A television network cynically exploits a deranged former anchor's ravings and revelations about the news media for its own profit, but finds that his message may be difficult to control.A television network cynically exploits a deranged former anchor's ravings and revelations about the news media for its own profit, but finds that his message may be difficult to control.A television network cynically exploits a deranged former anchor's ravings and revelations about the news media for its own profit, but finds that his message may be difficult to control.
- Won 4 Oscars
- 20 wins & 27 nominations total
- Director
- Writer
- All cast & crew
- Production, box office & more at IMDbPro
Storyline
Did you know
- TriviaPeter Finch was desperate to win the role of Howard Beale once he had read the script. He even offered to pay his own airfare to New York City for the screentest. But Sidney Lumet was concerned about Finch's Australian accent. Finch won the part after sending Lumet a recording of himself reading the New York Times with a perfect American accent.
- GoofsEvery one of Howard Beale's shows has the same studio audience (note the man in the black vest, with long hair and a beard).
- Quotes
Howard Beale: I don't have to tell you things are bad. Everybody knows things are bad. It's a depression. Everybody's out of work or scared of losing their job. The dollar buys a nickel's worth, banks are going bust, shopkeepers keep a gun under the counter. Punks are running wild in the street and there's nobody anywhere who seems to know what to do, and there's no end to it. We know the air is unfit to breathe and our food is unfit to eat, and we sit watching our TVs while some local newscaster tells us that today we had fifteen homicides and sixty-three violent crimes, as if that's the way it's supposed to be. We know things are bad - worse than bad. They're crazy. It's like everything everywhere is going crazy, so we don't go out anymore. We sit in the house, and slowly the world we are living in is getting smaller, and all we say is, 'Please, at least leave us alone in our living rooms. Let me have my toaster and my TV and my steel-belted radials and I won't say anything. Just leave us alone.' Well, I'm not gonna leave you alone. I want you to get mad! I don't want you to protest. I don't want you to riot - I don't want you to write to your congressman because I wouldn't know what to tell you to write. I don't know what to do about the depression and the inflation and the Russians and the crime in the street. All I know is that first you've got to get mad. You've got to say, 'I'm a HUMAN BEING, God damn it! My life has VALUE!' So I want you to get up now. I want all of you to get up out of your chairs. I want you to get up right now and go to the window. Open it, and stick your head out, and yell, 'I'M AS MAD AS HELL, AND I'M NOT GOING TO TAKE THIS ANYMORE!' I want you to get up right now, sit up, go to your windows, open them and stick your head out and yell - 'I'm as mad as hell and I'm not going to take this anymore!' Things have got to change. But first, you've gotta get mad!... You've got to say, 'I'm as mad as hell, and I'm not going to take this anymore!' Then we'll figure out what to do about the depression and the inflation and the oil crisis. But first get up out of your chairs, open the window, stick your head out, and yell, and say it: "I'M AS MAD AS HELL, AND I'M NOT GOING TO TAKE THIS ANYMORE!"
- Crazy creditsPaddy Chayefsky's credit in the opening credits says "by Paddy Chayefsky" (rather than "written by Paddy Chayefsky" or a variant thereof).
- ConnectionsEdited into Amérique, notre histoire (2006)
Once I had seen ALTERED STATES and read the novel, I was hungry to find out more about the late novelist/playwright/screenwriter Paddy Chayefsky, and sought out this movie. It blew me away years ago, but I find it even more stunning now. Not just because of the writing, Sidney Lumet's taut direction or the Oscar-caliber performances by everyone involved, all of which are almost beyond being lauded with superlatives.
But what knocks me out is how Chayefsky seemed less to be writing from the power of his imagination, than channeling Our Times Now. As if he was capable of some form of mental time travel; able to look into the Nineties and beyond to see the coming of SURVIVOR, or Maury Povich, Jerry Springer, Bill O'Reilly and Paris Hilton. Even HE probably didn't know how he knew, but he sure as hell felt it and wrote it down for us to marvel over today.
Sure, there are political and cultural analogies throughout the picture that are dated. But the core of his vision remains startlingly clear and eerily prophetic. As for Howard Beale, there is not one single "celebrity" who mirrors that character today, but maybe he is a composite of several different personalities with whom we have become all too familiar in the world of "news-fo-tainment." Or maybe he simply hasn't materialized yet. Maybe that is just how far ahead of its time NETWORK really was.
After all, being "mad as hell" nowadays has so many more layers of meaning than it did nearly thirty years ago...
- cchase
- Aug 27, 2005
Details
- Release date
- Country of origin
- Language
- Also known as
- Televizijska mreža
- Filming locations
- CTV Toronto Studios - 9 Channel Nine Court, Scarborough, Ontario, Canada(as CFTO-TV Studios, Control room and news studio scenes)
- Production company
- See more company credits at IMDbPro
Box office
- Budget
- $3,800,000 (estimated)
- Gross US & Canada
- $23,689,877
- Gross worldwide
- $23,701,317
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