MovieChat Forums > Network (1976) Discussion > Starts out great....but should have gone...

Starts out great....but should have gone in a different direction....

posted 9 years ago by jmichael3387
6 replies | jump to latest

The first part of the movie was great....when Beale goes nutty and Max says to keep him on the air. Max is fighting to keep his own job. Max then wants Beale off the air, because it's his friend and he needs serious psychiatric help. All of this was funny as well as interesting.

This is what the movie should have focused on. Max battling to get his friend Beale off the air so he's not exploited. And trying to get his job back, battling the new jerks that are in charge.

Instead, Max has no interaction with anyone except Dunaway for the rest of the movie. And Beale has no interaction with anyone either. We get a love story instead. And we also get an even worse sub-plot with the Communist subversives. Big mistakes. Could have been a much better movie. Finch was great as Beale....but even he got a little boring toward the end....because he wasn't involved at all with Max or anyone.

[–] BobbyDupea 9 years ago

Deleting the elements you want to delete would also eliminate many interesting aspects of the plot and the message - for example the aspect that the drive for ratings and success comes to drive everything else, including the motivations of the media companies, their executives, and also the left-wing groups supposedly promoting alternative values.

I disagree completely with your conclusions that Max interacts with only Dunaway for the later part of the movie, and that Beale interacts with nobody -- they all are interacting with each other, but in a very sick way. That's the message in a nutshell.

My real name is Jeff

[–] davidmrenton 9 years ago

i agree, the Performance's where fantastic but the 2nd half loses steam and focus and instead goes on a bit of a silly tangent with the communist's caring about percentage point's and the Network's Management deciding to kill Beale.

This takes the film down a bit of a farcical fantasy and i agree i expected more from the Holden character then a love sick puppy dog as opposed to a grizzled old news guy who wouldn't take crap from these career news whores.

[–] BaRtMaN2466 8 years ago

Very much feel the same way. The film peaked after the 'mad as hell' rant.

[–] ChrRome 8 years ago

I did think it was weird that Max basically just gave up on Beale the moment he was fired

[–] kinsociojey 8 years ago

He was corrupted by Diana by that point.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0074958/

[–] kinsociojey 8 years ago

You missed the point of the entire film. Like...REALLY badly. I don't want to write a lengthy reply, so I'll refer you to the Max and Diana break-up scene and the Arthur Jensen scene. Everything he says to her in that scene and everything Jensen says to Howard is what the movie is about and why it went the direction it did.

Remember. The movie is called "Network", not "Howard Beale Goes Mad".

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0074958/