Network

INT. LANDING OUTSIDE DIANA'S APARTMENT – 8:00 P.M.

Diana letting herself into her apartment.

INT. DIANA'S APARTMENT – FOYER

Dark, shadowed. She moves down to –
 

INT. LIVING ROOM

Max has fallen asleep in one of the soft chairs. The newspaper he was reading has fallen to his lap. His mouth is a bit agape and he wheezes a little. In the stark lighting of the lamp behind the chair, he seems suddenly an old man. Diana stands and regards him with perceptible distaste. She slips out of her jacket, crosses to the bedroom.

INT. BEDROOM

All the lights are on. Diana, freshly scrubbed and in a shower robe, is packing Max's things. A large valise lies opened on the bed, and Diana is fetching Max's suits from the closet, folding them and packing them away. Max appears rumpled and in his shirt-sleeves in the doorway behind her. She senses him there, glances at him, continues with her packing.

DIANA

I think the time has come, Max, to re-evaluate our relationship.

MAX

So I see.

DIANA

I don't like the way this script of ours is turning out. This whole thing started out as a comedy, remember? Now, it's turning into a seedy little drama. Middle-aged man leaves wife and family for young heartless woman, goes to pot. The Blue Angel with Marlene Dietrich and Emil Jannings. I don't like it.

MAX

So you've decided to cancel the show.

DIANA

Right.

MAX

Listen, I'll do that.

He moves to the bed to take over the packing. She sits in one of the bedroom chairs.

DIANA

The simple fact is you're a family man, Max. You like a home and kids, and that's beautiful. But I'm incapable of any such commitment. All you'll get from me is another couple of months of intermittent sex and recriminate and ugly little scenes like the one we had last night. I'm sorry for all those vicious things I said to you last night. You're not the worst fuck I've ever had. Believe me, I've had worse. And you don't puff and snorkle and make death-like rattles. As a matter of fact, you're rather serene in the sack.

Max, who had gone into the bathroom for his toilet articles, comes out with them, stands, regards Diana.

MAX

Why do women always think the most savage thing they can say to a man is to impugn his cocksmanship?

DIANA

I'm sorry I impugned your cocksmanship

MAX

I stopped comparing genitals back in the schoolyard.

DIANA

You're being docile as hell about this.

MAX

Hell, Diana, I knew it was over between us weeks ago.

DIANA

Will you go back to your wife?

MAX

I'll try, but I don't think she'll jump at it. But don't worry about me. I'll manage. I always have, always will. I'm more concerned about you. Once I go, you'll be back in the eye of your own desolate terrors. Fifty dollar studs and the nightly sleepless contemplation of suicide. You're not the boozer type, so I figure a year, maybe two before you crack up or jump out your fourteenth floor office window.

DIANA

(stands)

Stop selling, Max. I don't need you.

She exits out into –
 

INT. THE LIVING ROOM

– and across that to the –

INT. THE KITCHEN

– where a kettle is steaming. She fetches a cup and saucer from the cupboard and would make some instant coffee but she is overtaken by a curious little spasm. Her hand holding the cup and saucer is shaking so much she has to put them down. With visible effort, she pulls herself together. She moves out of the kitchen to the –

INT. THE LIVING ROOM

– where she stands in the middle of the room and shouts at Max through the opened bedroom doorway.

DIANA

(cries out)

I don't want your paint I don't want your menopausal decay and death! I don't need you, Max.

MAX

You need me badly! I'm your last contact with human reality! I love you, and that painful, decaying menopausal love is the only thing between you and the shrieking nothingness you live the rest of the day!

He slams the valise shut.

DIANA

Then don't leave me!

MAX

It's too late, Diana! There's nothing left in you that I can live with! You're one of Howard's humanoids, and, if I stay with you, I'll be destroyed! Like Howard Beale was destroyed! Like Laureen Hobbs was destroyed! Like everything you and the institution of television touch is destroyed! You are television incarnate, Diana, indifferent to suffering, insensitive to joy. All of life is reduced to the common rubble of banality. War, murder, death are all the same to you as bottles of beer. The daily business of life is a corrupt comedy. You even shatter the sensations of time and space into split-seconds and instant replays. You are madness, Diana, virulent madness, and everything you touch dies with you. Well, not me! Not while I can still feel pleasure and pain and love!

He turns back to his valise and buckles it. Diana finds a chair, sits in it. A moment later, Max comes out of the bedroom, lugging a raincoat as well as the valise. He lugs his way across the living room, then pauses for a moment, reflects –

MAX

It's a happy ending, Diana. Wayward husband comes to his senses, returns to his wife with whom he has built a long and sustaining love. Heartless young woman left alone in her arctic desolation. Music up with a swell. Final commercial. And here are a few scenes from next week's show.

He disappears down the foyer. We can hear the CLICK of the front door being opened and the CLACK of the door closing. Diana sits in her chair, pulling the shower robe around her, alone in her arctic desolation.

INT. 20TH FLOOR – UBS BUILDING – LOBBY, LOUNGE, CORRIDOR – 10:15 P.M.

A solemn Frank Hackett in blue suit walks down the long, empty, hushed corridor to the large double doors of his office (which had originally been Edward Ruddy's office). At the doors, Nelson Chaney is waiting for him.

CHANEY

How'd it go?