Blog Them Out of the Stone Age

Everyone knows that Paddy Chayefsky’s screenplay for Network (1976; dir. Sidney Lumet) anticipated the train wreck that is present day cable news. What I didn’t realize, until I recently watched it again, is that it also anticipated the use of self-produced video by terrorist organizations to advance their cause.  The key difference is that in Network, the videos are surreptitiously underwritten by UBS, a fictitious mainstream news division, whereas the ubiquity of inexpensive videocams makes the question of financing almost irrelevant.  Still, this scene in which the “Ecumenical Liberation Army” and UBS negotiate the contractual details is priceless….

NARRATOR

“The Mao Tse-tung Hour” went on air March 14. It received a 47 share.  The network promptly committed to fifteen shows, with an option for ten more.

There were the usual contractual difficulties…

[INT. farmhouse near Encino, California, headquarters of the Ecumenical Liberation Army (ELA).  Present are LAUREEN HOBBS, a member of the American Communist Party and liaison between the ELA and the UBS network; WILLIE STEIN, ED, and FREDDIE, agents for the firm of William Norris; HELEN MIGGS, a representative for UBS; MARY ANN GIFFORD, a kidnapped heiress turned ELA fanatic; assorted armed members of the ELA clad in fatigues; and the GREAT KHAN, leader of the ELA.  They are seated in the farmhouse living room, most of them on boxes and crates.  The GREAT KHAN is seated on a large, raised chair resembling an improvised throne.]

STEIN

Let’s get on with this before they raid this place, and we all wind up in the joint.

ED
(to FREDDIE now pulling up a crate)

We’re on Schedule A, page seven, small c small i –

MIGGS
(whisking through her copy of the contract)

Have we settled that sub-licensing thing? We want a clear definition here.  Gross proceeds should consist of all funds the sublicensee receives, not merely the net amount remitted after payment to sublicensee or distributor.

STEIN

We’re not sitting still for overhead charges as a cost prior to distribution.

LAUREEN
(whose nerves have worn thin, explodes:)

Don’t fuck with my distribution costs!  I’m getting a lousy two-fifteen per segment, and I ‘m already deficiting twenty-five grand a week with Metro.  I’m paying William Morris ten percent off the top!

(indicates the GREAT KHAN)

– And I’m giving this turkey ten thou a segment and another five for this fruitcake –

(meaning MARY ANN GIFFORD)

And, Helen, don’t start no shit with me about a piece again! I’m paying Metro twenty percent of all foreign and Canadian distribution, and that’s after recoupment!  The Communist Party’s not going to see a nickel out of this goddam show until we go into syndication!

MIGGS

Come on, Laureen, you’ve got the party in there for seventy-five hundred a week production expenses.

LAUREEN

I’m not giving this pseudo insurrectionary sectarian a piece of my show!  I’m not giving him script approval!  And I sure as shit ain’t cutting him in on my distribution charges!

MARY ANN GIFFORD
(screaming in from the back)

Fuggin fascist! Have you seen the movies we took at the San Marino jail break-out demonstrating the rising up of a seminal prisoner-class infrastructure!

LAUREEN

You can blow the seminal prisoner-class infrastructure out your ass! I’m not knocking down my goddam distribution charges!

The GREAT KHAN decides to offer an opinion by SHOOTING his PISTOL off into the air. This gives everybody something to consider, especially WILLIE STEIN who almost has a heart attack.

THE GREAT KHAN

Man, give her the fucking overhead clause.

STEIN

How did I get here? Who’s going to believe this?  I’m sitting here in a goddam farm in Encino at ten o’clock at night negotiating overhead charges with cowboys!

THE GREAT KHAN
(flipping through his copy)

Let’s get to page twenty-two, five, small a, subsidiary rights…

Sources:

Network screenplay by Paddy Chayefsky, revised January 14, 1976.

Network Script – transcript from the screenplay and/or Paddy Chayefsky movie starring William Holden, Peter Finch, and Faye Dunaway