The narration in Network seems to give the film a sort of pseudo-documentary quality that creates an interesting juxtaposition with the more intimate dramatic scenes (that of Max and his wife discussing his affair comes to mind), scenes which almost make the viewer forget the fact that the film begins with the overt statement, “This story is about Howard Beale…” until we’re brought out of the story (and back into the “story”) by the narrator again. Obviously, Chayefsky wants to blur the distinction between “reality,” the “real life” of human relationships that seem to be possible for those who aren’t a part of the “television generation,” and the narrative authority of “the story” (news or dramatic) as it scripts the “realities” of those who are.

Max’s funny speech to his wife about Diana (and the industry ridden badinage of his earlier conversation with Diana about their affair) touches on this:
“I’m not sure she’s capable of any real feelings. She’s the television generation. She learned life from Bugs Bunny. The only reality she knows is what comes over her teevee set. She has devised a variety of scenarios for us all to play, as if it were a Movie of the Week. And, my God!, look at us, Louise. Here we are going through the obligatory middle-of-Act-Two scorned wife throws peccant husband out scene. But, no fear, I’ll come back home in the end. All her plot outlineshave me leaving her and returning to you because the audience won’t buy a rejection of the happy American family. She does have one script in which I kill myself, an adapted for television version of Anna Karenina in which she’s Count Vronsky and I’m Anna.”

But even this seeminlgy “real” distinction between the “television generation” and “non-television generation” seems to be a part of the pseudo-realities of people living their lives as if they were narrated media events. It’s funny to think that the “Mary Ann Gifford Story” predates MTV’s The Real World by over a decade. And that The Real World opens with the narration “This is the true story, of seven strangers,” etc.

A great screenplay/film seems to be one that can’t possibly be be translated into another medium. One that makes full use of the medium. Network couldn’t be done as a play or a novel and capture the different ideas allowed by the juxtaposition of dramatic and doucmentary film techniques. It might be interesting to compare the narration in Network to the way it’s used in Altered States to see what Chayevsky is up to. And to compare the novel of Altered States (Chayevsky’s sole) to both films. The only old movie I can think of with a narration is “Mr. Blandings Builds his Dreamhouse” in which the character of Bill Cole gives the intro and outro and comments along the way, but I’m sure there’s a lot that are more obvious and famous. After the murmur of “Rosebud” at the beginning of Citizen Kane you get the Narrated newsreel footage which seems to be in this tradition — a tradition in which such narrations aim at giving more “reality” to the fictional narrative rather than more fictional narrative to “reality.”

As a side note, I recently watched Errol Morris’ Gates of Heaven again and was struck by the way he used the old image of the spinning newspaper that then freezes and let’s the viewer read the headline. Only he has the paper spinning just a couple of seconds longer than one might have seen it in movie from the from the 30s or 40s. The extra length and that it’s in a documentary make it quite funny, and it seems to be in the vein of Chayefsky but in reverse.