Film
Network + intro
- Director
- Sidney Lumet
- Certificate
- 15
- Running Time
- 121 mins
“I’m mad as hell, and I’m not going to take this anymore!” Veteran network news anchor Howard Beale (Peter Finch) has just learned that declining ratings mean his services will no longer be required. So during his next broadcast, he announces that he’ll commit suicide live on air the following week. Naturally, ratings go through the roof and amoral programming executive Diana Christiansen (Faye Dunaway) milks the increasingly deranged and messianic Beale’s inchoate rage for all it’s worth, turning him into a national broadcasting sensation.
One of the most prescient films ever made and the winner of four Oscars, Paddy Chayefsky‘s brilliant 1976 satire on media exploitation was so far ahead of its time that only now can it be fully appreciated. A minority of snooty contemporary critics sneered that the film was ‘preachy’ and ‘self-congratulatory’. But they were wrong. It now stands as a fitting swansong for Finch, who carked it before he was able to collect his Oscar for Best Actor. It’s also a perfect selection to kick off the ‘shed’s timely Manipulating the Message season as part of this year’s Cinema Rediscovered. The screening will be introduced by jounalist and broadcaster Samira Ahmed.
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