Paddy Chayevsky


After watching this film, I added to my Top 100 section because I belive it is one of the most fascinating satires ever made. With The Hospital and Network, screenwriter Paddy Chayevsky made two satires that remain to this day ever relevant. Although this may be drastic, Network put me off watching television because it showed me how TV networks would do any thing for ratings and this made me re-evaluate television's role in my life. Sounds silly? Look at what's on TV today and you'll see just how low people go for ratings.

reply

So true. Chayefsky was prescient in both Network & The Hospital. Early in Network, Holden has a line about putting on a show called 'The Death Hour' featuring people actually dying, & says that it should be put on opposite the Disney show on Sun nights. The first time I ever saw Network (in the early or mid 90's), there was a reality show on Sun nights that had received a lot of criticism b/c they would sometimes show scenes of actual deaths. And the Ned Beatty speech was at least 15 years ahead of it's time.

In The Hospital-which was filmed in 1970!-Chayefsky was already seeing that the only real lasting 'revolution' from the 60's was going to be the sexual revolution. The 'impotence' speech in The Hospital was brilliant. I can't imagine any other writer who would think of such a thing or have the rocks to do it.

reply

So great it's worth quoting in full... IMDb only has a truncated version.

When I say impotent, I don't mean merely limp. Disagreeable as it may be for a woman, a man may lust for other things, something less transient than an erection, some sense of permanent worth. That's what medicine was to me, my reason for being. When I was 34, Miss Drummond, I presented a paper before the annual convention of the Society of Clinical Investigation that pioneered the whole goddamn field of lmmunology. A breakthrough! I'm in all the textbooks. I happen to be an eminent man, Miss Drummond. You know something else? I don't give a goddamn. When I say impotent I mean I've lost even my desire to work. That's a hell of a lot more primal passion than sex. I've lost my reason for being. My purpose. The only thing I ever truly loved. It is all rubbish, isn't it? Transplants, antibodies, we manufacture genes, we can produce birth ectogenetically, we can practically clone people like carrots, and half the kids in this ghetto haven't even been inoculated for polio! We have established the most enormous medical entity ever conceived and people are sicker than ever! We cure nothing! We heal nothing! The whole goddamn wretched world is strangulating in front of our eyes. That's what I mean when I say impotent.




wow

reply

Perfection.

reply

Ditto that.

reply

I'm just posting here b/c I don't want this thread to die.

*bump*

reply

Paddy was a genius.

reply

>> Look at what's on TV today and you'll see just how low people go for ratings <<

Ha! You coulda said the same thing in 1950's. Newton Minnow made the famous comment about TV being a great wasteland back in 1961. Although I'll agree that TV sucks far worse now than it did then.



reply

Yes, the lowest common denominator just seems to get lower & lower with each passing year, doesn't it?

reply

Isn't that the point of socialism / democracy / pervading morality?



~ Observe, and act with clarity. ~

reply