KATHY SHAIDLE ON NETWORK:

Paddy Chayefsky’s Oscar-winning screenplay, among the top ten ever filmed, was much laboured upon, as his archived papers reveal. In the same way that, when Terminator 2 came out, you could actually see (with a sensory satisfaction I’ve rarely savored before or since) every single cent of its then-record $100 million budget onscreen, you can feel Chayefsky’s hard work here, but — and this is key — you are not distracted by it. You enjoy a simmering, simpatico sense of profound appreciation for his craftsmanship every second of Network‘s running time, while simultaneously remaining deeply immersed in the world he’s created.

In this sense, Network is quite like a cathedral: People MADE this, you think, but it is “this,” and not those artisans, which is the actual point. This rare and precarious balance inspires awe. It is what Art is.

But then you’re me, and you notice something.

Read the whole thing. There’s something for all in Network. As Kathy notes in her retrospective, a decade ago, the left was endlessly comparing Glenn Beck to Network’s Howard Beale; a few years later, I described Chayefsky’s film as “Big Media’s How-To Guide for the Obama Era.” To which Trump – whose second career was made by both his CNBC reality TV show and his fawning coverage by Joe and Mika on MSNBC – was, in retrospect, the logical outcome.