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No. 51: Network

Mad as hell

by
Liel Leibovitz
December 06, 2011

1976, dir. Sidney Lumet. How great is Paddy Chayefsky’s satire of a morally bankrupt television news division? So great that Beatrice Straight won an Oscar for best supporting actress despite being on screen for all of 5 minutes and 40 seconds. Straight wasn’t alone: Chayefsky, as well as Faye Dunaway and Peter Finch, also walked home with golden statuettes, and the film’s famous line—“I’m as mad as hell and I’m not going to take this anymore!”—became the cri de coeur of American pop culture for decades to come.

Liel Leibovitz is editor-at-large for Tablet Magazine and a host of its weekly culture podcast Unorthodox and daily Talmud podcast Take One. He is the editor of Zionism: The Tablet Guide.