More Sunday morning at the movies …

by digby

The NY Times features a piece about Paddy Chayefsky’s notes on the creation of Network which, as you might imagine considering my paean to Howard Beale to the left, I found fascinating.

I watched the film again recently and was struck by just how perfectly he captured the essence of what was just beginning to come into focus and which is now obvious to everyone.

Dan Chayefsky, the author’s son, wrote in an e-mail that “Network” “was always intended as a metaphor for society at large,” and its subtext “was always about human/corporate accountability, rather than newscasters or any specific industry.” Even if a Cronkite-like character had been the seed that “Network” grew from, Dan Chayefsky said, “the ideas my father uncovered at the concept stage rarely maintained their shape or form at the conclusion of each work.” Mr. Colbert said that while “Network” did not directly inspire “The Colbert Report,” the film influenced the outspoken media personalities that he lampoons. (Noting interviews in which the conservative commentator Glenn Beck compared himself to Gandhi, Jesus and Howard Beale, Mr. Colbert said, “I thought, wow, none of those stories end well.”) What “Network” correctly anticipated, he said, “is news as entertainment, a man wandering a set as opposed to sitting behind a desk,” though Mr. Colbert tended to read “Network” as a drama about relationships and the tragedy of Beale. Mr. Sorkin, however, spoke for “Network” fans who respond to it as a devastating media-industry critique — one whose author never saw television devolve into a vast wasteland of reality programming and political partisanship, but who after 35 years is still shouting just as loudly about the dangers of crass, pandering content. “If you put it in your DVD player today you’ll feel like it was written last week,” Mr. Sorkin said. “The commoditization of the news and the devaluing of truth are just a part of our way of life now. You wish Chayefsky could come back to life long enough to write ‘The Internet.’ ”

And this article in NY Magazine about Roger Ailes proves it. Perhaps the most interesting thing about it is that Ailes is portrayed as a moderate who prefers the politics of George Bush Sr — and who just happens to believe that Barack Obama is a dangerous leftist who planned on creating a national police force.

Read the whole article about how frustrated he is with the fact that the monster he’s created is destroying the Republican party and leaving him without a candidate for 2012. (His two favorite potential candidates — Chris Christie and The Man Called Petraeus have failed to make themselves available.) It’s quite a story.

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