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Brief summaries: NETWORK is a satire on Network television, the story of a news anchor who goes crazy (or not so crazy) and the ensuing descent of his network as they play to the lowest common denominator for ratings. Through Peter Finch, Chayefsky has bequeathed us the immortal line, "I'm mad as hell, and I'm not going to take it any more." Fans of the film will notice this script contains some extra dialogue and one brief scene, all of which was probably shot, but which the great director Sidney Lumet saw fit to cut. It won the Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay in 1976.
THE HOSPITAL script also won an Academy Award. Here Chayefsky satirizes a bevy of denizens in a large New York hospital complex and the activists of the surrounding neighborhood, making them all complicit in the killing of "God" who checked himself in as a patient. It's a fantastically snarky story, full of dialogue like
BOCK: What do you say Miss Drummond?
BARBARA: I expect you can call me Barbara, considering you ravished me three times last night.
BOCK: Three times?
BARBARA: Oh, look at him, pretending he didn't count.
Finally, there is ALTERED STATES, perhaps my favorite, which did not win any awards, and is considered somewhat of a failure as a film. Well there's a story behind that. Chayefsky, with his reputation (he also won a screenwriting Oscar for MARTY), was able to secure an unheard-of contract for the movie: not a single line could be changed. This is standard in theater, but film is considered a director's medium -- and the director, Ken Russel, was adamant about rewriting. He tried to change a few lines and Chayefsky shut him down. Russel retaliated by trying to film the dialogue in the worst way possible, having it interrupted by other sounds, turned down too low, having actors speak it in weird ways. After reading this script, one will agree this was a tragedy. ALTERED STATES is nothing less than Chayefsky's answer to every scientific and religious question. It packs a mind-blowing philosophical punch behind a science fiction story about a psychologist who regresses to a primitive consciousness. It is also completely, touchingly human in the end.
There are other volumes of his screenplays, teleplays and stageplays -- all of which I am now desperate to get my hands on and read. For anyone who reads screenplays, this book is an absolute essential. I'm going to keep it in a reverent place on my shelf. Staggeringly good. 5/5 stars!
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