Peter Finch as Howard Beale.
Why this is a great diatribe:
Just watch both of the youtube links below. It is like this movie was written for this year, not 30 years ago. Howard Beale is suddenly my idol. I wish someone would run on the “I’m mas as hell, and I’m not gonna take it anymore!” platform. I really wonder how Hollywood hasn’t thought to remake this movie, when they will do sequels and remakes of all kinds of CRAP. I think I would cast Patrick Stewart just for the voice alone. These to scenes just really make you want to get off your ass and do SOMETHING.
The diatribe:
Howard Beale: I don’t have to tell you things are bad. Everybody knows things are bad. It’s a depression. Everybody’s out of work or scared of losing their job. The dollar buys a nickel’s work, banks are going bust, shopkeepers keep a gun under the counter. Punks are running wild in the street and there’s nobody anywhere who seems to know what to do, and there’s no end to it. We know the air is unfit to breathe and our food is unfit to eat, and we sit watching our TV’s while some local newscaster tells us that today we had fifteen homicides and sixty-three violent crimes, as if that’s the way it’s supposed to be. We know things are bad – worse than bad. They’re crazy. It’s like everything everywhere is going crazy, so we don’t go out anymore. We sit in the house, and slowly the world we are living in is getting smaller, and all we say is, ‘Please, at least leave us alone in our living rooms. Let me have my toaster and my TV and my steel-belted radials and I won’t say anything. Just leave us alone.’ Well, I’m not gonna leave you alone. I want you to get mad! I don’t want you to protest. I don’t want you to riot – I don’t want you to write to your congressman because I wouldn’t know what to tell you to write. I don’t know what to do about the depression and the inflation and the Russians and the crime in the street. All I know is that first you’ve got to get mad.
Howard Beale: [shouting] You’ve got to say, ‘I’m a HUMAN BEING, Goddamnit! My life has VALUE!’ So I want you to get up now. I want all of you to get up out of your chairs. I want you to get up right now and go to the window. Open it, and stick your head out, and yell,
[shouting]
Howard Beale: ‘I’M AS MAD AS HELL, AND I’M NOT GOING TO TAKE THIS ANYMORE!’ I want you to get up right now, sit up, go to your windows, open them and stick your head out and yell – ‘I’m as mad as hell and I’m not going to take this anymore!’ Things have got to change. But first, you’ve gotta get mad!… You’ve got to say, ‘I’m as mad as hell, and I’m not going to take this anymore!’ Then we’ll figure out what to do about the depression and the inflation and the oil crisis. But first get up out of your chairs, open the window, stick your head out, and yell, and say it:
Howard Beale: [screaming at the top of his lungs] “I’M AS MAD AS HELL, AND I’M NOT GOING TO TAKE THIS ANYMORE!”
(Announcer) And Starring the mad prophet of the air waves. Howard Beale!
Howard Beale: Edward George Ruddy died today. Edward George Ruddy was the chairman of the board of the Union Broadcasting Systems and he died at 11:00 o’clock this morning of a heart condition that warns us we’re in a lot of trouble.
So. A rich little man with white hair died. What does that have to do with the price of rice? Right? Why is that woe to us?
Because you people, and 62 million other Americans are listening to me right now. Because less than 3% of you people read books! Because less than 15% of you read newspapers! Because the only truth you know is what you get over this tube. Right now, there is a whole, an entire generation that never did anything that didn’t come out of this tube.
This tube is the gospel. The ultimate revelation. This tube can make, or break Presidents, Popes, Prime Ministers. This tube, is the most awesome God damned force in the whole godless world. And woe is us if it ever falls into the hands of the wrong people. And that’s why woe is us that Edward George Ruddy died. Because the company is now in the hands of CCA. The Communication Corporation of America. There is a new chairmen of the board, a man called Frank Hackett sitting in Mr Ruddy’s office on the 20th floor. And when the 12 largest company in the world controls the most awesome God damned propaganda force in the whole godless world, who knows what shit will be peddled for truth on this network? So you listen to me.
Listen to me. Television is not the truth. Television is a God damned amusement park. Television is a circus, a carnival, a traveling troupe of acrobats, storytellers, dancers, singers, jugglers, side show freaks, lion tamers, and football players.
We’re in the boredom killing business. So if you want the truth, go to God. Go to your gurus. Go to YOURSELVES! Because that’s the only place you’re gonna find any real truth. (laughs) But man, you’re never gonna get any truth from us. We’ll tell you anything you want to hear. We lie like hell. We’ll tell you that Kojak always gets the killer. And that no one ever gets cancer at Archie Bunker’s house. And no matter how much trouble the hero is in, don’t worry, just look at your watch at the end of the hour he’s going to win. We’ll tell you any shit you want to here.
We deal illusions man, none of it is true. But you people sit there day after day, night after night, all ages, colors, creeds.
We’re all you know! Your beginning to believe the illusions we’re spinning here. You’re beginning to think that the tube is reality, and that your own lives are unreal. You’re going to do whatever the tube tells you. You dress like a tube. You eat like a tube. You raise your children like a tube. You even think like a tube. This, this, mass madness, you maniacs, in God’s name you people are the real thing. WE are the illusion. So turn off your television sets. Turn them off now. Turn them off right now. Turn them of and leave them off. Turn them off right in the middle of the sentence I am speaking to you now. Turn them off! (collapses to the ground.)
ON TO NEXT DIATRIBE : KILL BILL
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