Post by Steve on Nov 11, 2017 0:00:23 GMT
Initially disappointed to find that Van Hove has not updated the material (huge chunks of dialogue and structure are verbatim from the film), ultimately I realised that the material is SO MUCH MORE EXCITING as an in-the-moment happening multimedia live show, than as a film, with such a thrilling central turn from Bryan Cranston, that I absolutely LOVED it!
Spoilers follow. . .
Two decades ago, I studied the film for a week, and concluded that Paddy Chayefsky, who wrote it, was a genius and a seer, as the rising tides of news-as-entertainment and globalisation-as-destiny were so brilliantly intertwined, contextualised and dramatised!
Twenty years on, the film feels dated. No tv station can command a 60 percent share of the American population. People don't even watch tv, they troll the internet, shouting and screaming at each other in well-defined tribes, who primarily consume "news" that tells them what they already think. The backlash to globalisation is as virulent now as globalisation itself used to be. In many ways, Shakespeare's Coriolanus is more topical than the movie "Network," as it depicts Tribunes feeding a partisan public "fake news," about Coriolanus, ruining his reputation, as another tribe is fed opposite news. In that respect, Van Hove's "Roman Tragedies" (which incorporated Coriolanus) had more to say about NOW than "Network," the film.
So when Van Hove turned out to be almost entirely faithful to Chayefsky's 1976 script, my heart sunk. I had wanted him to engage with NOW, to do one of his post-modern rewrites, like he did with "Hedda Gabler," or even more with "Obsession." (Instead, this is a more faithful work, more akin to his treatment of "A view from the Bridge," and it is this redundant aspect of the play that I think Parsley may have been averse to). . .
. . . But then I realised that what Chayefsky chronicles here is sort of a ground zero in the decay of our modern illusion of "real" news (similar to the Cardinal Pirelli's insistent crumbling of the illusion of "objective criticism lol), as well as a ground zero in the march of globalisation's leveling of societies and nations, and that engaging with this material is like taking Marty McFly's DeLorean back to that moment anything seemed possible, as we teeter once again on that precipice of what is or isn't possible in establishing common truths, and what is or isn't destiny for the future of world unity. It's really such an exciting moment to think about.
And what Van Hove does is make that moment ELECTRIC, literally with his flashing lights, and cameras, and metaphorically by his dynamic staging of scenes and actors, and audience interactivity. And what Bryan Cranston does is take that ELECTRIC FROZEN MOMENT that Van Hove conjures, where a news anchor on stage just might say anything, as you lean on the edge of your seat, and make the moment that he does speak crushingly human and fallible and VULNERABLE. When this happens, the historical document of Chayefsky's oh-so-literate script thunders with both humanity and theatricality, and, for me, it was absolutely unforgettable!
Also, Michelle Dockery, superb in Pygmalion a while back, Pygmalion-like morphs here so perfectly into her role as a psycho-producer, that psychopathy seem thoroughly understandable. It's a superb supporting performance to Cranston's tour-de-force.
And when Van Hove does change Chayefsky's ingenious script, thankfully it is merely to cut out the now-hackneyed tv-as-gladiatorial-combat terrorist subplot. What is left is pure electricity!
5 stars!
Spoilers follow. . .
Two decades ago, I studied the film for a week, and concluded that Paddy Chayefsky, who wrote it, was a genius and a seer, as the rising tides of news-as-entertainment and globalisation-as-destiny were so brilliantly intertwined, contextualised and dramatised!
Twenty years on, the film feels dated. No tv station can command a 60 percent share of the American population. People don't even watch tv, they troll the internet, shouting and screaming at each other in well-defined tribes, who primarily consume "news" that tells them what they already think. The backlash to globalisation is as virulent now as globalisation itself used to be. In many ways, Shakespeare's Coriolanus is more topical than the movie "Network," as it depicts Tribunes feeding a partisan public "fake news," about Coriolanus, ruining his reputation, as another tribe is fed opposite news. In that respect, Van Hove's "Roman Tragedies" (which incorporated Coriolanus) had more to say about NOW than "Network," the film.
So when Van Hove turned out to be almost entirely faithful to Chayefsky's 1976 script, my heart sunk. I had wanted him to engage with NOW, to do one of his post-modern rewrites, like he did with "Hedda Gabler," or even more with "Obsession." (Instead, this is a more faithful work, more akin to his treatment of "A view from the Bridge," and it is this redundant aspect of the play that I think Parsley may have been averse to). . .
. . . But then I realised that what Chayefsky chronicles here is sort of a ground zero in the decay of our modern illusion of "real" news (similar to the Cardinal Pirelli's insistent crumbling of the illusion of "objective criticism lol), as well as a ground zero in the march of globalisation's leveling of societies and nations, and that engaging with this material is like taking Marty McFly's DeLorean back to that moment anything seemed possible, as we teeter once again on that precipice of what is or isn't possible in establishing common truths, and what is or isn't destiny for the future of world unity. It's really such an exciting moment to think about.
And what Van Hove does is make that moment ELECTRIC, literally with his flashing lights, and cameras, and metaphorically by his dynamic staging of scenes and actors, and audience interactivity. And what Bryan Cranston does is take that ELECTRIC FROZEN MOMENT that Van Hove conjures, where a news anchor on stage just might say anything, as you lean on the edge of your seat, and make the moment that he does speak crushingly human and fallible and VULNERABLE. When this happens, the historical document of Chayefsky's oh-so-literate script thunders with both humanity and theatricality, and, for me, it was absolutely unforgettable!
Also, Michelle Dockery, superb in Pygmalion a while back, Pygmalion-like morphs here so perfectly into her role as a psycho-producer, that psychopathy seem thoroughly understandable. It's a superb supporting performance to Cranston's tour-de-force.
And when Van Hove does change Chayefsky's ingenious script, thankfully it is merely to cut out the now-hackneyed tv-as-gladiatorial-combat terrorist subplot. What is left is pure electricity!
5 stars!
