Also of interest is the story behind the screenplay - it was written by Michael Wilson but not credited to him, as he was blacklisted at the time. In some ways you can see the story is about the situation with respect to the HUAC for people in Hollywood.
After purposely by-passing it for most of my life, I finally watched it this Summer. Great story, great period acting, slow paced/building yet weirdly compelling, great ending. Definitely worth the watch. 4 stars. Probably one of my favorite movies now.
I walked out of Network mad as hell and was not going to take it anymore.
To be fair, while Holden was brilliant in Network, Ned Beatty really takes top honors with his five minute monologue on “the atomic and subatomic and galactic structure of things today!” This may be the single greatest speech in film, ever.
“I have seen the face of God.”
Stranger
It’s been years since I’ve seen Network, but I remember that being my least favorite part. The rest of the movie was brilliant satire; right on the knife edge between being preposterous and still plausible. Then Beatty’s speech was the sort of faux eloquence that just didn’t ring true as actual dialog. And it seemed to be going for some sort of omniscient puppet-master thing that wasn’t in the rest of the movie.
I’ll watch it again one of these days.
I’ve only ever seen bits and pieces of the film, but next week The Music Box theater in Chicago is playing it for a week. Is it an anniversary or something? It’ll be great to see it for the first time, from beginning to end, on film and on a big screen. We saw Lawrence of Arabia that way last year, and I’m so glad. I’ve owned the DVDs for both movies for years, but could never bring myself to watch them, not even on our big screen. They deserve to be seen the way they were originally shown. LoA did anyway, and I assume Kwai too.
I only made it about halfway, then was suddenly overcome by sleepiness and had to go to bed. No, it wasn’t the movie’s fault! 
Just a rough day. I’ll be happy to watch the whole thing next time it’s on.
As a movie, it’s great. The way Lean builds the tension approaching the climax is masterful. But I just can’t watch the film anymore ever since I learned what it was really like for allied POWs in Japanese hands. I can’t suspend my disbelief enough to enjoy it anymore.
Not an anniversary, but I’d guess the screening is linked to the film just being released on Blu-ray.
All of which could have been done better by other actors; and if you’re willing to play imaginary casting director, I’ll bet you could name several.
All actors have to be egotists, but Holden’s was wrapped up in his bitter, self-centered alcoholism, and it puts a wall between him and his audience.
As for BotRK, in my opinion, Pierre Boulle wrote it about the collaborationism of French officers in SE Asia, David Lean pitched it to send up British attitudes that led to the disasters of World War One not Two, and William Holden was cast in it to attract American audiences. It’s no more dedicated to the POW’s of SE Asia than Buster Keaton’s The General is about the Civil War: it just a set-up for dumping a train in a river.
Historically, I’ll could say that perhaps BotRK generated enough interest so that later, better movies* about POW’s in SE Asia could be made, but I can’t because it’s such a rich resource on its own, and BotRK only muddied the waters.
Thank you for letting me have my say.
*the Japanese officer is the same actor who played the court jester in Ran. Now there’s range.