In yesterday’s Network thread someone said that Arthur Hiller and Paddy Chayefsky‘s The Hospital (1971) is a better, more substantial film. I feel the same way. I adore Network but Barnard Hughes ‘ soliloquy/rationale for his hospital killings is the most eloquent slice of cinema that Hiller ever directed. I’m especially speaking of the portion that begins at 5:56 and ends at 8:00 (concluding with the words “the whole wounded madhouse of our times”).
It’s staggering — nobody working today seems to be capable of even trying to write stuff as good as this. “Not quite the burning bush perhaps, but prodigal enough for me. I killed no one. Ritual victims of their own institutions. Murdered by irony.”
