Sidney Lumet's 1976 masterpiece Network (written by Paddy Chayefsky) remains one of the most prescient and chilling films in American cinematic history. Everyone on this site -- and presumably the vast majority of sentient Americans -- is well familiar with the cri de coeur of "I'm as mad as hell, and I'm not going to take this anymore!" uttered by Howard Beale, one of the film's protagonists, played brilliantly and with extreme pathos by Peter Finch. That Network, for me, is the most memorable film of 1976 is saying something -- it was the most incredible year in the history of American film, producing Scorsese's seminal Taxi Driver (my favorite film of all time), Rocky, All the President's Men, Carrie, David Lynch's Eraserhead, and The Omen.
What the best of these films evidenced -- Network, Taxi Driver, and All the President's Men in particular -- was an epistemic break that resulted directly from the mid-70s breakdown in order due to the end of Vietnam, Watergate, the oil shock, Middle Eastern turmoil, and stagflation. This break created the space for gritty, shocking, and truth-telling films such as these to reach an audience that might not have been receptive to their subversion just a few years before. Contrast the content of those films with the popular cinematic response of our era to its crises -- a retreat into the fantasy worlds of Tolkien, Rowling, and countless superheroes. That, however, is another topic for another time.
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