1 5 9

.

lo que sigue es la escena 159 de la película
que más me ha impactado esta semana, tanto por su
fondo como por la forma (no, no es la última
del Dr. Jones). Network es un descarnado
relato acerca de la deshumanización y vanalización
del mundo moderno.

Constituye por eso mismo un alegato
en favor de todo lo contrario.




Está llena de escenas memorables y líneas
de las que le gustan a METeoro. En ésta
vemos cómo un hombre retoma el control de
su vida y decide volver al hogar después
de una relación apasionada y otoñal
con una bella mujer.


puro - zumo - de - cine

159.  INT. THE LIVING ROOM

MAX sprawled on the soft chair.  We notice that, in the
back of the living room, a bridge table has been set up
as a makeshift desk.  It has a typewriter on it and a
welter of papers and books and filing folders.  DIANA
appears in the bedroom doorway, regards MAX coldly --

DIANA
You know, you could help me out
with Howard if you wanted to.
He listens to you.  You're his
best friend --

MAX
(exploding off
the chair)
I'm tired of this hysteria about
Howard Beale!

DIANA
(erupting herself)
Every time you see somebody in
your family, you come back in one
of these morbid middle-aged moods!

MAX
(raging around the room)
And I'm tired of finding you on the
goddamned phone every time I turn
around!  I'm tired of being an
accessory in your life!

He finds himself by the upstage typewriter, which he
sweeps crashing off the bridge table, sending the
welter of papers there flying off in a storm --

MAX
-- and I'm tired of pretending to
write this dumb book about my
maverick days in those great early
years of television!  Every execu-
tive fired from a network in the
last twenty years has written this
dumb book about the great early
days  But don't
worry about me.  I'll manage.
I always have, always will.  I'm
more concerned about you.  Once
I go, you'll be back in the eye
of your own desolate terrors.
Fifty dollar studs and the
nightly sleepless contemplation
of suicide.  You're not the
boozer type, so I figure a year,
maybe two before you crack up or
jump out your fourteenth floor
office window.

DIANA
(stands)
Stop selling, Max.  I don't need
you.

She exits out into --


166.  INT. THE LIVING ROOM

-- and across that to the --


167.  INT. THE KITCHEN

-- where a kettle is steaming.  She fetches a cup and
saucer from the cupboard and would make some instant
coffee but she is overtaken by a curious little spasm.
Her hand holding the cup and saucer is shaking so much
she has to put them down.  With visible effort, she
pulls herself together.  She moves out of the kitchen to
the --


168.  INT. THE LIVING ROOM

--  where she stands in the middle of the room and
shouts at MAX through the opened bedroom doorway.

DIANA
(cries out)
I don't want your paint  I don't
want your menopausal decay and
death!  I don't need you, Max.

MAX
You need me badly!  I'm your
last contact with human reality!
I love you, and that painful,
decaying menopausal love is the
only thing between you and the
shrieking nothingness you live
the rest of the day!

He slams the valise shut.

DIANA
Then don't leave me!

MAX
It's too late, Diana!  There's
nothing left in you that I can live
with!  You're one of Howard's
humanoids, and, if I stay with you,
I'll be destroyed!  Like Howard
Beale was destroyed!  Like Laureen
Hobbs was destroyed!  Like
everything you and the institution
of television touch is destroyed!
You are television incarnate, Diana,
indifferent to suffering,
insensitive to joy.  All of life is
reduced to the common rubble of
banality.  War, murder, death are
all the same to you as bottles of
beer.  The daily business of life is
a corrupt comedy.  You even shatter
the sensations of time and space
into split-seconds and instant
replays.  You are madness, Diana,
virulent madness, and everything you
touch dies with you.  Well, not me!
Not while I can still feel pleasure
and pain and love!

He turns back to his valise and buckles it.  DIANA finds
a chair, sits in it.  A moment later, MAX comes out of
the bedroom, lugging a raincoat as well as the valise.
He lugs his way across the living room, then pauses for
a moment, reflects --

MAX
It's a happy ending, Diana.
Wayward husband comes to his senses,
returns to his wife with whom he
has built a long and sustaining love.
Heartless young woman left alone
in her arctic desolation.  Music
up with a swell.  Final commercial.
And here are a few scenes from
next week's show.

He disappears down the foyer.  We can hear the CLICK
of the front door being opened and the CLACK of the
door closing.  DIANA sits in her chair, pulling the
shower robe around her, alone in her arctic desolation

n e t w o r k
S i d n e y L u m e t
- 1 9 7 6 -