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Hitchcock, "Psycho" and the new CNN Series "The Movies"

posted 5 years ago by ecarle (14979)
18 replies | jump to latest

I sort of stumbled onto this.

The CNN network has followed up a series on various American decades (The Sixties, The Seventies, The Eighties) with a series on various American(mostly) MOVIES of the various decades(The Sixties, The Seventies, The Eighties.)

I came to it late, I've watched a few decades and...its an interesting series. If limited.

It was only by "reading up" that I learned that CNN LED with the episode on "The Eighties." Makes sense. Its the big Spielberg/Lucas decade and it has things like Ghostbusters and Top Gun and Batman , too. (And Rambo....)

But I came in late enough that I've been able to watch The Sixties(where Psycho be), and The Seventies, and The Eighties. So far. I'm looking forward to watching The Nineties.

I think the series is looking to "compress" on other decades. Next week, they will premiere "The Golden Era" which will evidently cover the 30's, 40's, and 50's in one big gulp. (Like man, who even REMEMBERS those decades, right?)

And I think one other episode is "2000 until today."

Its funny: I watched my episodes with a mix of enjoyment and too much familiarity and THEN I read some reviews. And the reviews are largely panning the series. Rightly, one reviewer noted how much these episodes are like the "AFI Great Movies" clips specials of the 90's and 00's.

And there's also this problem: quick interviews with "big shots" like Spielberg, Scorsese, DeNiro, and Hanks(who co-produced this series) are interspersed with a bunch of people I'll just have to call "nobodies." Well, they are nobodies like me. Just regular people with opinions. Though many have " critic credentials." They've even got some comedians remarking on these films -- comedians I've never heard of. Its all very "slight" when the Big Shots aren't talking.

THIS is great: the opening credit sequence, which posits a "ride through time and space" as various famous movies "pop up" one after the other in chronological order. They eventually reach North by Northwest(the crop duster chasing Cary) and that INSTANTLY morphs into the House on the Hill in Psycho -- with Janet in the shower superimposed on the house. (No room in this sequence, for Vertigo or The Birds - BUT the Vertigo falling man shot is in a commercial for this series, and the montage opens with a ticket that says "The Birds.") To watch this credit sequence(and to hear the thunderous music composed for it) is to be thrilled, exhilarated and yes, made a little sad. NXNW morphs into Psycho with a LOT more credits left to run -- Bond, The Godfather, Star Wars, The Shining, Ghostbusters...Die Hard, Silence of the Lambs, Titanic... its like watching one's life pass before one's eyes.

There is a print ad to promote "The Movies" which puts a bunch of famous movie characters together as if they are in the same room: Wonder Woman, Rocky, Beetlejuice, Bluto, Beverly Hills Cop, Holly Golightly -- and Alfred Hitchcock , the only director in the bunch (nice of the still alive Spielberg, Scorsese and Burton to allow this.) You can find that ad on the net, I am sure. Its kinda special.

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As it turns out, "Psycho" is really the only Hitchcock movie to get an extended discussion. In The Sixties episode. Some talking head talks about "Hitchcock being on a roll" and clips from Vertigo and NXNW rush by...and then we get to a sit-down on Psycho. Peter Bogdanovich -- now in his 80's and looking VERY old, tells his always fun story of 1,000 NYC patrons screaming as one at the shower scene, and a few other folks say a few other things and that's it. On to Lawrence of Arabia or something. And no "on screen" mention of The Birds.

In the "Seventies" episode, though there are occasional "flurry filler montages' of movies they can't discuss in depth, NONE of them is Frenzy or Family Plot. I think the point of the series is: Hitchcock stopped being relevant in the 60's.

I would expect when next week's "Golden Era" episode airs, they can pick all sorts of Hitchcock films from the 30's(though the series isn't "international" much;maybe the British films won't count); the 40''s and the 50's. Its really his most active period, even if it was that stretch from the fifties into the sixties where everything climaxed. (And Frenzy WAS relevant in 1972.)

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That's about it on Hitchocck in "The Movies" series.

I'd like to jump to the "Eighties" episode because it really does buttress swanstep's opinion about how entertaining so many of those movies were.

They cover the whole Lucas/Spielberg thing, but other movies and trends get their discussions. The SNL movies (Caddyshack, Ghostbusters). Eddie Murphy as an adjunct of SNL AND as his own superstar. The epics get their due(Reds, The Last Emperor, Amadeus.) The musclemen get their due(Sly and Arnold and the rest.)

[–] ecarle (14979) 5 years ago

I was intrigued by this: my one-two-three favorites of the end of the 80's were:

The Untouchables(1987)
Die Hard(1988)
Batman(1989)

And, well, Batman gets its own in-depth segment. And Die Hard gets its own in-depth segment. But..The Untouchables is just brushed upon in a "flurry of filler clips." OK, I get it. Die Hard and Batman were phenonmenons, and great movies. But I still like The Untouchables.

Something similar happens in "The Sixties" episode. "Butch Cassidy" gets an in-depth segment, but The Wild Bunch is consigned to being a clip in a flurry of filler clips -- which also includes clips from my favorite movie of 1966, The Professionals. It felt wrong. But I know, Butch Cassidy was the biggest hit of that group.

Speaking of the sixties. The show isn't just clips from the movies. There are few interesting clips from Oscar shows. We see John Wayne win his Best Actor Oscar for True Grit in the year of Midnight Cowboy, with a few clips showing "behind the scenes" work on latter.

The 1989 Batman segment is some interest because they show clips of the films' big premiere at the Village theater near UCLA in LA. That's right across the street from the Bruin theater(Bruin bears are the UCLA mascots) -- and the Bruin theater is where Sharon Tate(Margot Robbie) watches her performance in "The Wrecking Crew" in OATIH. In OATIH, the movie playing across the street at the Village is "George Peppard in Pendulum." Not quite as big a deal as Batman, but the Village and the Bruin took their movies as they got them.

Batman AND "Beetlejuice" get equal in-depth studies in The Movies. Tim Burton is praised. And he comes on to discuss Batman saying something that makes me laugh: "I'm just glad I didn't make it when all this comic book hero s''t was being made." Some talking head posits Batman as the beginning of all that comic book hero s'''t. Not Superman(1978); that didn't get the template right. Batman did.

[–] ecarle (14979) 5 years ago

Just as surprising, in "The Eighties" segment, they do an in-depth study of "The Verdict," which probably would have been my favorite movie of 1982 if "ET" hadn't bowled me over. (Or, alternatively, the great "Tootsie.")

Anyway, there's Paul Newman giving the performance that should have won the Oscar for that year. Great movie.

I caught this in the "80's" segment: Whereas Steven Spielberg dutifully praises Psycho/Hitchcock; Lawrence of Arabia/Lean, and French Connection/Freidkin in the 60's and 70's segment, when it comes to the 80's he sure takes a lot of credit for writing Raiders, ET, and Poltergeist. He basically says the latter two "all came out of my head." Did they? Is Steven Spielberg QT in disguise? Or just a really big ego. If the latter -- who's going to stop him, anyway?

Anyway, CNN's The Movies, a Tom Hanks co-production. Its all a bit "surface" but there can be no doubt that as one watches all those "movies of our lives" pop up over almost a century of work...it DOES matter in the end, no matter how slight it really is.

I recommend it -- and I'm not even done with it yet. I've finished the Sixties, Seventies, Eighties. I need to watch the Nineties, The Golden Era, and 2000 to today.

And check out Hitchcock in that print ad. He's still the Babe Ruth of movie directors, I guess.

[–] swanstep (2715) 5 years ago

he sure takes a lot of credit for writing Raiders, ET, and Poltergeist. He basically says the latter two "all came out of my head." Did they?

[–] ecarle (14979) 5 years ago

His only official screen-writing credits are for Close Encounters & A.I.. Obviously Spielberg had some 'original idea/story' inputs to Raiders, ET, and the like but he used to be pretty modest about claiming credit beyond that. [The story about E.T., for example has always been that Spielberg had the basic 'friendly alien befriends a small boy' concept, which he gave to (Harrison Ford's girlfriend, later wife) Melissa Matheson. She came back after 8 weeks with the ET & Me script, which was immediately recognized as near perfect.] Maybe with his recent movies not receiving the same acclaim or mindshare from the public, Spielberg's disinclined to generously share credit for his early triumphs.

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I think that's a pretty good analysis, swanstep.

As usual with me, I have only heard these Spielberg remarks once now, but he seems to be "hogging all the credit."
He says , for instance, that he and George Lucas brainstormed the entire Raiders script but we know that is fairly technical Bible history stuff came from Philip Kaufman and much of the script was by Lawrence Kasdan.

And Stevie makes no mention of Melissa Matheson's work on arguably his greatest achievement(yes...not Schindler's List. Though my favorite remains "Jaws.")

My man Hitchcock was often pretty stingy with the credit for HIS movies. He never took a screenwriting credit, yet often claimed "that was my idea." He was rather grudgingly willing to credit his screenwriters with dialogue.

That said, certainly with Hitchcock, there's all sorts of proof that writers who worked with him(Joe Stefano, Ernest Lehman) did GREAT scripts with Hitch and not-so-great scripts without him(The Naked Edge, The Prize) so Hitch likely did great work as an editor(cutting bad lines), and as a story structure man.

Spielberg? I dunno. Cant' tell...

[–] ecarle (14979) 5 years ago

CNN..perhaps understanding the fact that today's younger generation doesn't much know or care about "decades ago" finished their series by going back to the start of cinema:

"The Golden Age."

And whereas most of the other episodes devoted 90 minutes to ONE decade(The Sixties, The Seventies, The Eighties, The Nineties) the Golden Age smashes into 90 minutes THREE decades(The Thirties, The Forties, The Fifties.)

It figures.

89 minutes proves enough time to go "in depth" on a few noteable titles: GWTW, Snow White, King Kong, The Wizard of Oz, Kane, Casablanca, The Best Years of Our Lives, High Noon, On the Waterfront, Some Like It Hot....but there's a lot of skim. For instance, Otto Preminger's great Anatomy of a Murder only gets a tiny clip, as does Howard Hawks' great Rio Bravo.

John Ford gets a long stretch.

But...ta da...its the man, the legend, Alfred Hitchcock himself, who gets TWO sequences in this 90 minute show:

The first Hitchcock sequence, early in the show, takes us from Hitch's British films(The 39 Steps) and all through the forties, climaxing with the opening strangling in Rope. In between -- Rebecca gets a nice long in depth take.

The second Hitchcock sequence -- to END the show -- quite fittingly I thought, takes us from Rear Window to NXNW. To the End of the Fifties.

One realizes -- with Psycho stuck off by itself in the "Sixties" segment -- that even if Psycho came out less than a year after NXNW, NXNW indeed belongs to an entire other era, despite some touches of sex and modernity that "fit" Psycho as well.

Indeed, the "Golden Era" of The Movies gives us two back-to-back in depth studies: Vertigo and then NXNW. And when they do NXNW, they use Eva Marie Saint(perhjaps a few years ago) to do the talking. Keep in mind that CNN and TCM are both "Ted Turner companies"(did he sell them?) and Eva Marie has always been available for TCM projects(long may she live and prosper!)

[–] ecarle (14979) 5 years ago

So even if it is a predictable, surface skim of the usual suspect movies, CNN's "The Movies" certainly serves the Hitchcock Fan.

Weirdly, the entire series covers a near century of movies to end with Hitchcock, Vertigo, and North by Northwest.

Thanks, CNN.

And hey, they found a "perfect" Hitchcock interview clip to villainize him all over again:

Interviewer: Mr. Hitchcock, do you believe that your actors are meant to be more like human puppets under your control?
Hitchcock: When working in the cinematic medium, the actors must submit to the control of the director.

Hmm..hiss or applaud?

[–] swanstep (2715) 5 years ago

Interviewer: Mr. Hitchcock, do you believe that your actors are meant to be more like human puppets under your control?
Hitchcock: When working in the cinematic medium, the actors must submit to the control of the director.
Hmm..hiss or applaud?

Yes, well submitting to a director who knows exactly what he/she wants is one thing. But many directors whether by necessity or inclination *don't* know what they want & absolutely enlist their actors to complete the script either in rehearsals or on set, and lists of set-ups for a day's shooting are just suggestions, little is pre-visualized or story-boarded rather everything's collaborative (normally for the worse).

And, of course, just occasionally there is a star writer who's pre-directed the movie to the n-th degree to whom the director has to defer. I recently learned for example that Chayevsky not Lumet (let alone the studio) had final-cut on Network. Chay. was on set every day & in every rehearsal giving notes and insisting hardly a word of his script was changed. Famously Finch added exactly one word, "as", to the script for his big scene: 'I'm *as* mad as hell...' Chay. was't happy but let it pass because Finch was pretty ill and couldn't do many retakes.

ff QT follows through his retirement from directing plan, I wonder whether he might keep writing with a close-to-Chay.-style, writer-has-final-cut deal.

[–] ecarle (14979) 5 years ago

Interviewer: Mr. Hitchcock, do you believe that your actors are meant to be more like human puppets under your control?
Hitchcock: When working in the cinematic medium, the actors must submit to the control of the director.
Hmm..hiss or applaud?

---
Yes, well submitting to a director who knows exactly what he/she wants is one thing. But many directors whether by necessity or inclination *don't* know what they want & absolutely enlist their actors to complete the script either in rehearsals or on set, and lists of set-ups for a day's shooting are just suggestions, little is pre-visualized or story-boarded rather everything's collaborative (normally for the worse).

--

Yes. I was a bit surprised by the directness of this Hitchcock quote(he looked maybe, his age around Topaz when hade it -- late sixties). His "actors are cattle/should be treated like cattle" joke was perhaps a more roundabout way of saying it(and losing himself some Oscars from the largest voting bloc...actors.)

But I suppose what Hitchcock REALLY meant(hah) was indeed that actors should submit to the control of directors who...know what they are doing and have a track record of success(hits, classics, both.)

In the past year I've been re-reading books on film by successful screenwriter William Goldman and less successful screenwriter Harlan Ellison. Somewhere in there, both writers demean most directors -- Goldman nicely("They are just trying to get through the day and stay close to the fire like the rest of us") Ellison NOT nicely("Most directors can't direct traffic") and both are saying that directors are fairly overrated but the easiest all-purpose entities to be praised. I must admit, I'm confused when a critic says something like "the director gives Tom Hanks a great scene to express his pain over the last battle" when it seems to me that the WRITER gives Hanks a great scene, or Hanks, as a great actor, MAKES it a great scene. But again, the director is the boss, the overseer.

[–] ecarle (14979) 5 years ago

Sidebar on William Goldman: I'm always quoting his "Adventures in the Screen Trade" book quotes, and a few others (a later book called "Which Lie Did I Tell" adds anecdotes on Misery and Absolute Power.)

But I was thinking about Goldman more critically when I read some article about him recently that noted his final scripts were pretty much...turkeys. Several bad ones in a row. I guess screenwriters get tired, too.

His Oscars were for Butch Cassidy(Original) and All the President's Men(Adapted) -- two Robert Redford pictures(with Newman and Hoffman along for the buddy rides.) But ...what else?

Well, off the top of my head, two that I love: Harper(Paul Newman, detective) and The Hot Rock(Redford and my fave George Segal doing a modern-day Butch).

And two directly from Goldman novels: Marathon Man(very good), Magic(Goldman's Psycho -- a mad ventriloquist tale with an un-charismatic Anthony Hopkins; not so good.)

And Misery -- hit adaptation of a Stephen King novel. Goldman made two big changes -- creating a nice old sheriff(Richard Farnsworth) to cross-cut his investigation with the claustrophobia of Caan held prisoner by Bates; having Bates shotgun nice Farnsworth quickly in lieu of King's multi-page slaughter of an unknown young cop -- I think Goldman and director Rob Reiner got a little "prissy" about the murder.

And The Stepford Wives(original 1974 version)....its OK, but not great.

In short, William Goldman's main claim to success as a screenwriter is that he WORKED a lot, sold a lot of scripts that got made...which didn't happen for Joe "Psycho" Stefano and eventually petered off for Ernest "NXNW" Lehman. But not every Goldman script was...gold.

[–] ecarle (14979) 5 years ago

And, of course, just occasionally there is a star writer who's pre-directed the movie to the n-th degree to whom the director has to defer. I recently learned for example that Chayevsky not Lumet (let alone the studio) had final-cut on Network.

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Chayefksy's "that guy," isn't he -- the screenwriter with his name above the title and final cut.

He got to that point with a very few scripts: Marty in 1955(Best Picture, Actor, Screenplay); The Americanization of Emily(James Garner said not only was it his best personal movie, he felt it was the best movie ever made!); The Hospital(Best Original Screenplay, 1971.) And voila...final cut on Network...HIS vision. With a very gracious and canny Sidney Lumet making sure he had a part to play.

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Chay. was on set every day & in every rehearsal giving notes and insisting hardly a word of his script was changed.

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"Be careful what you wish for," says I. I think Chay, in having all that personal involvement and control, ended up with a great movie which, nonetheless, has more than a few overwrought lines and "look at me" speeches that fail -- AMIDST some of the greatest speeches in movies of all time. They "co-exist."

On my personal(but somewhat more important with every aging year) list of favorite movies, 1976 breaks out this way:

Number One: The Shootist. John Wayne's brilliantly fitted final film about a dying gunfighter, directed by Don Siegel(Dirty Harry, Charley Varrick) with Lauren Bacall in loving support an great cameos by James Stewart, Richard Boone "and more."

Number Two: Family Plot. Its not as well made or written as Frenzy before it, but it is nicer, and it STILL shows off Hitchcock's talent for narrative AND visuals. And its his final film, just like Duke's that year.

Number Three: Network...which would be my favorite if I didn't "play favorites" with Duke and Hitch. BUT the films of Duke and Hitch that year ARE better than Network in that one area -- fewer overwrought lines.

[–] ecarle (14979) 5 years ago

Famously Finch added exactly one word, "as", to the script for his big scene: 'I'm *as* mad as hell...' Chay. was't happy but let it pass because Finch was pretty ill and couldn't do many retakes.

--

Perhaps we've read the same book?(On the making of Network.) It is sad indeed to read that Finch couldn't complete even two takes of the "Mad as Hell" speech because it took too much out of him physically. So we have the great final scene from just those one and a half takes.

And what nobody knew was that Finch's inability to complete the takes was a clue to the heart attack that killed him not long after finishing Network. He died in Sidney Lumet's arms at the Beverly Hills Hotel! (And won the Best Actor Oscar posthumously.)

Meanwhile(from that book), back at Chay. He THOUGHT he had similar final cut privileges for his final scripted film, "Altered States," but director Ken Russell evidently belittled Chay and chased him off the set. Fellow (but bad) screenwriter Joe Esterhas said that Chayefsky's cancer death was "caused" by Altered States. Who knows? But evidently Chay's power did not last.

[–] ecarle (14979) 5 years ago

ff QT follows through his retirement from directing plan, I wonder whether he might keep writing with a close-to-Chay.-style, writer-has-final-cut deal.

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He could certainly do that, although I contend that part of QT's problem right now is that it is his writing talent that is starting to run somewhat dry(though many 2019 critics think otherwise, and maybe I should, too.) In short, QT is an auteur because of his writing more than his directing, but maybe his writing won't be so great in years to come.

Which reminds me: QT wrote a great(if violent) script for "True Romance" which has that world-class QT dialogue scene between good dad Dennis Hopper and bad Mafia man Christopher Walken(since its entirely racial...I can't repeat it here.) QT wasn't big enough yet to get to direct, but the movie certainly sounds like him(and looks like Tony Scott.)

Which reminds me: Its an ultra-gory midnight movie, but Robert Rodriguez's "From Dusk Til Dawn"(with George Clooney and QT as BROTHERS) is yet another QT script that sounds like him just great.

So if QT could keep up his "True Romance" and "From Dusk Til Dawn" quality control in his later years, perhaps his scripts can live on past his directorial career.

[–] ecarle (14979) 5 years ago

And oh, I forgot:

The Nineties segment of this CNN show was rather an eye opener in regards to how "suddenly dark" the decade got after the Spielberg/Lucas eighties, and how many thrillers were made. Whether Mafia or psychos , it was a helluva thriller decade.

Here's my personal list of nineties favorites:

1990: Goodfellas
1991: Silence of the Lambs
1992: My Cousin Vinny
1993: Carlito's Way
1994: Pulp Fiction
1995: Casino
1996: Fargo
1997: LA Confidential
1998: Saving Private Ryan
1999: The Green Mile

As you can see, they are almost ALL thrillers. And: the courtroom comedy My Cousin Vinny is about a murder case. And: Saving Private Ryan is a film about horror-level violence as well as war. And: The Green Mile is as much a horror film(that purposely botched execution) as a fantasy.

The CNN "Nineties" segment opens (appropriately) with 1990's Goodfellas, but makes sure to cover many of the other films on my list. That felt good. And they throw in The Usual Suspects and Se7en and continue to make the case for "The nineties...the thriller decade."

But sure, they get to Schindler's List, and Jurassic Park(which seemed like Spielberg already sort of getting bored with his 80's incarnation; it sure is slow and detached when the dinos aren't on screen.) And The Matrix(which, I know, is more unique and influential than The Green Mile of that year but...I went with my heart that year.) And they cover Clint's dour and dramatic masterpiece "Unforgiven," which was my favorite of 1992 for several years until I realized I always watched My Cousin Vinny anytime it came on(love Marisa Tomei AND her speeches), and I can't make it all the way through Unforgiven anymore.

On balance, I guess I liked the nineties better than the eighties. QT showed up with a bang, the Coens hit it big(Fargo AND The Big Lebowski, back to back) and LA Confidential is The Untouchables with a much more complex script and greater themes.
And it will always be fun how Scorsese, with Goodfellas and Casino, sort of gave us the same movie with the same two leads...but different each time.

Not to mention: QT's Jackie Brown could have been my favorite of the decade, but it had to give ground to LA Confidential ...of the same year! And the sinking ship part of Titanic that year was great too! As was the whack hero-turn- villain-turns-hero plot of "Face/Off." That same year! (1997.)

I love the nineties.

Aw, hell, the eighties were great too.

I love the movies.

Well...I loved them....

[–] swanstep (2715) 5 years ago

Perhaps we've read the same book?(On the making of Network.)

No, my only recent source of info is two vids from the CinemaTyler channel on youtube:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sjx5L5Po4yI
Tyler almost certainly read the same book tho'.

BTW, I agree that all for its marvels, Network is far from perfect. The comedy turn of the black activists from sincere revolutionaries to disingenuous capitalist hustlers is too broad in my view, and is finally a kind of cheap, 'plague on both your houses' cynicism. There's too *much* speecifying by too many figures to be realistic and it blunts the impact of the best speeches when you watch the film whole (as opposed to just its highlights). Taxi Driver is a better, more perfect film from 1976 than Network. I'd have give Best Picture to TD,and I *might* have given Schrader Best Orig. Screenplay ahead of Chayefsky! The Outlaw Josey Wales & The Shootist & Carrie all seem to me to be must-sees from 1976 at about the same level as Network. Artsy foreign films from 1976 like 1900, In The Realm of The Senses, Kings of the Road rock my world too.

[–] ecarle (14979) 5 years ago

No, my only recent source of info is two vids from the CinemaTyler channel on youtube:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sjx5L5Po4yI
Tyler almost certainly read the same book tho'.

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Likely so. Its a good book with a lot of "tidbits." For instance, Peter Finch got his great Howard Beale role because a lot of bigger names -- Paul Newman, Henry Fonda -- simply didn't want to play such a "nutty and pathetic" character. Finch was almost desperation, last minute casting.

Speaking of Paul Newman, Lumet sent him the script and said "play any part you want." That's an interesting invitation: the Holden part? the Finch part?.....the DUVALL part?
Given the nature of the three parts(Holden as an "old guy" who can't keep a younger woman happy; Finch as nuts, Duvall as villainous)...Newman probably figured he was doing the right thing.

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BTW, I agree that all for its marvels, Network is far from perfect.

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Its got both happening at once: marvels and far from perfect. I think this is roughly where QT has been since Jackie Brown. His current studio chief said "We would never tell QT to change anything in one of his films" -- when you get that kind of power, "anything goes."

So Chayefsky's script seems to veer all over the place. Absolute brilliance(especially in the beginning, which sounds very knowledgeable about how broadcast TV and big corporations WORK) mixed with ...embarrassment?

[–] ecarle (14979) 5 years ago

You have mentioned how the revolutionaries go all greedy. True enough -- I thought it was funny, but it was clearly Chay's contempt towards them leaking through.

I think the big problems are with the Holden/Dunaway relationship. On the surface it all makes sense -- daddy issues and Holden's stirling reputation draw Faye to him.
But when it all goes wrong, we've got Holden saying a bunch of "old guy raging stuff" at Dunaway and I hear Chayefsky: "You are television incarnate," "I have primal doubts..." Eh. I DO like how both Dunaway and Holden's own wife warn him up front what he's up against: Dunaway that, sex or no sex, she's going to take over his news show duties ; the wife that the affair won't last. Holden moves forward anyway. The chump. As would we all. Hah.

[–] ecarle (14979) 5 years ago

The comedy turn of the black activists from sincere revolutionaries to disingenuous capitalist hustlers is too broad in my view, and is finally a kind of cheap, 'plague on both your houses' cynicism.

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Generally, I'm rather a "plague on both your houses" kind of guy, but this stuff was just kind of silly. Their revolutionary talk wasn't too real sounding, either. I think Chay just didn't like them.

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There's too *much* speecifying by too many figures to be realistic

---

I think Pauline Kael said that they are all just saying Chay's speeches -- one man, several mouthpieces -- and that seems about right. Finch gets the best speeches(not just "mad as hell" but the one about "I just ran out of b....t.") Ned Beatty SHOULD have one the Oscar for his one-scene barnburner(the making of book reveals that an actor named Roberts Blossom had -- and lost -- the role first.)

And I've always liked the "Paley substitute"(Ruddy?) telling off Holden early on for throwing a tantrum before Paley could have fixed a situation. It felt like what a real corporate boss would tell his respected second.

And Robert Duvall gets a great speech -- in gesture and vocals -- about how because Paley had a heart attack and Duvall has a "big t--tted hit" ...Holden is fired. ("I want you OUT before noon or I'll have you THROWN out!")

Yeah, when I remember the GOOD speeches in Network...I love it.

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and it blunts the impact of the best speeches when you watch the film whole (as opposed to just its highlights).

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The film "whole" is a big enchilada to digest, that's for sure

[–] ecarle (14979) 5 years ago

Taxi Driver is a better, more perfect film from 1976 than Network. I'd have give Best Picture to TD,and I *might* have given Schrader Best Orig. Screenplay ahead of Chayefsky!

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Well, it was kind of "the old Oscar story." I think Scorsese was too new, Schrader was too weird, "Taxi Driver" was too relentlessly grim for the gray hairs at the Academy, etc.

Also, Taxi Driver came out early in the year, February. It was interesting to see Network emerge, in typical Oscar fashion, right near the end of the year as the "intelligent frontrunner." It blew the OTHER "intelligent frontrunner" (All the President's Men) out of the water(except Jason Robards got Ned Beatty's Oscar.) Taxi Driver was too long ago in '76 and too "sick" to win (Taxi Driver had direct connections to Psycho, and both films were evidently "too sick for the academy.)

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The Outlaw Josey Wales & The Shootist & Carrie all seem to me to be must-sees from 1976 at about the same level as Network.

--

It was a weirdly "good year." It had no blockbuster like The Godfather or The Exorcist or Jaws or Star Wars to run it. Nor really a "serious" Best Picture frontrunner(The Godfather, again; Cuckoo's Nest.) Everything seemed up for grabs at the Oscars; Rocky got Best Picture and Network got three acting awards and screenplay.

But ALL that said -- The Shootist is my Number One and Family Plot is my Number Two , and I rather like how Hitch and Duke bowed out in the same year.

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Artsy foreign films from 1976 like 1900, In The Realm of The Senses, Kings of the Road rock my world too.

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I read about The Realm of the Senses, and all this Mainstream man can say is: OUCH.