Mad as Hell: The Making of Network and the Fateful Vision of the Angriest Man in Movies
In Itzkoff’s account of the durable 1970s film Network, the angriest man in the movies isn’t the TV news anchor whose on-air crack-up propels the film’s action. He’s screenwriter Paddy Chayefsky, whose distinctive style—naturalism punctuated by long, articulate, strictly artificial harangues—and ­proprietorship about his work (only his words, all of them, were to reach the soundtrack) made him the rare writer considered the auteur or prime creator of his films (usually the director takes that credit). Accounting for Chayefsky’s anger proves hard for Itzkoff to put in so many words as he frames long, absorbing chapters about the preproduction, shooting, and reception (prominently including the many Oscars it won) of Network within briefs on Chayefsky before and after it. Most obviously, the writer kept his temper simmering to deal with the producers, directors, actors, and others who wanted to change things. Chayefsky also kept a passion for the worth of the common person throughout his career, and every insult to human dignity infuriated him. A making-of film book that’s also a piquant biography. --Ray Olson