Network Monologues

Network (Diana)

Category: Role: From:

DIANA: Look, we”ve got a bunch of hobgoblin radicals called the Ecumenical Liberation Army who go around taking home movies of themselves robbing banks. Maybe they”ll take movies of themselves kidnapping heiresses, hijacking 747″s, bombing bridges, assassinating ambassadors. We”d open each week”s segment with that authentic footage, hire a couple of writers to write some story behind that footage, and we”ve got ourselves a series.Listen, I sent you all a concept analysis report yesterday. Did any of you read it? (apparently not) Well, in a nutshell, it said the American people are turning sullen. They”ve been clobbered on all sides by Vietnam, Watergate, the inflation, the depression. They”ve turned off, shot up, and they”ve f -ed themselves limp. And nothing helps. Evil still triumphs over all, Christ is a dope-dealing pimp, even sin turned out to be impotent. The whole world seems to be going nuts and flipping off into spacelike an abandoned balloon. So this concept analysis report concludes the American people want somebody to articulate their rage for them. I”ve been telling you people since I took this job six months ago that I want angry shows. I don”t want conventional programming on this network. I want counter-culture. I want anti-establishment.Now, I don”t want to play butch boss with you people. But when I took over this department, it had the worst programming record in television history. This network hasn”t one show in the top twenty. This network is an industry joke. We better start putting together one winner for next September. I want a show developed, based on the activities of a terrorist group. Joseph Stalin and his merry band of Bolsheviks. I want ideas from you people. And, by the way, the next time I send an audience research report around, you all better read it, or I”ll sack the f -ing lot of you, is that clear?More Monologues from “Network”

Listen, I sent you all a concept analysis report yesterday. Did any of you read it? (apparently not) Well, in a nutshell, it said the American people are turning sullen. They”ve been clobbered on all sides by Vietnam, Watergate, the inflation, the depression. They”ve turned off, shot up, and they”ve f -ed themselves limp. And nothing helps. Evil still triumphs over all, Christ is a dope-dealing pimp, even sin turned out to be impotent. The whole world seems to be going nuts and flipping off into spacelike an abandoned balloon. So this concept analysis report concludes the American people want somebody to articulate their rage for them. I”ve been telling you people since I took this job six months ago that I want angry shows. I don”t want conventional programming on this network. I want counter-culture. I want anti-establishment.Now, I don”t want to play butch boss with you people. But when I took over this department, it had the worst programming record in television history. This network hasn”t one show in the top twenty. This network is an industry joke. We better start putting together one winner for next September. I want a show developed, based on the activities of a terrorist group. Joseph Stalin and his merry band of Bolsheviks. I want ideas from you people. And, by the way, the next time I send an audience research report around, you all better read it, or I”ll sack the f -ing lot of you, is that clear?More Monologues from “Network”

Now, I don”t want to play butch boss with you people. But when I took over this department, it had the worst programming record in television history. This network hasn”t one show in the top twenty. This network is an industry joke. We better start putting together one winner for next September. I want a show developed, based on the activities of a terrorist group. Joseph Stalin and his merry band of Bolsheviks. I want ideas from you people. And, by the way, the next time I send an audience research report around, you all better read it, or I”ll sack the f -ing lot of you, is that clear?More Monologues from “Network”

Network (Howard)

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HOWARD: Twenty-five years, Max. I came over from CBS in “51. Can you believe it? They were just building the lower level on the George Washington Bridge – I remember just after I started they were doing a remote there. Except nobody told me. Then ten after seven in the morning, I get a call. “Where the hell are you? You”re supposed to be on the George Washington Bridge!” I jump out of bed, run downstairs, I get out in the street, I flag a cab, jump in. I say, “Take me to the middle of the George Washington Bridge!” The driver turns round. He says, “Don”t do it, buddy. You”re a young man, you”ve got your whole life ahead of you.” (They break into uncontrollable laughter.) I think I”m going to kill myself. I”m going to blow my brains out right on air, right in the middle of the seven o”clock news. “The Death Hour”. A great Sunday-night show for all the family. Wipe Disney right off the air.*For Paddy Chayefsky”s original film version of this monologue (by a different character), click here.More Monologues from “Network”

*For Paddy Chayefsky”s original film version of this monologue (by a different character), click here.More Monologues from “Network”

Network (Max)

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MAX: Must”ve been 1950 then. I was at NBC. Morning News. Associate producer. I was a kid, twenty-six years old. Anyway, they were building the lower level on the George Washington Bridge, and we were doing a remote there. Except nobody told me! Ten after seven in the morning I get a call. “Where the hell are you? You”re supposed to be on the George Washington Bridge!” I jump out of bed, throw my raincoat over my pajamas, run down the stairs. I get out in the street. I flag a cab. I jump in. I say: “Take me to the middle of the George Washington Bridge!” (tears streaming down his cheeks) The driver turns around. He says, don”t do it, buddy. (so weak now he can barely talk) He says, you”re a young man. You got your whole life ahead of you.*For the version that was done in the Broadway play starring Bryan Cranston, (by a different character), click here.More Monologues from “Network”

*For the version that was done in the Broadway play starring Bryan Cranston, (by a different character), click here.More Monologues from “Network”

Network (Hackett)

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HACKETT: I got a hit, Schumacher, and Ruddy doesn”t count any more. He was hoping I”d fall on my face with this Beale show, but I didn”t. It”s a big, fat, big-t -d hit, and I don”t have to waffle around with Ruddy any more. If he wants to take me up before the C.C. and A. board, let him. And do you think Ruddy”s stupid enough to go to the CCA board and say: “I”m taking our one hit show off the air?” And comes November Fourteen, I”m going to be standing up there at the annual CCA management review meeting, and I”m going to announce projected earnings for this network for the first time in five years. And, believe me, Mr. Jensen will be sitting there rocking back and forth in his little chair, and he”s going to say: “That”s very good, Frank, keep it up.” So don”t have any illusions about who”s running this network from now on. You”re fired. I want you out of your office before noon or I”ll have you thrown out.More Monologues from “Network”

Network (Howard Beale)

Category: Role: From: Actor: Writer:

I don’t have to tell you things are bad. Everybody knows things are bad. It’s a depression. Everybody’s out of work or scared of losing their job. The dollar buys a nickel’s worth. Banks are going bust. Shopkeepers keep a gun under the counter. Punks are running wild in the street and there’s no one anywhere that seems to know what to do with us. Now into it. We know the air is unfit to breathe, our food is unfit to eat, and we sit watching our TVs while some local newscaster tells us that today we had 15 homicides and 63 violent crimes as if that’s the way it’s supposed to be. We know things are bad. Worse than bad. They’re crazy. It’s like everything everywhere is going crazy so we don’t go out anymore. We sit in a house as slowly the world we’re living in is getting smaller and all we say is, “Please, at least leave us alone in our living rooms. Let me have my toaster, and TV, and my steel belted radials and I won’t say anything.” Well I’m not going to leave you alone. I want you to get mad. I don’t want you to protest. I don’t want you to riot. I don’t want you to write to your congressman because I wouldn’t know what to tell you to write. I don’t know what to do about the depression and the inflation and the Russians and the crying in the streets. All I know is first you’ve got to get mad. You’ve got to say, “I’m a human being. God Dammit, my life has value.” So, I want you to get up now. I want all of you to get up out of your chairs. I want you to get up right now and go to the window, open it, and stick your head out, and yell, “I’m as mad as hell, and I’m not going to take this anymore!” I want you to get up right now. Get up. Go to your windows, open your windows, and stick your head out, and yell, “I’m as mad as hell and I’m not going to take this anymore!” Things have got to change my friends. You’ve got to get mad. You’ve got to say, “I’m as mad as hell and I’m not going to take this anymore!”

Network (Howard)

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HOWARD: (serene, sits behind his desk) What”s happening to me, Max, isn”t mensurate in psychiatric terms. This is not a psychotic episode. It is a cleansing moment of clarity. (stands, an imbued man) I am imbued, Max. I am imbued with some special spirit. It”s not a religious feeling at all. It is a shocking eruption of great electrical energy: I feel vivid and flashing as if suddenly I had been plugged into some great cosmic electromagnetic field. I feel connected to all living things, to flowers, birds, to all the animals of the world and even to some great unseen living force, what I think the Hindus call prana. It is not a breakdown. I have never felt so orderly in my life! It is a shattering and beautiful sensation! It is the exalted flow of the space-time continuum, save that it is spaceless and timeless and of such loveliness! I feel on the verge of some great ultimate truth. You will not take me off the air for now or for any other spaceless time!More Monologues from “Network”

Network (Jensen)

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JENSEN: 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 and immane, interwoven, interacting, multi-variate, multi-national dominion of dollars! Petro-dollars, electro-dollars, multi-dollars!, Reichmarks, rubles, rin, 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? (pause) You get up on your little twenty-one inch screen, and howl about America and democracy. There is no America. There is no democracy. There is only IBM and ITT and AT and T and Dupont, Dow, Union Carbide and Exxon. Those are the nations of the world today. What do you think the Russians talk about in their councils of state Karl Marx? They pull out their linear programming charts, statistical decision theories and miniMax solutions and compute the price-cost probabilities of their transactions and investments just like we do. We no longer live in a world of nations and ideologies, Mr. Beale. The world is a college 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.More Monologues from “Network”

Network (Louise Schumacher)

Category: Role: From: Actor: Writer:

Then get out. Go anywhere you want. Go to a hotel, go live with her, but don’t come back! Because, after 25 years of building a home and raising a family and all the senseless pain that we have inflicted on each other, I’m damned if I’m gonna stand here and have you tell me you’re in love with somebody else! Because this isn’t a convention weekend with your secretary, is it? Or, or some broad that you picked up after three belts of booze. This is your great winter romance, isn’t it? Your last roar of passion before you settle into your emeritus years. Is that what’s left for me? Is that my share? She gets the winter passion and I get the dotage? What am I supposed to do? Am I supposed to sit at home knitting and purling while you slink back like some penitent drunk? I’m your wife, damn it! And if you can’t work up a winter passion for me, the least I require is respect and allegiance! … I hurt, don’t you understand that? I hurt badly!

Network (Louise)

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LOUISE: Do you love her? Don”t keep telling me you”re obsessed, you”re infatuated. Say you”re in love with her! (erupts) Then get out, go to a hotel, go anywhere you want, go live with her, but don”t come back! Because after twenty-five years of building a home and raising a family and all the senseless pain we”ve inflicted on each other, I”ll be damned if I”ll just stand here and let you tell me you love somebody else! (now she”s striding around, weeping, a caged lioness) Because this isn”t just some convention weekend with your secretary, is it? Or some broad you picked up after three belts of booze. This is your great winter romance, isn”t it? Your last roar of passion before you sink into your emeritus years. Is that what”s left for me? Is that my share? She gets the great winter passion, and I get the dotage? Am I supposed to sit at home knitting and purling till you slink back like a penitent drunk? I”m your wife, damn it! If you can”t work up a winter passion for me, then the least I require is respect and allegiance! I”m hurt! Don”t you understand that? I”m hurt badly! Say something for God”s sake.More Monologues from “Network”

Network (Max)

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MAX: Well, I”m just tired by all this hysteria about Howard Beale. And I”m tired of finding you on the goddam phone every time I turn around. I”m tired of being an accessory in your life. After six months of living with you, I”m turning into one of your scripts. But this isn”t a script, Diana. There”s some real actual life going on here. I went to visit my wife today. She”s so depressed my daughter flew in from Seattle to be with her.Yes, I feel lousy about that. I feel lousy about the pain I”ve caused my wife and kids. I feel guilty and conscience-stricken and all those things you think sentimental but which my generation called simple human decency. And I miss my home because I”m beginning to get scared s -less. It”s all suddenly closer to the end than to the beginning, and death is suddenly a perceptible thing to me. You”ve got a man going through primal doubts, Diana, and you”ve got to cope with it. Because I”m not some guy discussing male menopause on the Barbara Walters show. I”m the man you presumably love. I”m part of your life. I live here. I”m real. You can”t switch to another station.I just want you to love me. I just want you to love me, primal doubts and all. We”re born in terror and we live in terror. Life can be endured only as an act of faith and the only act of faith any of us are capable of is love. You understand that, don”t you? (The phone rings. They stare at one another. Finally she picks it up.) You are a wasteland, Diana.*For Paddy Chayefsky”s original film version of this monologue, click here.More Monologues from “Network”

Yes, I feel lousy about that. I feel lousy about the pain I”ve caused my wife and kids. I feel guilty and conscience-stricken and all those things you think sentimental but which my generation called simple human decency. And I miss my home because I”m beginning to get scared s -less. It”s all suddenly closer to the end than to the beginning, and death is suddenly a perceptible thing to me. You”ve got a man going through primal doubts, Diana, and you”ve got to cope with it. Because I”m not some guy discussing male menopause on the Barbara Walters show. I”m the man you presumably love. I”m part of your life. I live here. I”m real. You can”t switch to another station.I just want you to love me. I just want you to love me, primal doubts and all. We”re born in terror and we live in terror. Life can be endured only as an act of faith and the only act of faith any of us are capable of is love. You understand that, don”t you? (The phone rings. They stare at one another. Finally she picks it up.) You are a wasteland, Diana.*For Paddy Chayefsky”s original film version of this monologue, click here.More Monologues from “Network”

I just want you to love me. I just want you to love me, primal doubts and all. We”re born in terror and we live in terror. Life can be endured only as an act of faith and the only act of faith any of us are capable of is love. You understand that, don”t you? (The phone rings. They stare at one another. Finally she picks it up.) You are a wasteland, Diana.*For Paddy Chayefsky”s original film version of this monologue, click here.More Monologues from “Network”

*For Paddy Chayefsky”s original film version of this monologue, click here.More Monologues from “Network”