Still Mad as Hell, Still Taking it. Network, 50 Years Later

Hey, hey there Howard Beale,can you tell us, what's the deal?Howard Beale, are you mad as Hell?Do you belong in a padded cell?One evening in New York, on a residential street lined with monolithic apartment buildings, still wet from a passing storm, a stream of heads begin to peek out of their windows and shout. One head out of one window after another, screaming their communal grievances into the night. "I'm as mad as hell!" they cry. "I'm mad as hell, and I'm not gonna take this anymore!" Thunderclaps from the lingering storm join in, and soon the chorus devolves into a cacophony of impotent rage.This is the pivotal scene of Sidney Lumet's brilliant 1976 satirical drama, Network. Even if you've never seen this movie, you have probably heard that famous phrase. Brilliant in its simplicity, it is a pure distillation of modernity's melancholic essence. 90-proof existential fury. The tumult of the late 70s suffuses the film, creating a vision that now feels both like a retro-futuristic…

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