Mad as Hell: The Making of Network and the Fateful Vision of the Angriest Man in Movies Author: Dave Itzkoff | Language: English | ISBN:
B00EGJAZGA | Format: PDF
Mad as Hell: The Making of Network and the Fateful Vision of the Angriest Man in Movies Description
The behind-the-scenes story of the making of the iconic movie Network, which transformed the way we think about television and the way television thinks about us
“I’m mad as hell, and I'm not going to take this anymore!”
Those words, spoken by an unhinged anchorman named Howard Beale, “the mad prophet of the airwaves,” took America by storm in 1976, when Network became a sensation. With a superb cast (including Faye Dunaway, William Holden, Peter Finch, and Robert Duvall) directed by Sidney Lumet, the film won four Academy Awards and indelibly shaped how we think about corporate and media power.
In Mad As Hell, Dave Itzkoff of The New York Times recounts the surprising and dramatic story of how Network made it to the screen. Such a movie rarely gets made any more—one man’s vision of the world, independent of studio testing or market research. And that man was Paddy Chayefsky, the tough, driven, Oscar-winning screenwriter whose vision—outlandish for its time—is all too real today. Itzkoff uses interviews with the cast and crew, as well as Chayefsky’s notes, letters, and drafts to re-create the action in front of and behind the camera at a time of swirling cultural turmoil. The result is a riveting account that enriches our appreciation of this prophetic and still-startling film.
Itzkoff also speaks with today’s leading broadcasters and filmmakers to assess Network’s lasting impact on television and popular culture. They testify to the enduring genius of Paddy Chayefsky, who foresaw the future and whose life offers an unforgettable lesson about the true cost of self-expression.
- File Size: 1803 KB
- Print Length: 304 pages
- Publisher: Times Books (February 18, 2014)
- Sold by: Macmillan
- Language: English
- ASIN: B00EGJAZGA
- Text-to-Speech: Enabled
X-Ray:
- Lending: Not Enabled
- Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #7,722 Paid in Kindle Store (See Top 100 Paid in Kindle Store)
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- #2
in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Nonfiction > Politics & Social Sciences > Social Sciences > Media Studies - #2
in Books > Humor & Entertainment > Movies > Screenwriting - #3
in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Humor & Entertainment > Movies & Video > History & Criticism
Mad as Hell vividly captures the result of one man's drive to show the world his anger and frustration at social injustice. Paddy Chayefsky's mouthpiece was his brilliant and provocative movie, Network, which, as reported by Dave Itzkoff, bore word by colorful word its author's vision of apocalypse at the corporate level of network news. But to confer importance on the movie as being prescient misses the whole point: it's satire. As such, it made no attempt to answer the many questions it raised about greed and lunacy in network television.
During Chayefsky's promotion of the movie to TV hosts and others, when he complained that commercial television diminishes the import of individual lives, no one ever stopped him to ask, "So what would you do to reverse it?" Nor does any character in the movie address such a question; indeed, the film is a litany of rants stemming from rage at this or that. So when Mr. Itzkoff describes negative reactions to Network from contemporaries in the television business, one has to ask whether these people knew that had just seen a satire. If the movie had resolved the elements of the satire to satisfy dramatic requirements, the film would have had a point of view worthy of serious discussion. Even its author had no answers, which is why, in the end, he simply killed off the movie's agitprop.
Over the years, I have prompted many friends to watch the movie or to watch it again. A good number of them, although having reported back to me how much they enjoyed it, also said that they fast-forwarded through Howard Beale's tirades. This is strange, because, among the principal characters, he seemed to be the only one to give a damn about human suffering.
By George D. Putnam
Chayefsky was a tremendous writer and social critic. he wrote the movie Network , among others. This book tells the story of the making of the movie and works as a biography of Chayefsky. I enjoyed the book because I loved the writing in Network and because I had recently read the biography of Bob Fosse which mentioned Chayefsky since he was one of Fosse's best friends. Actually the Fosse book made Paddy amore interesting than did this book, hence four stars. Still recommended.
By Andrew Eichner
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