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Howard Beale of the fictional UBS News told it as it was.
I remember sitting in that darkened movie theater back in the middle 70's, the final days of the real movie theater and not the malls that have replaced them. I really didn't know what to expect. I didn't always read movie reviews in those days, so when Peter Finch, as Beale, made the first of his "insane" broadcasts, I nearly fell out of my seat. Sure there are many points being made in this classic film, not the least of which its depiction of growing corporate control over the news media.
I've always respected the serious news person. For me, Beale represented what Edward R. Murrow would have become had he lived on. You can't look at this circus of horrors we've created and not soon go mad from your constant reporting of it.
The classic scene from the film where Beale exhorts his viewers to go to their windows and yell that they were mad as hell and wouldn't take it anymore has become for me a kind of rallying cry. Yes, the people running to their windows were mostly doing so because they were brainwashed by the tube, yet I knew the reality of Beale's words. If all of us out here in the great wasteland truly rose up, mad as hell, perhaps we would finally do something to make our lives more harmonious.
It is with great respect that I dedicate this blog. to the memory of all those lost souls who let the bullies get the best of them, who saw too much, who felt too much and then let it drive them nuts.
Much of what you will read here are my own observations on life during this decade of terror and murder.
And if what you read here makes you want to go to your window and yell out, only do so if you intend to really do something.
I remember sitting in that darkened movie theater back in the middle 70's, the final days of the real movie theater and not the malls that have replaced them. I really didn't know what to expect. I didn't always read movie reviews in those days, so when Peter Finch, as Beale, made the first of his "insane" broadcasts, I nearly fell out of my seat. Sure there are many points being made in this classic film, not the least of which its depiction of growing corporate control over the news media.
I've always respected the serious news person. For me, Beale represented what Edward R. Murrow would have become had he lived on. You can't look at this circus of horrors we've created and not soon go mad from your constant reporting of it.
The classic scene from the film where Beale exhorts his viewers to go to their windows and yell that they were mad as hell and wouldn't take it anymore has become for me a kind of rallying cry. Yes, the people running to their windows were mostly doing so because they were brainwashed by the tube, yet I knew the reality of Beale's words. If all of us out here in the great wasteland truly rose up, mad as hell, perhaps we would finally do something to make our lives more harmonious.
It is with great respect that I dedicate this blog. to the memory of all those lost souls who let the bullies get the best of them, who saw too much, who felt too much and then let it drive them nuts.
Much of what you will read here are my own observations on life during this decade of terror and murder.
And if what you read here makes you want to go to your window and yell out, only do so if you intend to really do something.
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