As the entertainment world mourns the passing of Oscar nominee Ned Beatty, many stars are recalling arguably his most famous and ominous performance as TV executive Arthur Jansen in the Paddy Chayefsky satire “Network.”
In his tweet commemorating Beatty, “Karate Kid” star Ralph Macchio called “Network” one of the “greatest screenplays and films of all time” and commended Beatty’s monologue towards the end of the film as “ahead of its time.” In it, Beatty as Jansen gives a booming sermon to news anchor turned raging talking head Howard Beale for using his TV show to get his viewers to shut down his network’s merger with a Saudi conglomerate, putting the network in danger. You can watch the speech in the clip below.
Former ESPN/MSNBC anchor Keith Olbermann called Jansen’s speech a “prophecy that has come totally and terribly true,” as the executive proclaims that multinational corporations have come to dominate the world of international politics. Other stars and film writers have posted gifs and clips from the speech in tweets commemorating Beatty and his career.
Along with “Network,” which earned him an Oscar nomination in 1976, Beatty was known for performances in films like the Jon Voight thriller “Deliverance,” his feature film debut, the Best Picture-nominated “All The Presidents Men,” and villainous turns as Lex Luthor’s bumbling henchman in “Superman” and the tyrannical teddy bear Lotso in “Toy Story 3.”
(Excerpt) Read more in: The Wrap