Network

AUDIENCE

(roaring out)

We're mad as hell, and we're not going to take this any more!

INT. THE STUDIO

The Announcer beaming away in front of a curtain –

ANNOUNCER

Ladies and Gentlemen! The Network News Hour! –

INT. CONTROL ROOM

The SHOW MONITOR –

ANNOUNCER (ON MONITOR)

– with Sybil the Soothsayer, Jim Webbing and his It's-the-Emmes-Truth Department, Miss Mata Hari tonight another segment of Vox Populi, and starring –

MUSIC: A FLOURISH OF DRUMS.

ANNOUNCER

– the mad prophet of the airways, Howard Beale! –

MUSIC: A FULL SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA SOARS INTO AN IMPERIAL CRESCENDO –

INT. THE STUDIO

– as the HOUSE LIGHTS go to BLACK. The curtain slowly rises. An absolutely bare stage except for one stained glass window, suspended by wires high above stage left through which shoots an overpowering SHAFT of LIGHT as if emanating from heaven. Howard Beale, in an austere black suit with black tie shambles on from the wings, finds the SPOTLIGHT and stands there for a moment shielding his eyes from the blinding light. TUMULTUOUS APPLAUSE from the audience.

HOWARD

(erupts into a Savonarola-type tirade)

Edward George Ruddy died today! Edward George Ruddy was the Chairman of the Board of the Union Broadcasting Systems – and woe is us if it ever falls in the hands of the wrong people. And that's why woe is us that Edward George Ruddy died. Because this network is now in the hands of CC and A the Communications Corporation of America. We've got a new Chairman of the Board, a man named Frank Hackett now sitting in Mr. Ruddy's office on the twentieth floor. And when the twelfth largest company in the world controls the most awesome goddamned propaganda force in the whole godless world, who knows what shit will be peddled for truth on this tube? So, listen to me! Television is not the truth! Television is a goddamned amusement park, that's what television is! Television is a circus, a carnival, a travelling troupe of acrobats and story-tellers, singers and dancers, jugglers, side-show freaks, lion-tamers and football players. We're in the boredom-killing business! If you want truth, go to God, go to your guru, go to yourself because that's the only place you'll ever find any real truth! But, man, you're never going to get any truth from us. We'll tell you anything you want to hear. We lie like hell! We'll tell you Kojack always gets the killer, and nobody ever gets cancer in Archie Bunker's house. And no matter how much trouble the hero is in, don't worry: just look at your watch – at the end of the hour, he's going to win. We'll tell you any shit you want to hear! We deal in illusion, man! None of it's true! But you people sit there – all of you – day after day, night after night, all ages, colors, creeds – we're all you know. You're beginning to believe this illusion we're spinning here. You're beginning to think the tube is reality and your own lives are unreal. You do whatever the tube tells you. You dress like the tube, you eat like the tube, you raise your children like the tube, you think like the tube. This is mass madness, you maniacs! In God's name, you people are the real thing! We're the illusions! So turn off this goddam set! Turn it off right now! Turn it off and leave it off. Turn it off right now, right in the middle of this very sentence I'm speaking now –

At which point, Howard Beale, sweating and red-eyed with his prophetic rage, collapses to the floor in a prophetic swoon.

INT. CC AND A CONFERENCE ROOM – CC AND A BUILDING – MONDAY, JANUARY 27

A Valhalla of a room taking up the 43rd and 44th floors of the CC and A Building. It is dark and theatrical, the lighting at the moment being provided by the shaft of LIGHT issuing from a slide projector at the back of the room onto a large SCREEN on the raised podium where Frank Hackett in banker's gray stands making his annual report. On the SCREEN, we see charts of figures, one after the other, which accompany Hackett's explication. A little red ARROW darts from one figure to another as Hackett drones on. Seated in a semi-circular arrangement like a miniature United Nations are 214 SENIOR EXECUTIVES, (late 40's, 50's, and 60's). They each have their own little desks with swivel chairs, pin-spot lights, piles of bound company reports, and name plates giving their names and companies they represent. NOTE one specific CHAIR in the dead center of the first row that swivels back and forth, back and forth –

HACKETT

(on podium)

– UBS was running at a cash-flow breakeven point after taking into account one hundred and ten million dollars of negative cash-flow from the network. Note please the added thirty-five millions resulting from the issuance of the subordinated sinking debentures. It was clear the fat on the network had to be flitched off –

ANOTHER CLOSER ANGLE on the CHAIR in the first row that keeps swiveling back and forth.

HACKETT

(on podium, as a new glide of charts flashes on screen)

Please note an increase in projected initial programming revenues in the amount of twenty-one million dollars due to the phenomenal success of the Howard Beale show. I expect a positive cash-flow for the entire complex of forty-five million achievable in this fiscal year, a year, in short, ahead of schedule –

ANOTHER ANGLE closer on the swiveling CHAIR but still not revealing its occupant.

HACKETT

I go beyond that. This network may well be the most significant profit center of the communications complex –

FULL SHOT of Hackett barely concealing his pride –

HACKETT

– and, based upon the projected rate of return on invested capital, and if merger is eventually accomplished, the communications complex may well become the towering and most profitable center in the entire CC and A empire. I await your questions and comments. Mr. Jensen?

CAMERA PANS ACROSS the huge dark room of tiered seats to the swiveling CHAIR in the front row which now swivels to face CAMERA, revealing a short, balding, bespectacled man with a Grant Woods face. This is ARTHUR JENSEN, the President and Chairman of the Board of CC and A.

JENSEN

(murmurs)

Very good, Frank. Exemplary. Keep it up –

TIGHT SHOT of Hackett, basking in this praise, suffused with pride –

INT. TEMPLE EMANUEL – NEW YORK – TUESDAY, JANUARY 28 – 10:30 A.M.

Edward George Ruddy lying in state.

ANOTHER ANGLE

Showing the vaulted reaches of the Temple packed with a standing room audience of condolers with the white yarmalka-ed RABBI in b.g. officiating. All the NETWORK BRASS are spotted around the congregation.

CLOSER ANGLE ACROSS

Max among the condolers, following his eyes to several rows of pews down on the other side of the aisle where Diana is sitting. Aware of Max's eyes on her, she turns her face a bit so that their eyes meet briefly. She smiles, turns back to the Rabbi's eulogy –

EXT. 65TH STREET – MAIN ENTRANCE – TEMPLE EMANUEL – DAY – SNOW

SNOW drifting down. CROWD of overcoated condolers flooding the sidewalk. A cortege of black limousines lined up in front of the temple as FUNERAL DIRECTORS guide condolers into their respective limousines. A curious crowd of PASSERSBY watch. Max Schumacher threads his way through the CRUSH to where Diana Christenson stands, murmuring to Nelson Chaney and Walter Amundsen, all bundled up in winter coats. There are muttered "Hello, Max, how are you's" and "How's everything, Walter," etc.

MAX

(to Diana)

Buy you a cup of coffee?

DIANA

Hell, yes.

Good-byes all around, and Max and Diana move off through the fringe of the CRUSH on the sidewalk. CAMERA DOLLIES with them. They turn the corner onto –

EXT. FIFTH AVENUE – DAY – SNOW

They head downtown. They walk silently. SNOW drifts down on them. CAMERA DOLLIES with them.

MAX

Do you have to get back to the office?

DIANA

Nothing that can't wait.

They walk on silently.

DIANA

(after a moment)

I drop down to the news studios every now and then and ask Howard Beale about you. He says you're doing fine. Are you?

MAX

No.

DIANA

Are you keeping busy?

MAX

After a fashion. This is the third funeral I've been to in two weeks. I have two other friends in hospital whom I visit regularly. I've been to a couple of christenings. All my friends seem to be dying or having grandchildren.

DIANA

You should be a grandfather about now. You have a pregnant daughter in Seattle, don't you?

MAX

Any day now. My wife's out there for the occasion. I've thought many times of calling you.

DIANA

I wish you had.

They both suddenly stop on Fifth Avenue between 65th and 64th Streets and regard each other. An occasional snowflake moistens their cheeks, wets their hair.

DIANA

I bumped into Sybil the Soothsayer in the elevator last week. I said: "You know, Sybil, about four months ago, you predicted I would get involved with a middle-aged man, and, so far, all that's happened is one many-splendored night. I don't call that getting involved." And she said: "Don't worry. You will." It was a many-splendored night, wasn't it, Max?

MAX

Yes, it was.

DIANA

Are we going to get involved, Max?

MAX

Yes. I need to get involved very much. How about you?

DIANA

I've reached for the phone to call you a hundred times, but I was sure you hated me for my part in taking your news show away.

MAX

I probably did. I don't know any more. All I know is I can't keep you out of my mind.

They stare at each other, bemused by the abrupt fragile explosion of their feelings. The SNOW drifts down. PEDESTRIANS move back and forth around them. The Fifth Avenue TRAFFIC honks and grinds its way downtown.

DIANA

My God, she's uncanny.

MAX

Who?

DIANA

Sybil the Soothsayer. We've got a modern-day Greek drama here, Max. Two star-crossed lovers ordained to fall disastrously in love by the gods. A December-May story. Happily married middle-aged man meets desperately lonely young career woman, let's say a violinist. They both know their illicit love can only end in tragedy, but they are cursed by the gods and plunge dementedly in love. For a few brief moments, they are happy. He abandons devoted wife and loving children, and she throws away her concert career. Their friends plead with them to give each other up, but they are helpless playthings in the hands of malignant gods. Their love sours, embittered by ugly little jealousies, cryptic rancors. The soothsayer appears again and warns the girl she will die if she persists in this heedless love affair. She defies the soothsayer. But now one of the man's children is rushed to the hospital with a mysterious disease. He rushes back to his family, and she is left to throw herself on the railroad tracks. Give me a two-page outline on it, Max. I might be able to sell it to Xerox.

MAX

A bit too austere for teevee, I think.

DIANA

You're right. We wouldn't get an 11 rating. How about a twist on Brief Encounter? Happily married man meets woman married to her career.

MAX

NBC did Brief Encounter last year, and it sank.

DIANA

Well, we're both a bit long in the tooth to try for Romeo and Juliet.

MAX

Why don't we just wing it?

She laughs, then he. A PASSERBY darts them a curious glance.

INT. MAX'S APARTMENT – LIVING ROOM – MONDAY, FEBRUARY 25TH

Max and his wife, Louise, in the middle of an ugly domestic scene. Louise sits erect on an overstuffed chair, her eyes wet with imminent tears; Max strides around the room. He is clearly under great stress.

LOUISE

(shrilly)

How long has it been going on?

MAX

(prowling around the room)

A month. I thought at first it might be a transient thing and blow over in a week. I still hope to God it's just a menopausal infatuation. But it is an infatuation, Louise. There's no sense my saying I won't see her again because I will. Do you want me to clear out, go to a hotel?