NETWORK (1976)
WORLD PREMIERE RESTORATION | 50TH ANNIVERSARY PRESENTATION
People were as mad as hell and not going to take it anymore long before Peter Finch gave them a voice 50 years ago in this searing satire of televised political media. But this film became a rallying cry for a discontented public. Some critics as well as those in TV journalism thought writer Paddy Chayefsky’s depiction of a world in which entertainment takes over the news media was farfetched. Today, Sidney Lumet’s brilliant movie seems more like a prophecy. Finch is a longtime anchor who loses it on air after being told he’s being fired because of low ratings. William Holden co-stars as the news division president who finds his department and heart taken over by program director (Faye Dunaway). NETWORK captured ten Oscar nominations, winning for Chayefsky’s script and actors Dunaway, Finch (the first actor to win posthumously), and Beatrice Straight, whose performance as Holden’s wife was the shortest to win an Academy Award.
d. Sidney Lumet, 121m, DCP
This 4K digital restoration was undertaken by the Criterion Collection from a scan of the 35 mm original camera negative. The monaural soundtrack was remastered from the 35 mm magnetic track. Courtesy of Amazon MGM Studios.