Perils of Caffeine in the Evening

I’ve watched a few movies in the last couple of weeks, not something I do all that often. Somehow, I can never justify spending that solid block of time. That doesn’t mean that I don’t waste at least that much time anyway - no, it falls out of my pockets like a drunken sailor’s paycheck. It’s just that when you commit yourself to a movie, you’re upping the stakes, because if the movie turns out to be a waste of time, the waste is so glaringly apparent.

Anyway, I just got it in my head that week I was in Milwaukee that I wanted to see something, and, when you have been so sporadic, there gets to be a big reservoir of “good” movies that you’ve never seen. For instance, I haven’t seen any of the Oscar-nominated movies.

I was paging through Movielink, the movie download service, I saw two movies that were renowned, but that I hadn’t seen: Network and Breakfast at Tiffany’s, and I grabbed them both.

I know, you’re probably wondering about Tiffany’s. But all through middle school and high school, people were always playing Moon River and the soundtrack by Henry Mancini. It just struck me as odd that I had never watched the movie, and there it was, a click away.

As for Network, I’ve seen so many references to it as a “good” movie, and the cast - Robert Holden, Faye Dunaway, Peter Finch, Robert Duvall - seemed sort of a sure thing. Another click.

I thoroughly enjoyed both films, but there was an interesting contrast. Tiffany’s was probably dated even before it came out, but at this remove, it seems to be trying so hard to be cool, hip, blase, maybe even shocking to most people at the time - Audrey Hepburn and her $50 “cloakroom” tips, the straight-lacedly dissolute cocktail party. There was a point where it could have leaped forward a couple of decades, when Hepburn is in a taxi on her way to the airport, and Peppard is pleading with her to stay. He keeps saying, “but you belong to me!”, and I suppose that sounded perfectly normal when it was released, but it was fairly dissonant to these post-feminist ears. Hepburn at some point turns to him and says something like, “I don’t belong to you, no one belongs to anyone!”. To emphasize her lack of sentimentality, she has the cab stopped, and tosses her pet cat into the street, and they drive on.

But they don’t leave it at that. She basically acquiesces to the idea that she does belong to him, they retrieve the cat in the pouring rain (though her mascara and makeup never budge) and the principle is dissipated.

Network, on the other hand, seems like it could have been made last week. For one thing, the language and dialogue are comparable to some of the best stage drama I’ve seen. You probably know the story, since I’m probably the only person in the blogosphere that hasn’t seen it. If you don’t, beware - spoilers ahead.

A TV network that’s losing out in the ratings stumbles upon the concept of using its evening news, heretofore sacrosanct and untouchable, as a ratings leader when its anchor, Peter Finch, comes apart on-camera and starts raving. Soon, the entire nation is leaning out the window and chanting along with him, “I’m mad as hell, and I’m not going to take it anymore!” like a continent-sized insane asylum. The show is redesigned as an entertainment vehicle, and is tremendously successful.

At some point Finch learns that his network is about to be acquired by a multinational company, and starts inveighing against the merger on-camera as an ill-advised betrayal of the public trust in media. The CEO of the network comes unglued, and Finch is summoned to meet with him. What follows is a brilliant piece of soliloquy in which the CEO unveils the secrets of the global economy to Finch. We always smile and nod knowingly when someone opines about how visionary Orwell’s 1984 was, but the truth is that 1984 didn’t really come true in 1984, or ever, in the way that this boardroom scene has come to describe the climax forest of capitalism, with the U.S. economy trembling against the day that the Chinese government loses its taste for T-Bills. The trenchant soliloquy begins about a minute or so into the clip. Savor it!

[Ed: And I wrote that before I saw that the stock market was tanking today!]