Network

Sidney Lumet directs a screenplay Paddy Chayefsky wrote after walking through network offices, struck that the executives there watched little television. Doubting an Australian could sound American, producers made Peter Finch test for Howard Beale; he paid his own fare to New York and prepared by reading newspaper editions into a tape recorder and judging the playback himself. Lumet and cinematographer Owen Roizman built the lighting as a curve. The opening carries barely enough light for an exposure, the setups stiffen as it proceeds, and the next to last scene, where the executives settle Beale’s fate, is lit like a commercial. Production began in Toronto in January 1976. At the 49th Academy Awards the film drew 10 nominations and took 4: Finch, posthumously, with Faye Dunaway, Beatrice Straight and Chayefsky. Best Picture and Best Director went to Rocky. It turned 5 Golden Globe nominations into 4 wins, and led the 31st BAFTA field with 9 nominations while winning only Finch’s. A good fit if you want a picture carried by long platform speeches rather than incident, and want to watch the lighting turn artificial scene by scene. Not for anyone troubled by the stretch built around Saudi money and its Arab characters, which Jack Shaheen took up in Reel Bad Arabs.