Peter Finch Tagged Articles at Cinematical

All this week we'll be highlighting some of our favorite scenes from Oscar-winning films and performances leading up to this year's Academy Awards on Sunday night.

The Republicans were voted out of office after eight traumatic years, the incoming Democratic administration was offering the nation change -- and along comes a movie that says it's all bulls***. Sidney Lumet's Network was released in late November 1976 and tried to rile up a country that was celebrating its bicentennial after being worn down by Watergate, a gasoline shortage, and raging inflation.

I didn't see Network during its initial theatrical release, but I certainly heard about the scene I've embedded below. Kids at school were quoting variations on its most memorable line ("I'm as mad as hell, and I'm not going to take it anymore!"), which became an enduring catchphrase. Since then I've watched the movie at least a dozen times, and Peter Finch's stirring delivery of this speech, as newscaster Howard Beale, never fails to electrify me.

It's the context of the speech, though, that touches me now, and provides some evidence why Finch won Best Actor over his fellow nominees: Robert DeNiro in Taxi Driver, Sylvester Stallone in Rocky, Giancarlo Giannini in Seven Beauties, and William Holden. (Finch, who died on January 14, 1977, was the first individual in Academy history to be honored posthumously with both a nomination and a win.) Holden appears briefly in the scene, expressing his dismay because he knows his friend Howard is suffering from a mental breakdown. Faye Dunaway, who won the Oscar for Best Actress, shows up, too, oozing odious charm as a ratings-hungry exec.

Network
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In the last twenty-four hours alone, countless news articles have compared the late Heath Ledger to James Dean. Of course it helps that the two actors -- whose careers lie fifty years apart -- bear physical resemblances to each other. The real reason for the frequency of the comparison, however, revolves around the possibility that Ledger, like Dean, might end up with a posthumous Oscar nomination.

Other than Dean, whose death in a 1955 car accident was preceded by two nominations back-to-back, six actors have landed the distinction -- but only one, Peter Finch, actually won (for Network in 1976). However, Ledger is now perceived an actor who possessed a potential he never quite realized, while Dean was already an icon by the time of his death (and he still didn't win the prize). If Ledger gets nominated for his performance as the Joker in The Dark Knight, the award will also acknowledge the great career that never was. Dean surely would have followed Giant with other wonderful performances, but his brief filmography also allowed the actor to reach a level of prestige that Ledger would have needed a few more movies to attain. So does this comparison really hold up?

The media certainly seems to think so. "Like Dean, he could endure as a mythic figure of talent silenced before his time," writes the AP. "People are aflutter over seeing the final performance of a new James Dean," reports The Huffington Post. " One quality that Ledger and Dean did share is rapid growth," notes the Baltimore Sun.

Network was re-released on DVD this week in a special two-disc edition with all the trimmings. The last time I saw the movie was on a videotape I'd made from a TV broadcast of the 1976 film, so perhaps it's time to rent (or even buy) that DVD and treat myself to another viewing.

Network is a great film even if you watch it on a crappy videotape. The famous "I'm mad as hell and I'm not going to take this any more!" speech has fallen into popular use even among people who have no idea what it's from, or who haven't seen the whole movie. The film won four Oscars: Peter Finch for Best Actor, Faye Dunaway for Best Actress, Beatrice Straight for Best Supporting Actress, and Paddy Chayefsky for Best Original Screenplay. Sadly, Finch died before he was even nominated for the award, and became the first actor to win an Oscar posthumously. (FYI, Rocky took home Best Picture/Director that year.)

It's Finch I tend to remember most vividly from Network, despite a top-notch cast: Dunaway, William Holden, Robert Duvall, and Ned Beatty among others. It's full of witty lines that we've forgotten in the wake of the big memorable one. And as a journalist, I find that the type of news show that is lambasted in the film for being ratings driven and frivolous is terribly tame and unsurprising today. However, the film doesn't date; in fact, sometimes it seems more relevant than ever.