Thursday, June 20, 2013

Prescient Words!

Paddy Chayefsky wrote this scene of Network in 1975. It opens the final act of the film, when the rebellious protagonist, Howard Beale (Peter Finch), discovers that Communications Company of America (CCA), the conglomerate that owns UBS, will be bought out by an even larger Saudi Arabian conglomerate. Beale launches an on-screen tirade against the deal, encouraging viewers to send telegrams to the White House telling them, "I want the CCA deal stopped now!". This leads to his meeting with CCA chairman Arthur Jensen (Ned Beatty), who explicates his own "corporate cosmology" to Beale. Jensen delivers a tirade of his own in an "appropriate setting," the dramatically darkened CCA boardroom.

One of the greatest movie scenes ever written. Paddy Chayefsky died in 1981, but his work lives on.

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