Miel's movie of the month...NETWORK!
I cannot describe the many thousands of brilliant lines in this movie. It's very dialogue heavy but it's got amazing dialogue.
Faye Dunaway's character Diana Christianson wants to develop a reality TV show that screens real films of of a domestic terrorist group called the "Ecumenical Liberation Front" (a second rate Symbonese Liberation Army) committing bank robberies and the like. To get to the ELF she has to go through Noreen Hobbs the radical spokeswoman of the Communist party...
Christianson introduces herself at the meeting:
"I’m Diana Christianson, a racist lackey of the imperialist ruling circles."
"I’m Laureen Hobbs, a bad-ass commie nigger."
Check out this very amusing (but probably totally effective) ESL assignment based on the dialogue from Network.
A useful tidbit of advice for ESL students: "Note that "the fuck" is a crude but common addition to wh questions,
used to show emotion like anger (It’s safer to ask "what the hell…?")."
OK--read this dialogue later--after you watch the movie...
Beatty, as the head of a conglomerate that owns a TV network, confronts Howard Beale, a wildly popular, madhatter, TV news anchorman. Beale had recently exposed a looming business deal between Arab oil nations and another, even more powerful, but highly secret conglomerate. This killed the deal politically. In a huge, darkened corporate meeting room, the previously affable Beatty begins.
You have meddled with the primal forces of nature, Mr. Beale, and I won’t have it, is that clear?! You think you have merely stopped a business deal – that is not the case! The Arabs have taken billions of dollars out of this country, and now they must put it back. It is ebb and flow, tidal gravity, it is ecological balance! You are an old man who thinks in terms of nations and peoples. There are no nations! There are no peoples! There are no Russians. There are no Arabs! There are no third worlds! There is no West! There is only one holistic system of systems, one vast interwoven, interacting, multi-variate, multi-national dominion of dollars! Petro-dollars, Electro-dollars, Multi-dollars, Reichmarks, Rubles, Yen, [he actually says "Ren"] Pounds and Shekels! It is the international system of currency that determines the totality of life on this planet! That is the natural order of things today! That is the atomic, subatomic and galactic structure of things today! And you have meddled with the primal forces of nature, and you will atone! Am I getting through to you, Mr. Beale?
We no longer live in a world of nations and ideologies, Mr. Beale. The world is a collage of corporations, inexorably determined by the immutable by-laws of business. The world is a business, Mr. Beale! It has been since man crawled out of the slime, and our children, Mr. Beale, will live to see that perfect world in which there is no war and famine, oppression and brutality – one vast and ecumenical holding company, for whom all men will work to serve a common profit, in which all men will hold a share of stock, all necessities provided, all anxieties tranquilized, all boredom amused. And I have chosen you to preach this evangel, Mr. Beale.
Beale: Why me?
Jensen: Because you’re on television, dummy. Sixty million people watch you every night of the week, Monday through Friday.
In 1976, Chayefsky here outlined the theology of Nafta and the World Trade Organization. The man was a prophet.
I cribbed this from Lew Rockwell's site
Check out the hot Marxist chick film festival
I cannot describe the many thousands of brilliant lines in this movie. It's very dialogue heavy but it's got amazing dialogue.
Faye Dunaway's character Diana Christianson wants to develop a reality TV show that screens real films of of a domestic terrorist group called the "Ecumenical Liberation Front" (a second rate Symbonese Liberation Army) committing bank robberies and the like. To get to the ELF she has to go through Noreen Hobbs the radical spokeswoman of the Communist party...
Christianson introduces herself at the meeting:
"I’m Diana Christianson, a racist lackey of the imperialist ruling circles."
"I’m Laureen Hobbs, a bad-ass commie nigger."
Check out this very amusing (but probably totally effective) ESL assignment based on the dialogue from Network.
A useful tidbit of advice for ESL students: "Note that "the fuck" is a crude but common addition to wh questions,
used to show emotion like anger (It’s safer to ask "what the hell…?")."
OK--read this dialogue later--after you watch the movie...
Beatty, as the head of a conglomerate that owns a TV network, confronts Howard Beale, a wildly popular, madhatter, TV news anchorman. Beale had recently exposed a looming business deal between Arab oil nations and another, even more powerful, but highly secret conglomerate. This killed the deal politically. In a huge, darkened corporate meeting room, the previously affable Beatty begins.
You have meddled with the primal forces of nature, Mr. Beale, and I won’t have it, is that clear?! You think you have merely stopped a business deal – that is not the case! The Arabs have taken billions of dollars out of this country, and now they must put it back. It is ebb and flow, tidal gravity, it is ecological balance! You are an old man who thinks in terms of nations and peoples. There are no nations! There are no peoples! There are no Russians. There are no Arabs! There are no third worlds! There is no West! There is only one holistic system of systems, one vast interwoven, interacting, multi-variate, multi-national dominion of dollars! Petro-dollars, Electro-dollars, Multi-dollars, Reichmarks, Rubles, Yen, [he actually says "Ren"] Pounds and Shekels! It is the international system of currency that determines the totality of life on this planet! That is the natural order of things today! That is the atomic, subatomic and galactic structure of things today! And you have meddled with the primal forces of nature, and you will atone! Am I getting through to you, Mr. Beale?
We no longer live in a world of nations and ideologies, Mr. Beale. The world is a collage of corporations, inexorably determined by the immutable by-laws of business. The world is a business, Mr. Beale! It has been since man crawled out of the slime, and our children, Mr. Beale, will live to see that perfect world in which there is no war and famine, oppression and brutality – one vast and ecumenical holding company, for whom all men will work to serve a common profit, in which all men will hold a share of stock, all necessities provided, all anxieties tranquilized, all boredom amused. And I have chosen you to preach this evangel, Mr. Beale.
Beale: Why me?
Jensen: Because you’re on television, dummy. Sixty million people watch you every night of the week, Monday through Friday.
In 1976, Chayefsky here outlined the theology of Nafta and the World Trade Organization. The man was a prophet.
I cribbed this from Lew Rockwell's site
Check out the hot Marxist chick film festival
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