Jensen: You have meddled with the primal forces of nature, Mr. Beale, and I won't have it!! Is that clear?! You think you've merely stopped a business deal. That is not the case. The Arabs have taken billions of dollars out of this country, and now they must put it back! It is ebb and flow, tidal gravity! It is ecological balance!
You are an old man who thinks in terms of nations and peoples. There are no nations. There are no peoples. There are no Russians. There are no Arabs. There are no third worlds. There is no West. There is only one holistic system of systems, one vast and immane, interwoven, interacting, multivariate, multinational dominion of dollars. Petro-dollars, electro-dollars, multi-dollars, reichmarks, rins, rubles, pounds, and shekels.
It is the international system of currency which determines the totality of life on this planet. That is the natural order of things today. That is the atomic and subatomic and galactic structure of things today! And YOU have meddled with the primal forces of nature, and YOU WILL ATONE!
Am I getting through to you, Mr. Beale?
You get up on your little twenty-one inch screen and howl about America and democracy. There is no America. There is no democracy. There is only IBM and ITT and AT&T and DuPont, Dow, Union Carbide, and Exxon. Those are the nations of the world today.
What do you think the Russians talk about in their councils of state -- Karl Marx? They get out their linear programming charts, statistical decision theories, minimax solutions, and compute the price-cost probabilities of their transactions and investments, just like we do.
We no longer live in a world of nations and ideologies, Mr. Beale. The world is a college of corporations, inexorably determined by the immutable bylaws of business. The world is a business, Mr. Beale. It has been since man crawled out of the slime. And 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 company, for whom all men will work to serve a common profit, in which all men will hold a share of stock, all necessities provided, all anxieties tranquilized, all boredom amused.
And I have chosen you, Mr. Beale, to preach this evangel.
Beale: But why me?
Jensen: Because you're on television, dummy. Sixty million people watch you every night of the week, Monday through Friday.
Beale: I have seen the face of God.
Jensen: You just might be right, Mr. Beale.
Posted by gerardvanderleun at December 18, 2015 6:59 PM
Ned Beatty: From squealing like a pig to the face of god all in about 3 years.
"Now lets you just drop them pants, take em right off. Panties too."
Posted by: ghostsniper at December 19, 2015 7:05 AMAyn Rand's heroes . . . being non-heroic. THE LIZARD PEOPLE WILL LOSE!
Posted by: Bruce Hanify at December 19, 2015 10:34 AMAnd when Ahmed comes strolling in shouting "Allahu Ackbar" as he thumbs the release on his bomb vest all of your money will mean nothing.
Posted by: Mikey NTH at December 19, 2015 3:20 PMThis film, along with TAXI DRIVER and THE MANCHURIAN CANDIDATE, permanently warped my world-view when I saw it as a callow teen. Ned Beatty should have gotten a Best Supporting Actor for that scene alone.
Posted by: Skorpion at December 19, 2015 4:45 PMI watched this clip after watching the 'People Are Awesome 2015' post above it. That was probably a mistake.
I was just listening to the Ricochet podcast and they were talking about what a breath of fresh air Star Wars was in 1977, being an action movie with humor and actual heroes. 'Network' is a perfect example of the entire rest of the 70s oeuvre. No wonder I and many contemporaries, in our late teens, wound up in a daze going into the 80s. We'd spent a good decade and a half being told how corrupt, vain, and evil the whole world was with nary a peep, at least in the media, as to how that might in fact all be hogwash.
Posted by: Tom at December 20, 2015 2:48 AMTom:
Paddy Chayefsky was the writer for "Network" and I think he was talking (and slamming) about the industry he was in. Unless these people writing tv shows or movies bring in someone from the outside they have no idea what actually occurs outside of their little protected kingdoms.*
So Chayefsky writing that rant about money - that's from his experience with his industry.
Now think - why should we take any moral advice from such a pre-moral business or the people involved in it? Why should we take any advice from people wanting the approval of those in the entertainment industry?
Why do we take moral advice from degenerates? Why do we take environmental advice from squanderers?
Why do we take health advice from faddist binge-and-purgers?
Why are aristocrats hailed as the voice of the commoner?
Burn Hollywood; burn Broadway (metaphorically, not geographically - though maybe person-by-person....)
Posted by: Mikey NTH at December 20, 2015 4:58 PM
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