair with can only relate to reality through television. She imagines their affair as a drama/tragedy, but he doesn't know if she expects a happy ending where he returns to his wife or not. He says all this in a conversation with his wife two-thirds of the way through the movie, which he refers to as the second act of a drama.
98* LoveTriangle: Diana/Max/Louise.
99* LowestCommonDenominator: In-universe, this is the target audience of UBS after Beale's news show becomes a hit.
100* MarriedToTheJob: Most obviously Diana, but Frank (and, before retirement, Max) is also a workaholic who seemingly has no other interests in life as lampshaded by Diana herself.
101* MayDecemberRomance: Between Diana and Max.
102* MemeticMutation: Happens in-universe to Beale's [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WGiX5tbLKiY "mad as Hell" speech]], as people all over the world take up the cry. It's such a famous scene, it's become susceptible to MemeticMutation in RealLife as well.
103* MisaimedFandom: An in-universe example. While Howard is sympathetic, it's pretty clear that he's having a mental breakdown during his "mad as hell" speech. The movie then goes on to show why network television empowering and commercializing his populist rage is a bad thing. Keep that in mind the next time you hear a pundit on network television saying they're "mad as hell".
104* [[MrExposition Ms. Exposition]]: A novel use of this as a way define a character. Diana's chatter to Max on their romantic evening together about the problems with ''The Mao Tse-Tung Hour'' gets the audience up to speed on that subplot, but the mere fact that she's obsessing about all this, even during and after having sex with the man she's fallen in love with, shows us how MarriedToTheJob she is.
105* MoneyDearBoy: In-universe, the only reason anyone does anything at UBS is for ratings, including keeping Howard on the air at all, and then [[spoiler: [[MurderIsTheBestSolution killing him]]. It's even put forth by Diana that UBS could use the on-air assassination for the opener for the next season of the Mao-Tse Tung Hour.]]
106* MyGodYouAreSerious: Max's (verbatim) reaction after Diana shares her ideas for "improving" the news broadcasts.
107* {{Narrator}}: One that provides certain facts such as the statistical meteoric rise of ''The Howard Beale Show'' [[spoiler:and finishes off with "this was the story of Howard Beale: the first man who died ''[[DisproportionateRetribution because of lousy ratings]]''."]]
108* NetworkDecay: In-universe, what eventually occurs to UBS (the ratings are high, but the quality...).
109* NewMediaAreEvil: A large theme is that television can warp viewers’ reality by making them accept what they see as the truth. Max even cites this as one of Diana's problems--she was raised watching TV, so she expects RealLife to play out like a TV episode. There's also been fair criticism that Chayefsky's notions of what American television was like in TheSeventies weren't totally grounded in reality and he [[TheWarOnStraw was making a Strawman argument]]. One of Beale's examples of the dishonesty of TV is that "Nobody ever gets cancer in Archie Bunker's house." In fact, ''Series/AllInTheFamily'' had already done an episode where Edith finds a lump in her breast in 1973.[[note]]It ended up being just a cyst, so Beale's point still stands, but it still makes Chayefsky seem out of the loop on the subject. Especially since Edith's friend Irene ''did'' have breast cancer and they had a conversation about it.[[/note]]
110* NewhartPhonecall: There are a few in the film, but perhaps the most dramatic one is when a furious Arthur Jensen calls Frank Hackett after the broadcast where Howard Beale tells the public to send protest letters to the White House over the middle east deal. We only hear Frank's side of the conversation, which mostly consists of "take it easy!" and such.
111* NewscasterCameo: Creator/{{CBS}}'s Creator/WalterCronkite, Creator/{{NBC}}'s John Chancellor, and Creator/{{ABC}}'s Howard K. Smith are all shown on TV monitors (via {{stock footage}}) along with Howard Beale during the opening narration.
112* NewsMonopoly: After [[spoiler:Howard is assassinated on-air]], the camera pans out from a single monitor depicting the immediate aftermath of the event to a row of monitors featuring multiple news networks reporting on what just happened. One by one, they all turn off until the viewer is again left with the single frame of [[spoiler:Howard's dead body]].
113* NWordPrivileges:
114-->'''Diana:''' Hi. I'm Diana Christensen, a racist lackey of the imperialist ruling circles.
115-->'''Laureen:''' I'm Laureen Hobbs, a badass commie nigger.
116* NoCelebritiesWereHarmed:
117** Mary Ann Gifford and her captors, the Ecumenical Liberation Army, bear a suspicious resemblance to Patty Hearst and ''her'' kidnappers, the Symbionese Liberation Army, with The Great Ahmed Khan as a takeoff on the SLA's leader, Donald "Field Marshal Cinque" [=DeFreeze=], who cultivated a ScaryBlackMan persona. Lampshaded by Diana and Bill.
118--->'''Diana:''' The Ecumenical Liberation Army, that's not the one that kidnapped Patty Hearst?\
119'''Bill:''' No, no, that's the ''Symbionese'' Liberation Army. This is the ''Ecumenical'' Liberation Army. They're the ones that kidnapped Mary Ann Gifford three weeks ago. There's a hell of a lot of Liberation Armies in the revolutionary underground, and a lot of kidnapped heiresses.
120** Similarly, Laureen Hobbs stands in for '70s communist firebrand UsefulNotes/AngelaDavis.
121** Diana is rumored to be based on an NBC exec at the time, Lin Bolen, who obsessed over ratings every minute of the day.[[note]]She's notably reviled amongst game show fans, as she cancelled the original ''Series/{{Concentration}}'', ''Series/ThreeOnAMatch'' (replacing it with the trainwreck that was ''Series/WinningStreak''), and the original ''Series/{{Jeopardy}}'' (though to replace it, she brought in ''Series/WheelOfFortune''), and neutered the original ''Series/{{Jackpot}}'' (changing it from high-budget riddles to low-budget Q&A after a focus group said "we don't like riddles")[[/note]]
122** Howard Beale's threatened on-air suicide echoes [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christine_Chubbuck Christine Chubbuck's]] real one. Paddy Chayefsky was already working on the screenplay when it happened, and the similarity was just a meaningful coincidence, but in one draft written after the Chubbuck incident he had Beale mention that his planned suicide would be like "that girl in Florida".
123** Chayefsky reportedly told interviewers that Arthur Jensen was meant to evoke UsefulNotes/TheodoreRoosevelt, with his stocky build and big mustache, and his rather old fashioned notions of capitalism as the driving force of society.
124** In the early outlines of the story, Chayefsky rather unsubtly gave the proto-Howard Beale character the name [[Creator/WalterCronkite Kronkheit]].
125* NoSuchThingAsBadPublicity: Invoked in-universe, after Hackett fires Schumacher and tells him he's following Diana Christensen's suggestion of merging the network's news and entertainment divisions:
126-->'''Schumacher:''' I'm gonna spread this whole reeking business in every newspaper, on every network, group and affiliate in this country. I'm gonna make a lot of noise about this.\
127'''Hackett:''' Great! We need all the press we can get!
128* NotSoBadassLongcoat: Howard's trench coat is old and battered and in the iconic "mad as hell" scene, he's wearing it over his pajamas.
129* NotSoDifferentRemark:
130** According to Jensen, there is no difference between America and any other nation: they all care about money.
131--->'''Arthur Jensen:''' We no longer live in a world of nations and ideologies, Mr. Beale. The world is a collage of corporations, inexorably determined by the immutable bylaws of business."
132** When Diana first approaches Schumacher about her ideas to add more showbiz to the news and he balks, she gives him a version of this.
133--->'''Diana Christensen:''' I watched your six o'clock news today; it's straight tabloid. You had a minute and a half of that lady riding a bike naked in Central Park; on the other hand, you had less than a minute of hard national and international news. It was all sex, scandal, brutal crime, sports, children with incurable diseases, and lost puppies. So, I don't think I'll listen to any protestations of high standards of journalism when you're right down on the streets soliciting audiences like the rest of us.
134* OhCrap: Hackett gives a delicious one when he learns Beale lambasted the Arab deal on the air.
135* OneLinerEcho: People all over the world repeat the "Mad as Hell" punch-line of Beale's speech in agreement.
136* TheOnlyBeliever: Mary Ann Gifford, ironically given that she's a rich heiress who the Ecumenical Liberation Army kidnapped and brainwashed. During the contract negotiations with UBS, she interrupts and gives Laureen a TheReasonYouSuckSpeech accusing her of selling out her ideals for the network's money.
137* OnlyInItForTheMoney: After beginning the movie as a dyed-in-the-wool communist, Laureen Hobbs has become this by the end. It's a strange example, because she's still a communist, but Diana convinces her that she can only advance her cause by gaining money and influence, which requires working with the network. And once she starts compromising with the corporate agenda, it tends to take over everything.
138* OnlySaneMan: Schumacher to a degree, as even though he too is a flawed character, he's one of the only people to recognize Beale's descent into madness and call out the network's exploitation of it.
139* OohMeAccentsSlipping: Peter Finch tries for an East Coast/mid-Atlantic accent as Howard, but his natural Aussie accent comes through in a few scenes.
140* PompousPoliticalPundit: Beale is a more heroic example than most, though he's still quite pompous and arguably insane. His politics are also less explicitly left- or right-wing, instead being a broader "mad as hell" populism.
141* PrecisionFStrike: Quite a few F-bombs get dropped, but this one stands out.
142-->'''Secretary:''' Mr. Hackett's trying to get through to you.\
143'''Max:''' Tell Mr. Hackett to go fuck himself.
144* PunctuatedForEmphasis: '''AND YOU. WILL. ATONE!'''
145* PyrrhicVictory: Max makes it clear to Diana that for all her purported success, she's doomed to live a cold, empty existence devoid of human connection. Diana admits he's right and begs Max to stay with her, but Max wants nothing to do with her anymore.
146* RageBreakingPoint: Howard Beale was already getting tired of the world and everything in it, but once he gets notified that he's going to be fired, he finally [[SanitySlippage snaps]] and delivers an incredibly blistering rant on-air about how the world is bullshit [[DrivenToSuicide and he plans to end his stay in it soon]], [[IncitingIncident leading to the rest of the plot]].
147* RealityHasNoSoundtrack: Like he did with ''Film/DogDayAfternoon'', Creator/SidneyLumet increases the tension by not having a non-diegetic score. There is original music, but it's used as theme music for the various in-universe TV shows.
148* RealityShow: ''The Mao Tse-Tung Hour'', a show chronicling the exploits of a group of leftist domestic terrorists.
149* TheReasonYouSuckSpeech:
150** Schumacher gives Diana [[https://youtu.be/X4DXaKuOAZ0?t=130 one of these]] when he breaks up with her.
151--->'''Schumacher:''' You're television incarnate, Diana. Indifferent to suffering. Insensitive to joy. All of life is reduced to the common rubble of banality. War, murder, death. All the same to you as bottles of beer. And the daily business of life is a corrupt comedy. You even shatter the sensations of time and space into split seconds and instant replays. You're madness, Diana. Virulent madness. And everything you touch dies with you.
152** Louise delivers one to Max when he tells her about his ongoing affair with Diana. She rips him to pieces over his infidelity, but makes it clear that she still loves him. Max is obviously deeply wounded by her reaction.
153* RefugeInAudacity: Seemingly the entire ''raison d'etre'' of UBS' programming under Diana Christensen.
154* ResignationsNotAccepted: Howard tries to quit his job more than once, but he's not allowed to for various reasons. [[spoiler:Until the network decides to kill him.]]
155* RunningGag: The scene in Diana's office where they're reading submitted pitches for television shows. You'll lose count of the times that characters are said to be either "brilliant", "beautiful" and "crusty but benign". TruthInTelevision, anyone?
156* SanitySlippage: After Beale has a nervous breakdown on live television, instead of getting him the help he needs, his bosses cruelly ''encourage it'', and he eventually fully loses it.
157* ScaryBlackMan: The Great Ahmed Khan. Subverted in that he portrays himself as a criminal mastermind, but when he appears onscreen in person he's eating fried chicken and seems kind of dimwitted -- Laureen compares him to Archie Bunker! -- or at least ''very'' laid-back. Even during the big argument in the contract discussion, where he quietly pulls out a gun and fires into the air to shut everybody up, then calmly says "Give her the fucking overhead clause. Let's get to page twenty-two, 5(a), subsidiary rights..."
158* ScrewTheRulesIHaveMoney: Because the network is buying film from a terrorist group of them robbing banks, the government is threatening to indict the network for conspiracy to commit crimes. Diana isn't worried, their lawyer will argue every possible defense including the First Amendment, right to protect sources, and even if they lose it will take years to wind through the courts.
159* ScrewedByTheNetwork: In-universe, the executives [[spoiler:have Beale killed due to his show's declining ratings]].
160* ScrewPolitenessImASenior: Howard Beale, all the way.
161-->'''Doorman:''' Good afternoon, Mr. Beale.\
162'''Howard:''' I must make my witness!\
163'''Doorman:''' Sure thing, Mr. Beale.
164* SeriousBusiness: Evidently, [[spoiler:poor ratings are enough for the network executives to have a man assassinated]].
165* SesquipedalianLoquaciousness: Paddy Chayefsky's fondness for florid language plays itself out over the course of the film. In Chayefsky's world, a corporate stooge like Frank Hackett drops such phrases as "intractable and adamantine" into staff meetings.
166* ShaggyDogStory: While Howard's mental stability went down the drain, he ''did'' keep his job and didn't end up shooting himself on air. [[spoiler:It doesn't stop corporate from killing him.]]
167* ShoutOut:
168** Howard Beale's last name was chosen in honor of Big Edie and Little Edie Beale of ''Film/GreyGardens'' fame. "Howard" was for the film's producer, Howard Gottfried.
169** Max Schumacher was named after [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hal_Schumacher Hal Schumacher]], a baseball pitcher who Creator/PaddyChayefsky had admired when he was a kid.
170* ShownTheirWork: Chayefsky did extensive research, visiting the three networks, shadowing the head of Creator/{{NBC}}'s news division for a few days, and interviewing Creator/WalterCronkite and John Chancellor.
171* SillyRabbitIdealismIsForKids: Played deadly straight (as befits a film this cynical):
172-->'''Nelson:''' Well, I don't want any part of it. I don't fancy myself the president of a whorehouse.\
173'''Hackett:''' That's very commendable of you, Nelson. Now sit down. Your indignation is duly noted; you can always resign tomorrow.
174** And to add insult to injury, Nelson never actually resigns.
175* SingleTear: Shed by Louise after she yells at Max.
176* SmallRoleBigImpact: Beatrice Straight won Best Supporting Actress on the basis of ''one'' WhatTheHellHero speech in her third (and final) scene of the film. All told she's only onscreen for 5 minutes and 27 seconds (if you don't include the camera panning away from her or cuts away from her in her scenes).[[note]]1:10 in the scene where Howard leaves the apartment, :07 watching TV in the "mad as hell" scene, 4:10 in the scene with Max, though she pauses her dialogue at the 3:38 mark and only has one final line at the close of the scene[[/note]]
177** Similarly, Ned Beatty was nominated for Best Supporting Actor on the basis of ''his'' one real scene, which consists almost entirely of his epic filibuster to Beale, and has only a minute or so more screen time.
178* TheSociopath: Considering it deals with network executives, quite a few characters qualify, but none more so than Diana. Chillingly demonstrated in the second-to-last scene, when [[spoiler:Frank tosses out the idea of killing Howard as half-serious [[DeadpanSnarker Deadpan Snark]], but Diana unemotionally brainstorms a way to do it. Then when Frank still seems hesitant about the whole idea — "Shall we kill Howard Beale or not? I'd like to hear some more opinions on that" — Diana shuts down the discussion with a curt "I don't see we have any options, Frank. Let's kill the son of a bitch."]]
179* SophisticatedAsHell: The narrator has a very grave and solemn tone at all times and mostly speaks formally. But at the end of his first narration he goes "The two old friends got properly pissed."
180* SpeedSex: Diana is a very rare ''female'' version. She warns Max beforehand that she is "masculine" in the bed and climaxes quickly... and lord, she does.
181* StealthPun: Immediately following the first scene of ''The Howard Beale Show'', where Beale is introduced as the mad prophet of the airwaves, Hackett states to the Board of Directors that his section is "the most significant profit center of the communications complex", with special emphasis on the word '''profit'''.
182* StrawmanNewsMedia: Of the vapid/lurid variety, later degenerating into outright corporate-controlled content when Jensen [[spoiler:silences Beale's criticism of his corporation's merger with a Saudi conglomerate]].
183* SupportingProtagonist: Max Schumacher in the second half. Though Howard's actions drive the plot, most of the second half is told from Max's perspective.
184%% * TerroristsWithoutACause: The Ecumenical Liberation Army.
185* ThereAreNoGoodExecutives: Nearly all of them are portrayed as greedy, amoral bastards except Chaney, who seems to be a decent guy but stopped trying to fight the corruption simply because he knows he can't win; and Ruddy, the CEO of UBS, is also portrayed as being offended by Beale's rants and the exploitation of them by Hackett and Christiansen. [[SpringtimeForHitler He keeps Beale on the air with the notion that Beale's inevitable collapse will damage Hackett's reputation.]] [[spoiler:But Ruddy has a heart attack, dies, and is replaced by Hackett before this can happen.]] May or may not apply to Jensen; he's just as passionate as Beale, but on the opposite side.
186* ThereAreNoTherapists: For Howard, at least. Max says that he needs "care and treatment" but the network executives prevent it because they don't want to lose their hit show.
187* ThisIsReality: Max reminds Diana that this isn't one of her television drama scripts, it's real life.
188* TooBleakStoppedCaring: In-universe: When Howard Beale modifies his rants to be more nihilistic:
189--> '''Narrator''': It was a perfectly admissible argument that Howard Beale advanced in the days that followed. It was, however, also a very depressing one. Nobody particularly cared to hear his life was utterly valueless. By the end of the first week in June, the ''Howard Beale Show'' dropped one point in the ratings and its trend of shares dipped under 48 for the first time since last November.
190* TragicHero: Beale, who in his autumn years just wanted to be done with all the bullshit, and ended up promoting it. And who [[spoiler:dies in the end]].
191* VisionaryVillain: Arthur Jensen seems to be motivated beyond simply being a CorruptCorporateExecutive into something intensely ideological.
192-->'''Jensen:''' You have meddled with the primal forces of nature, Mr. Beale, and I won't have it!
193* VillainHasAPoint: Arthur Jensen's [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zI5hrcwU7Dk speech]] where he converts Beale to his point of view is actually a fairly decent defense of financial globalism as a force for good (at least as opposed to protectionist isolationism). It helps that he deliberately copies Beale's style.
194%% * WeAreExperiencingTechnicalDifficulties: Hastily employed after Beale threatens suicide.
195* WeAreStrugglingTogether: The Communist Party and the ECF can't stand each other, apparently. They collaborate anyway for the ratings.
196* WesternTerrorists: The leftist guerrilla group that ''The Mao Tse-Tung Hour'' follows, and who [[spoiler:kill Beale on orders from the executives]].
197----

Top