This movie is similar to an older movie: Meet John Doe, which stars Gary Cooper as a normal man held to messianic standards by wealthy/powerful people who want to use the main character as a scapegoat for their own greed.
There are differences of course. Tv not Newspaper, and Beale's career coming to an end, and so his realization that for him time is up, whereas in Meet John Doe Cooper plays a man in young middle age who has ideals that are ripe for exploitation.
Exploitation.... that there says what Network conveyes on many levels. Beales outrage is exploitated, and his exploitation opens the door for the exploitation of Radical political groups, who in turn exploit the powers that be for all they can as well. A nice vicious circle of life as made possible by having access to millions of attention spans at once. In pre movie/tv days information and politcal movements moved slowly, and built over time. Now with Tv a political movement can be started and finished in one day.... but the long term consequences are not taken into account. What happend to the radical political group who was used? Did they or their followers go on to commit BIGGER crimes ala 911? Speculation, or just an example of life cycles that get faster and can fall into chaos even though those in power and those who lust for that power vie with each other for that power. There is a lot to digest with this movie, but some sections seem to contrived, and under developed. If I'm not mistaken it is a young Tim Robbins of the Hudsucker proxy fame who has an uncredited part.
There are differences of course. Tv not Newspaper, and Beale's career coming to an end, and so his realization that for him time is up, whereas in Meet John Doe Cooper plays a man in young middle age who has ideals that are ripe for exploitation.
Exploitation.... that there says what Network conveyes on many levels. Beales outrage is exploitated, and his exploitation opens the door for the exploitation of Radical political groups, who in turn exploit the powers that be for all they can as well. A nice vicious circle of life as made possible by having access to millions of attention spans at once. In pre movie/tv days information and politcal movements moved slowly, and built over time. Now with Tv a political movement can be started and finished in one day.... but the long term consequences are not taken into account. What happend to the radical political group who was used? Did they or their followers go on to commit BIGGER crimes ala 911? Speculation, or just an example of life cycles that get faster and can fall into chaos even though those in power and those who lust for that power vie with each other for that power. There is a lot to digest with this movie, but some sections seem to contrived, and under developed. If I'm not mistaken it is a young Tim Robbins of the Hudsucker proxy fame who has an uncredited part.