Chayefsky, Finch, and Lumet

It's too bad I can't embed this.

I regularly put in a lot of time--I call it research--marveling at the genius of Paddy Chayefsky

I'm sorry, but you just do not get this kind of writing in today's cinema, or anywhere else. You don't get this kind of writing anywhere except from the truest visionaries, of which there are few.

I don't know anyone this talented.

It is noteworthy that Pauline Kael, the influential New York critic who died in 2001, hated this film.  Kael's opinions could make or break a film, but she was dead wrong about Sidney Lumet's Network.

Here is Lumet's April, 2011 obit from the Washington Times.

Chayefsky won an Oscar for this script.

Peter Finch died shortly after filming and won a posthumous Oscar for his portrayal of Howard Beale, whose "I'm mad as hell, and I'm not gonna take it anymore!" exhortation might be the rallying cry of the Occupy Movement.

Oscar got things right that year, a rare occurrence.


TS