Network
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Josh, thanks for letting me lure you into the studio. I'm excited. Thanks for having me. I was thinking about how it's your birthday coming up. Oh, no. And for once, we're not going to get to spend it together. That's true. We generally do. Yeah, but you're going to be in London. I will indeed. Well, I was thinking about one of my favorite stories that you've told, which is the season six premiere of The West Wing. Sure. When you all went to Camp David.

in the show. And you had Marine One. And on the side of it, they made a typo. Untied. States of America. Untied States of America. And so I thought...

in honor of your birthday. I made this last night. Oh, oh, God, you're good. Oh, it's so good. I love it. Will you describe it? Yeah. Is it going to be a piece of new merch? It's a new t-shirt. It's not available only to me. I won't have the only one. All right, I'm going to measure my excitement. Well, I'm seeing the front and the back. Yeah, the front is our pin, which actually looks amazing on a shirt. This is very exciting. Of course, what's next? Flentil A Veritas. It looks fantastic. It's

And on the back, "Untied States of America." Brilliant! We're gonna offer it in a couple of different colorways. One, just a stark black and white, the way it appears on Marine One, black with white type. But then, I also thought... Oh, my God, that's such a good idea. ...in honor of another moment from this episode that I love, which is when you are running through the woods...

and you rolled up your sleeves against Alex Graves' wishes to show your massive guns on screen in that Carnegie Mellon sort of like athletic shirt. We're also going to do a tri-blend black, sort of like the shirt you're wearing in that episode, so that people who get the shirt can roll up their sleeves and show off their biceps. Yes, maybe we can all show up at Alex Graves' house. So this is going to be a new piece of merch that's going to come out, and we're going to have all of our stuff

for sale at thewestwingweekly.com slash merch. But check out the new Untied States of America t-shirt

in two different ways. And then there's going to be a premium version because you know how whenever the president is on Marine One, he's got the cool windbreaker? Oh yeah, exactly. We're also going to do this as a windbreaker. Are we really? We can do that? We're going to do a black windbreaker. Same thing, the Westman Weekly Seal on the front, Untied States of America on the back. Can't wait to get one. And

And I could just see people all across the country putting it on as Martin Sheen would put it on over his head. Amazing. Oh my God, this is fantastic. And so many people are going to be approached and asked, you know, there's a typo on the back of your shirt. Oh, exactly. It'll just be endless. And that's how you know they are the enemy. They're not in the club. Anybody who points at it, maybe enemy is strong. Yeah.

I want to give a shout out to Chuck Gibbons who sent me an image on Instagram that I think is relevant for anybody who gets this shirt. It's a tweet from Dropped Mike. It says, interviewer, quote, can I get your references? Me, probably not. No one else does. Oh, that's good. That's really good.

I'm also excited at the prospect of, for the next four years, wearing something that says "Untied States of America." I didn't want to get too dark, but this might be a good reflection of how people are feeling at the moment. And then, lastly, in my small contribution to the overall campaign, Josh Molina is Nice.

I'm going to donate proceeds of this piece of merch to the American Red Cross. Wow. That is awesome. Oh, what a gift. Oh, I'm excited. If you want to support the American Red Cross, who's been doing amazing work here in LA as the wildfires have been just... I'm giving on Monday before I fly to London. Ravaging stuff. And yeah, Josh, if people want to join the Josh Molina is nice...

blood donation team, do they give blood or platelets or both? It all counts if you give through the American Red Cross and you join our team through the app. Of course, I'm also just here to generally encourage giving blood, whether you do it through the Red Cross or not. But if you do through the Red Cross, please join our team. Yeah. And if you get the Untied States of America shirt, that's another way you'll be supporting the Red Cross. Yay. I'm going to wear it to platelet donation, not Monday. Yeah.

But as soon as it's available and I can donate again.

And if you have no idea what we're talking about, it might be time to visit or revisit our episode on Season 6, Episode 1, NSF Thurmont. Right. Very good. Not suitable for work, Thurmont. You'll see. That's a joke you made on that episode as well. Of course I did. What do you think? I got a new joke for this? There's a picture of the untied States of America that Josh took before the art department went and fixed it on Marine One.

One of the great photos of all time from the West Wing. By the way, I also, since you mentioned my guns, I occasionally I search my name on Reddit and Reddit is where you get the real honest people who really tell you what they think of you. And there's always something horrible. This comes to us from Cavewoman22. She says, Josh Molina has always had a face made for radio and a body made for late night cinemas. Yeah.

The sad part is I read that and I'm like, oh, it's just saying I'm ugly. But oh, net gain. I was like, for me, that's a rave for Reddit. Amazing. So go to thewestwingweekly.com slash merch to get your Untied States of America shirt or windbreaker. And now, on to the episode.

This episode is brought to you by Progressive Insurance. You chose to hit play on this podcast today. Smart choice. Make another smart choice with AutoQuote Explorer to compare rates from multiple car insurance companies all at once. Try it at Progressive.com. Progressive Casualty Insurance Company and affiliates. Not available in all states or situations. Prices vary based on how you buy.

Hello again. You're listening to the West Wing Weekly Political Film Fest. I am Joshua Molina. And I'm Rishi K. Sherway. And today we're talking about the Film Network. The screenplay is by Paddy Chayefsky. The direction is by Sidney Lumet, and it was released in 1976. This

This was, Rishi, the first R-rated movie I ever saw. And salute to my parents for letting me see it. How old were you? I guess I was 10. I think I saw it in the theater when it came out, so that would make me 10 years old. Did you like it? Yes. This has always been one of my favorite movies, or long been one of my favorite movies. Well, I guess since I was 10. And I do think that what I appreciate about it now is what I appreciated then. Like, I think I had a sort of dark turn, and I think I got it.

I think I got it at a young age, and it really appealed to me, the darkness of the humor and the sort of acid look at life altogether and at the entertainment industry in particular. That's awesome. So according to the very first line of the movie...

We hear voiceovers saying, "This story is about Howard Beale, who was the network news anchorman on UBS TV." I think for the synopsis, I would disagree with that. I don't think that's really what the story is about, or at least that's not what it's only about. True. Meaning it's about other characters as well? I think it is. Should I give you my synopsis? Sure. Okay.

This is a behind-the-scenes look at UBS, a network that's struggling in the ratings, struggling in its profitability, and declining in its importance as a news outlet.

After UBS is purchased by the CCNA Holdings Company, the pressure for profitability vis-a-vis ratings is acute, and a new guard, represented by CCNA executive Hackett, played by Robert Duvall, and the new vice president of programming, Diana Christensen, played by Faye Dunaway, go up against the old guard, represented by William Holden as a veteran news producer, Max Schumacher.

The anchor, Howard Beale, once a legend in the news, starts publicly losing his mental health and becomes a pawn in the game, moved around by the network, its new parent company, and the voices in his head. That's good. Switch a few lines and you've got the premise of Sports Night. I mean, a few key things, but it's in the ballpark. Yeah, yeah. As we all know, Jeremy Goodwin, very publicly losing his sanity on the show. Exactly.

Network was nominated for 10 Oscars, and it won four. It was nominated for Best Picture, Best Director, two Best Actor nominations, both Peter Finch and William Holden, Best Actress for Faye Dunaway, Best Supporting Actor for Ned Beatty, Best Supporting Actress for Beatrice Strait, Best Screenplay, Best Cinematography, Best Editing. And Peter Finch, Faye Dunaway, Beatrice Strait, and Paddy Chayefsky all won. Peter Finch being the first actor to win posthumously.

Yeah, it's so sad that he passed away while waiting to do press for a network. So, so tragic. And so I was, that's what I kept thinking as I watched the movie, what his career might have been. I mean, obviously, what his life would have been, which is more important, but that he didn't get to savor and enjoy or see the success of this performance.

Yeah. Beatrice Strait, who plays Mrs. Schumacher, Max Schumacher's wife, she won and she holds a record for the shortest amount of screen time to win an Oscar. This is your great winter romance, isn't it? Your last roar of passion before you settle into your emeritus years. Is that what's left for me? Is that my share? She gets the winter passion and I get the dog ditch?

Yeah, that doesn't surprise me because it really is a single scene in which she really just kills it, crushes it. Yeah. And I would say Ned Beatty also is nominated for a single scene. Pretty brief appearance, but also another kick-ass scene. Yeah, an iconic speech. And great performance. In a movie that has multiple iconic moments, or at least two. That is true.

Let me give you further trivia. I believe it was a battle of the potentially posthumous Oscars, as I think James Dean was up against Peter Finch possibly twice in the same category. I think for Giant and for East of Eden, both, I believe. Wait, Josh, I'm reading that James Dean was the first actor to win a posthumous Academy Award because of East of Eden.

No. That was in 1955. I was like, James Dean was still alive in 1970. Oh, no. I see what it is. He did not win. He was nominated. You're right. James Dean died in the 50s. He was nominated posthumously for two Oscars. And nine other of them were in 1976. Which makes sense because he would have been dead for 20 years. Yeah.

One of the things that's interesting about this movie, I think, is that the poster for Network, when it came out, said, by Paddy Chayefsky, above director Sidney Lumet's name. Interesting. That's got to be a rarity. Yeah, he got to have a lot of power as the author of this film, I would say, more so than the director. Contractually, he negotiated for presence on set. He got to be there for every part of it. I thought they had to give him presence. Probably that too, yeah.

Yeah. Like a little wrapped something every day. How do I negotiate for that? I would love that. Paduchayevsky and Sidney Lumet both came up in the TV world. And I think this is a world they knew well and probably had strong feelings about the subject matter. But they weren't filmmaking partners. They'd never worked on anything before this. And it's not like they had a long-standing friendship or anything like that. They met making this. Did they get along?

I think so. I think they actually got along really well. I have been reading this book by Dave Itzkoff called Mad as Hell, The Making of Network and the Fateful Vision of the Angriest Man in Movies. Great book. And in that book, they talked about how well they worked together and sort of what a well-oiled machine the making of the film was, certainly like in terms of their collaboration. Itzkoff is an excellent author. He wrote a great book about Robin Williams too. I love his writing. Yeah.

And he's an ex-formerly Twitter friend. Still a current friend, though. Current friend, formerly Twitter. So much of the film has TV jargon in it, and I was wondering, at what point in your life did you start to understand what all that stuff was? All I want out of life is a 30 share and a 20 rating.

Did you learn about it from this movie when you were 10 years old? Or when you started working in TV, did you start thinking about these things like shares and ratings? I imagine I was vaguely aware as a child. Yeah, they definitely mattered a lot more as I went into the industry. And I can remember, literally, it's so long ago that when we would do Sports Night, the show would come on, I think it was Thursday nights. And Friday morning, I would call

on a good old-fashioned telephone, I feel like at six in the morning, you could start getting the early returns or whatever they call them of ratings, and I would always try to divine whether we were likely to be on the following week based on that.

In this movie, they talk about HUT ratings, which is an acronym for households using television. But I think that we just dropped the HUT. This is before households using television was 100% of American households. I think they meant at the exact moment while your show was on. Okay, that makes more sense. What was it like for you watching the movie again now? You said it's one of your favorite movies of all time. How was it to watch this time around? It

I've seen it a lot of times. I guess it didn't feel like there were a lot of surprises, but I was able to appreciate just how good a movie it is, like every aspect of it. It's just a tonal masterpiece. I think that this is a movie that has changed so much in terms of its reception, especially

from when it came out to now, or even like, even 20 years ago, it was a very different reception than it was when it came out. 'Cause when it came out, it was satire. It was supposed to be satire. And now it doesn't feel satirical at all. I mean, you look back and be like, "Yep, they sure got everything right. It was prophetic." Yes, very much so. It doesn't feel as fresh as it might-- must have when I was 10 years old or when people were first seeing it in the '70s.

Let me ask you this. What do you think about this film's selection for our political film fest? This is one that I picked. I know that you love this movie too, but did you have any feelings about me including it in a political film fest? Oh, wondering whether it fulfilled the brief? Yeah. Oh, yeah. And I feel like it's clearly a political film, even if it's not head-on, straight-on, plot-wise, taking place in the political world. And I also thought it had a lot to...

Obviously, I guess to state the obvious, having been through four years of a reality star television president and facing the possibility, God forbid, of another four, I feel like there was a lot of connective tissue between the world today and particularly the political world and this film, even if it wasn't trying to make those points specifically back when

-the film was being made. - Yeah. Part of Beale's appeal to his audience is his tapping into anger and his tapping into sort of populist anger, but in a way that's sort of-- although you feel bad for the guy himself, 'cause he's obviously going through, as you said, a mental collapse.

He's kind of a truth teller, and some of the things he's saying are true and quote-unquote good messages to be had out. I feel like the Trumpism is the reverse side, the negative and corrosive effect of harnessing populist anger for nefarious means. Beale, whatever he's going through, which includes hearing voices telling him to do different things, he feels like he's

just trying to share a message with the world. I mean, you kind of root for him, at least in that sense. He's not a demagogue. It's,

It's interesting. I think that Howard Beale and Max Schumacher are both complicit throughout this whole movie. They're maybe not as bad as the Christensen's and Hackett's of the world, but I think that they certainly don't get away clean. Well, let me say in defense of Beale, I feel like he crosses a line at some point. Early on, he is sort of doing his thing and leaning into it and wants his opportunity to flaunt his stuff and whatever, enjoy the moment.

But he crosses a line. I mean, there's a scene that I don't remember. I really didn't remember. Maybe it didn't strike me as palpably as it did on this watch when he's in bed and sort of kind of terror talking back to some sort of voice he's obviously hearing in his head, like, why me? And he feels chosen. And I think at that point, the coin is dropped and he's losing his marbles. And I don't know if you can really...

hold him responsible past that point for his actions. Yeah, maybe not past that point. I think you're right.

I feel like this is a political movie just because politics are in the background and sometimes in the foreground throughout. One of the things that's so great, I think, is the way that they just start world-building immediately. I mean, it's the real world, but they really set the tone of the world really well. Even as this, like, voiceover starts, when we get into the newsroom and the opening credits are playing, they start talking about, like, what news stories they're gonna run.

where they're gonna put a sort of a sports nighty scene of like, "Okay, we're gonna go from here to here to here, and then we'll bounce out to commercial." And they talk about Squeaky Fromm, and then later in the actual newsroom-- - Assassination attempt. - Yep, the assassination attempt of President Ford. And they play-- when we're in the newsroom, in the background, you hear an archival clip of Gerald Ford talking about this. It's actually about two assassination attempts.

on his life. Within two weeks, there were two different attempts on his life, one by Squeaky Fromm, one by Sarah Jane Moore. These are both in September of 1975, which is when this movie is taking place, which was just a few months ago. Again, like they're reacting to the news so quickly because they started making this in early 1976. And we hear Ford saying, I will not capitulate to those who want to undercut what's all good in America.

And I felt like that is kind of the central battle of this whole movie. I'd like to hear further on that. - Okay. - Who's trying not to capitulate? Not that Nixon is all that's good in America, but I think he's representing an old guard. I think he's on the side of Max Schumacher. And to some extent, some of the UBS executives too. The folks who were saying, like, "News has its value."

And then Hackett and Faye Dunaway are on the other side. Here's my other theory. Faye Dunaway, she's called later in the film by Schumacher, television incarnate. But I think there's a lot of gender politics happening in the movie as well. Her position of power as a woman, I can't help but also draw some connection to Squeaky Fromm and Sarah Jane Moore, the only women who have ever tried to assassinate the U.S. president. Hmm.

Mm-hmm. That there's some, like, connection that they have there. And they talk about this character, Giffords, how she's an heiress who's been kidnapped, sort of like in a Patty Hearst way. It was reminding me, I won't say who, but I have a friend who was at a charity event with Patty Hearst.

And they were becoming fast friends as they sat at their table at this very, I guess, boring event until my friend said something like, oh my God, we got to get out of here. It's like being held hostage. Literally those words. And then had one of those things like, oh my God, I just said that to Patty Hearst.

And then the rest of the evening was not so much fun. Yeah. Okay. So can I draw my metaphor here further, maybe too far? Please. So I think that this is a movie, besides being about TV, it is also kind of about mortality and aging and sort of like the natural timeline of things. And this is why I think that Howard Beale and Max Schumacher are complicit in kind of everything that happens. Because you could imagine that there's a natural cycle of things happening

When the sort of rise and fall of people's lives is in some way supposed to be, I don't know, echoed in their careers as well. And as you come to the end of your career, as you come to the later parts of your life, your glory days are behind you.

And you're supposed to leave gracefully? Yeah, you're supposed to leave gracefully and make room and accept that this is what's happening. And I think that Howard can't accept the idea that he has gotten canceled. I mean, we know that he can't. He says, Ladies and gentlemen, I would like at this moment to announce that I will be retiring from this program in two weeks' time because of poor ratings. Since this show was the only thing I had going for me in my life, I have decided to kill myself.

And we hear from the voiceover at the beginning that he used to be, I love that they called him a Mandarin. In his time, Howard Beale had been a Mandarin of television. I didn't know that Mandarin could be used like that. The vocabulary in this film is fantastic. Yeah, the writing in general is incredible.

And it's amazing how it can both be so heightened in like a kind of Sorkin-y way and also feel really raw. Yeah, no, I think the writing is brilliant. But there were literally words I looked up. I was like, is auspicatory a word? Oh, it is. I was like...

Imane for something enormous and almost monstrous. Loved that. Yeah. I'm learning new words. I love learning new words. And flitched off. That's another one I wrote down. Flitched off for something that was like cut or shaved off. Yeah, the language is so beautiful. And then Max is also getting fired. And he's the one who lets Howard go on, right? He says, if this is how he wants to go out, this is how he goes. If he wants to go out like this, let him go out.

And if Howard were for preserving the sort of decent order that he says that he's for, he would have cut him off. He would have said, like, this is not right. I'm not going to let my friend make a fool of himself. But he's so upset at the moment because he's just heard about the CCNA plan to gut the news division. So he's having his own thing where he had kept his job, but suddenly he blew up at the UBS executives because he just heard Hackett saying, oh, yeah, we're going to...

to get rid of this. Yeah, I had the same moment too where I thought, like, here this guy's making a mistake at a personal peak. And he takes the one, he says, what do you want? He's saying that life is bullshit and it is. What's your problem with it? Exactly. Yeah, the movie has a lot to do with, I guess, like a maybe macho or like chauvinistic kind of refusal to age gracefully. And then I think that this also manifests in Matthew's

Max Schumacher having an affair with Diana Christensen. Oh, yeah, absolutely. I found that very painful to watch. Sort of understandable in terms of Max being a human being, but it's so painful. Like, she's so...

and antithetical to what he seems to believe in and the fact that he's so infatuated with this younger woman and then the pain that he causes and his wife just dressing him down and sort of calling it exactly what it is. Yeah, it's painful to watch the,

the romantic subplot. Yeah, but I think that romantic subplot is, again, a metaphor for the battle that's happening at the network, too. This idea of, like, do you go out gracefully or do you try and say, no, no, no, no, I'm not ready yet. Look, I still have...

time. I still have vitality. I still have feelings. And so here's a chance for me to either hold on to those in an ignoble way or protest in an ignoble way. Say, oh, I'm going to do this horrible thing live on air because I can't accept what's happening or saying like, no, no, I have the attention of this beautiful woman or I have the attention of the American people and that's all I care about.

Yeah, that's fair enough. But do you think there's any indication in the beginning of the film, or I guess at any point in the film, that Holden professionally should be put out to pasture? That he's beyond... There's no indication to me that I picked up on that he's incompetent or losing his grip the way that Beale is. I wouldn't say that he's losing his grip mentally, but the facts are, UBS is the last place network, and their network shows declining in ratings, and...

It is performing poorly. And you could say, well, all news divisions are expected to perform poorly, but it's doing the worst of all of them. Okay, fair enough. I mean, it's kind of a cynical way to think of it, but to say like, oh, the natural order also revolves around currency and attention. But I also think that that's what's so awesome about this movie is the way that it presents this kind of like,

A rubros of what the people want versus what the people get, what the people feel, and then feeding them the thing that feels like what they want. Yeah, do you just give the people what they want or do you try to give them something of greater value than maybe they're hungry for? The American people want somebody to articulate their rage for them.

I've been telling you people since I took this job six months ago that I want angry shows. But then the television that reflects that anger incites more anger. And so there's this downward spiral. And I do think that, like, obviously politics plays into that of every politician who jumps in on that and says, yeah, we want to respond to that by saying I'm angry.

the incarnation of that anger, which is how we get Trump, and certainly he's not the first and won't be the last, but... No, we've basically got a vice presidential candidate in J.D. Vance who's openly saying multiple times now, like, it's okay really even to feed people bullshit if it's in service to what I think is more important, if it whips them up in a frenzy for...

for the right reasons, it doesn't matter if the fundamental story being told is untrue. Oh my God. I mean, just to jump like way ahead to a thing I was looking up, which was when Tucker Carlson was sued. He was sued in 2020. That's the year James Dean died. Exactly. The same year, that very same year, Karen McDougal, a former Playboy model, sold the rights of the story of her affair with Donald Trump to the National Enquirer.

Tucker Carlson claimed that McDougal attempted to extort money from Trump, even though she never did. She didn't ask him for money. She never even approached him. McDougal sued, and in response, Fox's legal team argued that Tucker Carlson's comments, quote, cannot reasonably be interpreted as facts.

Wow. How's that for an argument? Yeah. Meaning that what? He is an entertainment provider and nothing he says should be taken as fact. Yeah. This is entertainment. This is not fact. This is the World Wrestling Federation. Exactly. And I think JD Vance is playing along with that. He's like, it is the World Wrestling Federation and I'm going to give the people the show that they like. So what do you think? How do you feel about this maybe too broad metaphor that I'm trying to draw out here? I

I like it. I'll allow it. Okay. I don't fault Beale and Schumacher to the extent that you do for failing to let go gracefully because I think at least Schumacher is, I mean, he doesn't put up as serious a fight as he might, but he is, I think, at least in his own estimation, trying to fight for what he thinks is a time when TV news, the TV news business was...

about truth and getting facts out and real journalism, and he's at least fighting what might be the new wave of profitability, but profitability at what cost?

No, I think you're right. Maybe I should more specifically put the point on it that like, I think really Schumacher is doing this in his affair with Faye Dunaway's character. That's really where he knows exactly what he's doing. He has this really clear conversation with his wife about the affair that he is having. Does she love you, Max? I'm not sure she's capable of any real feelings.

And yet he's still doing it. And I think that that is, to me, a metaphor for what's happening. He's literally getting in bed with someone he calls television incarnate. Yeah, that's true. And he said, and before the scene, long before the scene with his wife, he even sort of mutters to himself, schmuck, what are you getting yourself into? Yeah. Or something like that. So I think that the new guard and the old guard for me are really about like the old guard recognizes that.

the depravity or like the hollowness of selling your soul. They understand the idea of like, oh yeah, you can sell your soul for ratings and that's a choice you can make. And then on the other side, I think like Faye Dunaway's character, that equation never even comes into her mind. There is absolutely no morality attached to anything. There's no

moral questioning that happens. But Schumacher's going for it. And we know that they know this because they talk about it in the very first scene when they're in the bar. And Howard says he's going to plan to kill himself on the air. And Schumacher says... Get a hell of a rating, I'll guarantee you that. Fifty share easy. You think so? Sure. We can make a series out of it. Suicide of the Week. Why the hell? Why limit ourselves? Execution of the Week. Terrorist of the Week.

Which is basically what the Howard Beale show becomes. He predicts it in the first couple minutes of the movie, but he still goes and has this affair with the person who's kind of behind that. So I don't know. I think that blowing up his marriage and having this kind of refusal to accept his own mortality or aging or something like that by having this affair, that to me feels like an echo of...

giving in to ratings for ratings' sakes, for the sake of money, despite the cost of what it might have for, I don't know, decency. Yeah, I like that. That holds up. Can you imagine if Lumet and Paddy Chayefsky were alive today to see the horrors that you can watch on your phone? I mean, assassination, death, tragedy, emergency, war, that you can just call up within seconds at your fingertips. I

I mean, Sidney Lumet died in 2011, which means he was alive for part of that. Well, I guess so, yeah. I was reading about this screening that the DGA did in 2003, where I think he got to have a glimpse of not that part of it necessarily, but sort of what network was then and what it is now, the now of 2003. Let me read this a little bit from the Q&A that he did afterwards.

He said, once it opened, everybody kept saying, oh, what a brilliant satire. But Patty and I always said, this isn't satire. This is sheer reportage. We were both brought up in television, so we knew what we were dealing with. But I've got to tell you, I don't think I've seen it in 20 years. I don't usually like to look at my work.

Yeah, I get that. I love the idea that it was a funnier movie and that it was like a funnier satire. Yeah, of course, because you'd watch it and go, oh my God, the audacity of positing this kind of television. And now it's just like, oh yeah, I've seen that. Very funny.

There was another quote I read in the Dave Itzkoff book that was from the president of CBS News, where he said, "It's a distorted fantasy and simply could never happen." Wait, who-- that's funny. Yeah. Like, a bunch of people from the news world were outraged by the movie when it came out. They found it incredibly offensive.

And I just, I love that. Now we look at this movie and we're like, oh yeah, so prescient. Well, like that's the sort of reaction. And at that time he said he hated it because it is a distorted fantasy and simply could never happen. Oh, that's pretty wild. They did a theater version, a stage version that I wish I had seen.

with Bryan Cranston in the Howard Beale role, Tatyana Maslany in the Faye Dunaway role, my pal Tony Goldwyn as Max Schumacher. That's great. I wish I could have seen that. Ivan Van Hove directed it. It was-- apparently, it was brilliantly realized on stage, live, obviously, with cameras as well and monitors all over the place, and it was supposed to be a technological masterpiece. Yeah. There's so many layers of foreshadowing, but also just, like, meta things happening in the movie.

There's a story that Max Schumacher tells in the beginning. Originally, he tells it to Howard, and then he tells it again later. And even when he tells it to Howard this time, you get the feeling that he's told this story, like, many, many times. Yeah, he's dined out on it. Yeah. So I jump out of bed in my pajamas, I grab my raincoat, I run downstairs, I run out in the street, and I hail a cab. And I jumped in and I yell at the driver, take me to the middle of the George Washington Bridge. LAUGHTER

And the driver turns around and he says, don't do it, buddy. Don't do it. You're young. You'll get your whole life ahead of you. And I thought that there was so much in that that ends up paying off in the movie too. Because when Howard Beale does his big mad as hell speech, he's thrown a trench coat on over his pajamas. And I think that the idea of like, this was maybe a little bit of a stretch, but the idea of like the taxi driver being like, you've got your whole life ahead of you. Don't do it.

feels a little bit like Howard Beale changing his mind about not shooting himself, and that he's got all this other life ahead of him in this new version of himself as this, like, weird TV messiah. I may even almost argue there's a little bit too much of kind of, like, saying what you're gonna see and then foreshadowing, predicting what's gonna happen or calling it out on the screen as it's happening. But I also like it, so I don't know that it's too much.

But another example of it, I think, is when we first meet Diana Christensen and she's getting these pitches for different shows. The series is irresistibly entitled The New Lawyers. The running characters are a crusty but benign ex-Supreme Court justice, presumably Oliver Wendell Holmes by way of Dr. Zorba. There is a beautiful girl graduate student and the local district attorney who is brilliant and sometimes cuts corners. Next one. The second one's called The Amazon Squad. Lady Copts.

The running characters include a crusty but benign police lieutenant who's always getting heat from the commissioner, a hard-nosed, hard-drinking detective who thinks women belong in the kitchen, and a brilliant and beautiful young girl cop who's fighting the feminist battle on the force. We're up to our ears in Lady Cops. All starring a crusty but benign... Yes. ...man character. Right? That's Schumacher. The crusty but benign whatever. Right. They later referred to him as Craggy a couple of times. Yeah. Yeah.

sub out a few words here and there, and you've got the sitcom version of... What's happening in the movie. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. And then there's a whole scene later, actually, when Holden finally leaves Dunaway, or Schumacher leaves Diana. Yeah. What's her name? Christensen? Christensen, yeah. He just calls it out as the beats of an episode of a television show. I mean, there's a self-awareness about their...

own actions falling into the world of television cliche that is sort of fascinating. Yeah. And again, I think that's why I consider him to be complicit because just like when he says, oh, if you were to shoot yourself on the air, we'd get great ratings. He knows what all those things are. He knows what's coming or what could be coming.

And despite like the protestations, he's kind of going along with parts of it, at least in his personal life. Yeah, I think you're right. I think actually personally and professionally throughout the movie, he's sort of too weak to do the right thing that he recognizes from the get-go. Yeah. I thought another great meta thing in this movie is we talked about

this character who's been kidnapped by the Ecumenical Liberation Army. That character is played by the daughter of Walter Cronkite. Oh, is that right? Yeah. Kathy Cronkite. Oh, that's interesting. I feel like that's such incredible casting. That's wild. For a thing that's talking about the degradation of respectability in news to then take the literal child of Walter Cronkite and put her in this terrible...

terrorist group firing a gun. Definitely the first few times that I've seen this movie, I had no idea that that was Kathy Cronkite, daughter of Walter Cronkite, but I just think that it's one of... I never knew. One of the great examples of the layering that's happening in the movie. Let's say we take a quick break and come back later. And now back to the show.

It's a pretty great scene speaking out when the network business affairs type people are meeting with the ELA members to go over the contract. It's kind of brilliant. You can blow the Seminole prisoner class infrastructure out your ass!

I'm not knocking down my goddamn distribution charges. It's incredible. I laughed the hardest at that part. That's one scene where, I mean, I can't imagine what it would have been like to just be laughing out loud at the comedy of this when it was more purely a satirical comedy. But watching it now, that's the scene that made me laugh the hardest. Yeah, that was a scene that really hit comically hard for me. What I think is so brilliant, too...

is the way they set that up with what Laureen Hobbs originally says. Again, when you first meet Laureen Hobbs, in that interview, Laureen Hobbs says, The Communist Party believes that the most pressing political necessity today is the consolidation of the revolutionary, radical, and democratic movements into a united front. The consolidation of the revolutionary, radical, and democratic movements into a united front.

Right. Like that's what she says the Communist Party is all about. And then you meet the ecumenical liberation army. And that's what ecumenical means, right? Like a consolidation army.

of a bunch of different groups. I thought it was specifically church related. Okay. Yeah. Of relating to or representing a whole body of churches. Yeah. That makes sense. And then again, like it jumps out because in his giant speech, Ned Beatty as Arthur Jensen uses the same word. He says, our children will live Mr. Beale to see that perfect world.

In which there's no war or famine, oppression or brutality. One vast and ecumenical holding for whom all men will work to serve a common project. All men will hold a share of society.

He is both speaking about a holdings company, the CCNA Holdings Company, the most capitalistic institution in the movie. You can imagine. While using communist language, all men will work to serve a common profit. All men will hold a share of... Everyone will own a share. Yeah.

And so that scene with the ELA where Laureen Hobbs is yelling about not having to give up her distribution fees and they're talking about the money of it. Like, everybody's sort of in it together and you just sort of watch the people who are supposed to be in opposition to each other end up, yeah, just rolling around in the same mud. I thought it was so funny and brilliant. Yeah, brilliant. Actually, the Laureen Hobbs meeting with Diane Christensen reminded me of a scene from The West Wing. Which scene?

You remember when the two of them meet each other and they introduce themselves? Hi, I'm Diana Christensen, a racist lackey of the imperialist ruling circles. It reminded me of the scene in The West Wing where the president meets the Big Lebowski, David Huddleston as Max Lobel, where he says, Because I'm a lily-livered, bleeding-heart, liberal, egghead communist. Yes, sir. And I'm a gun-toting, redneck son of a bitch. Yes, you are. That's not familiar.

I can't help but feel like this series, because it came out of our podcast, does still owe a lot to the Sorkin universe. Even just like the choices. For me, part of the choice of Judas and the Black Messiah was because Martin Sheen is in it. And for me, part of the reason why I was thinking about Network is because of how...

how much I know Aaron admires this movie. Yeah, absolutely. Also, I think there's a very strong, I mean, I think it's the real direct inspiration for the Jeff Daniels monologue in the pilot episode of Newsroom, where he sort of goes off and talks about America is not a great country. I mean, that is a very Bilzian, Padachevsky type, I think it's a clear inspiration

direct conscious nod to network. Yeah, and even maybe more explicitly and in my mind kind of less successfully, it's also the opening moment

episode of Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip. Oh, that I don't remember. Remind me. Yeah, that show starts when Judd Hirsch's character interrupts their, whatever, their opening thing and comes out and says... This show used to be cutting-edge political and social satire, but it's gotten lobotomized by a candy-ass broadcast network hellbent on doing nothing that might challenge their audience.

We were about to do a sketch that you've seen already about 500 times. Yeah, no one's going to confuse George Bush with George Plimpton. Now we get it. We're all being lobotomized by this country's most influential industry. It's just thrown in the towel on any endeavor to do anything that doesn't include the courting of 12-year-old boys. I completely forgot. I think I blocked it because it's a, in my mind, very much not successful nod to...

What happens in network, which I think is much meatier, fair to have Beale talking about the news as opposed to Judd Hirsch talking about sexism.

Saturday Night Live, essentially. Exactly. I mean, that's the big problem I have with Studio 60 in general is like, who thinks that this is that important? I mean, it's important in terms of comedy. Yeah, SNL is a comedy institution. But the idea of giving it this kind of gravitas is just silly to me. And part of the reason why I'm not a fan

a fan of that show. But then what I think is also bad, like part of the reason why that even just the pilot bothers me is later in the show, there's like this montage of reactions to what happened. In a scene reminiscent of Patty Chayefsky's classic film network, Studio 60 executive producer Wes Mandel hijacked tonight's live broadcast. He was mad as hell and he wasn't going to take it anymore.

The NBS flagship program, Studio 60. Oscar-winning performance in the 1977 film Network, Westman Dell. Disaster and embarrassment at NBS as tonight's broadcast at Studio 60 got off to a start that would have made Patty Chayefsky smile. You believe this? I say they've heard of Patty Chayefsky. That's a step in the right direction. I was like, you can't...

It feels like you're... You can't pat your own writing on the back by writing people comparing it to Paddy Chayefsky. You can't rip the thing off and then say it's okay because everybody in the universe is the thing that you're ripping it off in recognizes how you've ripped it off.

Yeah, not only that, they don't see it as ripping it off. It's like, he really did it. Right, exactly. In your fictional world, network is a piece of fiction and you did the real version. You did the real thing.

And that kind of contortion, I just, I couldn't really hang with it. So, but we know that this is a huge movie for him. In fact, when he won the Oscar for The Social Network. Beating at James Dean. I know we're going to cut it out, so I have to stop making that joke. Don't, don't, never. That's right. In 2011, when James Dean was also nominated for Best Screenplay.

Yeah. Here's how he opened that speech. It's impossible to describe what it feels like to be handed the same award that was given to Patty Chayefsky 35 years ago for another movie with Network in the title.

And I found a quote from Aaron Sorkin in this piece in Vanity Fair where he said, Chayefsky wrote more cynically and probably more realistically about the news than I did. The first time I saw Network was a 2 p.m. screening when I was 15. The second time I saw it was the 5 p.m. screening. I probably didn't even understand what I'd just seen, but I was thrilled by it. What hit me hardest was the power of Chayefsky's language. When you were 10 and he was 15, you might have been at the same movie theater, right? It is possible. Maybe we saw it in Scarsdale. Yeah.

I like that one of these segments of this Faye Dunaway's version of the news is Vox Populi. It made me think of the Vox Populi. Yes. Did you notice the sort of change in production value of the movie as it goes on? I don't think I did. Tell me about it. Sidney Lumet said he wanted the film to have three distinct parts where it goes from

more natural at the beginning of the film to hyper-commercial, like it's part of the world of the Howard Beale show by the end. I noticed it mainly, especially in like the audio at the end, the last scene when right before Howard Beale is assassinated, the volume jumps so high. Everything is like too loud, too bright.

And I thought that was a neat directorial decision. Yeah, that's fascinating. Did you notice that William Holden inexplicably pronounces Anna Karenina, Anna Karenia? An adapted for television version of Anna Karenia. How does that happen? How does that happen? I immediately went to the internet. I was like, have I been saying it wrong all these years?

Maybe he was thinking of the actress. He got caught up thinking about Jean-Luc Godard and thought of Anna Karenina. That still wouldn't explain why he said Karenina. Can we talk about one other language thing that I think is huge and wild? Yes. What's the famous line of network? Oh, I know exactly what you're going to say. Okay.

Because I remember it as the audience remembered it. Yes. And then every time I see it, I'm like, oh yeah, Howard Beals says, I'm mad as hell and I'm not going to take this anymore, not it.

Oh, that's not even what I was thinking about. But same line. What he says in the film is, I'm as mad as hell. I'm as mad as hell and I'm not going to take this anymore. Hmm. As. Yeah. Which is confusing when everybody goes out to the window and they shout something else, right? They all shout. I'm mad as hell. I'm not going to take this anymore. I'm not going to take this anymore.

I'm mad as hell and I'm not going to take it anymore. I'm mad as hell. I'm not going to take it anymore. And they say, and I'm not going to take it anymore. Yeah. Clearly they weren't paying that much attention. What the hell is going on? Well, the story, again, this is in Itzkov's book. Even though Paddy Chayefsky was on set to make sure that people were basically word perfect according to what he wrote, despite that,

Peter Finch inserted this extra as, I'm as mad as hell, which isn't supposed to be there. It's not in the script. But they only got two takes of that scene. This is like a massive speech, right? I mean, like, enormous thing. They'd got one and a half takes or something like that, or two takes. And that was it. But I guess it also speaks to the superiority of what he originally wrote that most of us remember it as it was written, not as Beale originally says it. Yeah, yeah.

What did you think of Faye Dunaway in this movie? Ah, interesting. That's a good question. Because at first, early on watching it, I felt she was a little bit over the top. Her performance was a little bit rubbing me the wrong way. And I was thinking she, I think I came around to revise that opinion. But she's almost out of breath. She's so hyped up.

She's so fired up about the possibilities of professional possibilities that she's like, her performance is breathless. She almost can't keep up with her own words. And it was sort of bothering me at first, but then I decided maybe it was an interesting take on who this person is.

Yeah, I liked that. I thought it reflected her brilliance a little bit, even though she's an evil genius. I thought it reflected that, that you need to have that kind of passion to have such an outlandish vision and make it true. You need to have that kind of passion. And she's so passionate, she can barely get the words out. Yeah, and that aspect of the performance actually grew on me. I found it alienating at first, but I think I ended up

Yeah. I do think that she is supposed to be alienating too, right? Like there's that incredible montage of the dates, the affair for a month, which all she does is talk about ratings to Max Schumacher. Through the entirety of dinner, through leaving, through getting into the place, through changing the thermostat, and then to actually having sex with him. Yeah.

And consummating and reaching orgasm incredibly quickly, as she sort of had predicted. And she never stops talking about TV. And then even afterwards, right, like in the post-coital snuggle, she's still talking about NBC and how they have game shows. And you have to wonder what Max Schumacher is contributing. He literally doesn't say a word. Really, it's just like he's there. He is sort of passively getting his...

validation by being with her, but no other form of validation, which is, I think, ultimately why he does. He does have enough of the sort of remnants of dignity and propriety to call it off in the end. We don't see him try and actually reconcile with his wife, but he says he's going to go try and make it work. Give it a shot. Yeah. But all the way up through that,

I think he is seduced in the same way that you see everybody kind of getting seduced. And the way that she's like breathlessly talking about like, can you imagine the profits that we could have on a show that's a strip show, a show that they can just run five days a week, right? A strip Savonarola is what she refers to him as. Savonarola being, which I had to look up.

Being a prophet in the 15th century, or a guy who was taking prophecy, who was eventually killed by order of the Pope. That's incredible. Are you a Marty fan? Do you know that movie? Yes. Yeah. Ernest Borgnine. Yeah. And incredible, incredible script by Paddy Chayefsky. But it's funny because that movie, I think, is so brilliant and so...

incredibly written. The dialogue is so amazing because it is so natural. Like it feels so... It's pretty astounding the breadth of his ability as a writer. Yeah. Like you wouldn't watch that movie and think that this is going to be a person who's going to

invoke some priest from the 15th century in the dialogue of one of the characters. But one of the things also that Sidney Lumet had told his actors was try and bring a humanity to the words, but don't make it try and seem too natural because the dialogue is not natural. And what did you think about her casting? Are you a Faye Dunaway fan? Let's see. I guess no, maybe, but I think I have a...

knee-jerk negative response to things I've read about her behavior on film sets and her diva nature. Gotcha. But she is a talented actor, so maybe I'm being unfair. I wonder if it takes...

someone who is like that in real life to play a character like this in the movie. Yeah, I think so. I mean, I think it's very good casting and I do think it's an excellent performance and very memorable. Yeah, she is an incredible void of humanity. Right.

And to be able to play that in a way that's compelling, I think seems like such a difficult thing to do. She both seems like a person that you could kind of understand, a person who is absolutely career-driven, who is self-centered, who is amoral.

I mean, again, like we're describing so many politicians of today, right? In general. Right. And the one thing that is slightly appealing is she's at least seems to be self-aware, unlike so many people who can be described similarly, amoral, awful, narcissistic. She knows who she is. I apparently have a masculine temperament. I arouse quickly, consummate prematurely, and can't wait to get my clothes back on and get out of that bedroom.

I seem to be inept at everything except my work. I'm good at my work. So I confide myself to that. And so I think that that character is interesting because a lot of that drivenness, that kind of heartless professionalism...

Maybe we wouldn't even be having this conversation if that were a male character. But I think that's what's neat about it is the way that she upends it. And again, to go back to the sort of thing of like the brilliant and beautiful young girl cop fighting the feminist battle on the force, right? Like even the language, the description of the thing, brilliant and beautiful young girl cop is like, okay, well, pretty not so feminist to be described in those terms. And then in the movie, when they're talking about Christensen,

They say, that girl from programming. Oh, yeah. And she ends up having to assert herself in different ways. She comes in and she calls in her team or, I don't know, like the people who she wants ideas from to pitch them on this thing. And they're kind of not really taking her seriously. And then in the end, she puts the hammer down. I want ideas from you people. That is what you're paid for.

And by the way, the next time I send an audience research report around, you'd all better read it or I'll sack the f***ing lot of you. Is that clear? Yeah, I think in some ways she is kind of a great feminist character. Yeah, I think there's an argument to be made. I mean, she's no more vile than a lot of men in the movie. Yeah.

I also liked actually just the scene where they decide to kill him, to assassinate him live on air. It sort of comes up and there isn't really a moment where people are like, this is insane what we're discussing. They're just all of a sudden they're discussing it. It could be done right on camera in the studio. We ought to get a fantastic looking audience for the assassination of Howard Beale as our opening show. If Beale dies, what would our continuing obligation to the Beale Corporation be?

I know our contract with Beale contains a buyout clause triggered by his death or incapacity. I like how it just sort of creeps up on you. You're like, oh, they're really just talking about this and nobody's going like...

This is madness. Like one person maybe has one slight reservation for a moment, but it's like, they're just, yeah, well, if we're going to do this, it's got to work. Paddy Chayefsky said that he wanted that scene to play like they were just talking about any other network decision. And that's exactly what it feels like. That's how it played. That's exactly what I loved about it. By the way, just to bring it full circle now, guess who played Ruddy in the Broadway production of Network?

James Dean? No, very good guess. I'll give you one hint. And the one hint is that I'm going to sing the answer.

Ron Canada. Amazing. Wow. Yeah. Great. How about that? That's great. Oh, speaking of Ron Canada and the way that when you sang Ron Canada. Yes. In our episode about Bullworth, Zach added some reverb to your voice. Oh, how does it sound? It sounds great. And,

That brings me to a thing I wanted to bring up, which is the artificial reverb that appears in this movie at one moment. Because you talked about the sort of changing of Howard Beale's situation, right? Like the fact that we see him go from cogent to whatever he becomes. I think that there's a moment where they sort of flip that switch for us.

And they do it with that reverb. There's a part where he's still in the news anchor position. It's when everybody's yelling at him. And Howard says, I can't hear you. And they put on the studio mic so he can hear him. But I think that that's actually him starting to lose his grip on what's actually happening. And then the real button on it is...

They now turn on the studio mic and he says, "Howard, what the hell are you doing? Have you flipped or what?" "I think we better get him off." That line suddenly echoes out with this artificial reverb and you see Howard's eyes light up. It's a similar look to what he has later. That's the moment? Yeah, later when he has the conversation in bed.

And later, later, when he's talking to Jensen and he has that look, like the look of a prophet who's hearing the voice of God or something like that. Yes. I think that's the moment when that is supposed to be noticeable to us. And I think that's the little external marker is this little sonic thing that they do. It's also painful knowing that he died of a heart attack and watching him collapse multiple times as Howard Beale. Yeah. No.

Knowing that he would soon die of a heart attack. It's hard not to have that. That was in the back of my mind the whole time I was watching. Yeah, yeah. I thought that the way they used the collapsing thing was also very smart, too, because, again, like, they're foreshadowing his very public death because he ends every broadcast by...

having these kinds of fainting spells and being overcome and dropping to the ground. And then that's the audience's cue to like get up and start cheering. And applaud, exactly. And nobody, there's no medical attention. Nobody runs out to him. The camera just zooms in on him and the crowd goes wild. Yeah. The only difference here is there were shots fired before he collapsed, but from a sitcom, all your favorite beats are going to happen in the way that you want them. It's like, oh, there he is. He's hit the ground. There it is. So there are also parts of this movie that reminded me of...

or like really one thing in idiocracy. Have you seen Idiocracy? I've seen parts of it. I don't think I've seen it all the way through. Even before I saw it, I remember it was early on in my time in LA and I had a job as a reader, like a script reader, like an intern position. And I think it was through that that I ended up reading the screenplay for Idiocracy before it was made. And it's written by Mike Judge,

made Beavis and Butthead, but he also made King of the Hill, which was on Fox, right? And in his script, there's a action block where it says, we pan across TVs, each one with a network logo in the corner. The first is the violence channel featuring two butterbean looking guys hitting each other. Then the masturbation network featuring two topless women.

And finally, Fox, featuring two topless women hitting each other. And I was like, oh yeah, as programmed by Diana Christensen. Exactly. All right then. That wraps up another episode of the West Wing Weekly Political Film Fest. So tell us what you think of the movie on a scale of 1 to 10, posthumous James Dean Oscar. Perfect. Oscar wins. Oscar wins. Oscars win.

So that was my pick, Josh. Next week, what are we going to watch? It's a Joshy pick, and I've gone with, I'm going to send us back a few decades to 1957's A Face in the Crowd.

directed by Ilya Kazan and written by Bud Schulberg. It's a movie I have not seen in some years, but I really remember loving it, really digging this movie, and I think our listeners will as well. It stars Andy Griffith. Have you ever seen it? I've never seen it. Oh, good. I'm excited. And were you thinking about this as an option already, or is it inspired by having just watched Network?

That's the final push over the finish line for me. It had occurred to me as soon as, well, I'll say we, but you came up with the idea of doing a political film fest. It had occurred to me immediately. And then watching Network made me really in the mood to revisit A Face in the Crowd. Awesome. Okay, yeah, I'm going into this with a blank slate. I'm excited.

Thanks as always to Margaret Miller and Zach McNeese for their invaluable help in putting together this podcast. The West Wing Weekly continues to be a proud member of Radiotopia, a finely, closely, beautifully curated group of the finest podcasts that you can find out more about at prx.fm. Yeah, I love how you talk about the podcast. It sounds like you are trying to sell a charcuterie board to someone. Yeah.

And in a sense, I am. You are. And if you are not yet already engaging with all the fun stuff that's happening on Patreon, go to patreon.com slash the West Wing Weekly so you can chat with us in The Signal and chat with other West Wing Weekly listeners. There are contests and giveaways and other fun things. Okay. Okay. What's next? Radiotopia.

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