Network is one of the best media films ever made. Of a sharp and steep humour, the film could not be more timely: a TV network that will, quite literally, do anything to get an audience. The anything is the exploiting of the fall, rise and fall, and the insanity of Howard Beale (Peter Finch), a long-time, old-time news anchorman who is about to get the heave. It states so accurately that all the maneuvers made in the television executive suites are all about making money, while old-fashioned, scrupulous newsmen like Max Schumacher (William Holden) are left out and let go eventually. The entire cast is superb, and Faye Dunaway, Peter Finch and Beatrice Straight all deservedly won an Oscar for their roles, the latter for a performance of only a little over five minutes, the shortest performance to have ever won an Academy Award for acting. Network (1976) was directed by Sidney Lumet, known for the social realism in many of his movies, and written by acclaimed Paddy Chayefsky, who was also awarded an Oscar.
“Does Faye Dunaway really have the skirt taken in in sixteen different places?” reads the chapter on art direction and clothes in Sidney Lumet’s book, Making Movies. “The answer is yes,” he writes. “And she’s right. Nothing can make actors feel more comfortable or uncomfortable than the clothes their characters are wearing. Aside from comfort, however, clothes contribute an enormous amount to the style of the picture.”
Diana Christensen (Faye Dunaway), is a television executive of cunning ambition and lack of feeling, who lives for her career. Faye is so good and so believable in her role, which may be her best. The 70’s working-woman costumes, designed by Theoni V. Aldridge, fit her character like a glove. Clothing was becoming very deconstructed and fluid after the mid-1970s, and the colour palette of Diana’s wardrobe was typical for the decade’s fashions, too: beautiful browns, creams and whites, with a few accents of colour, like burgundy or green, here and there.
Classic camel coat, knee-high camel boots, plain crewneck, turtleneck or shawl-collar sweaters, pussy bow silk blouses (very Yves Saint Laurent), right-below-the-knee pleated or straight-cut skirts, T-strap shoes: these are all part of Diana’s work-wear wardrobe and, in fact, we don’t get to see her wearing any other kind of clothes much (except for a bathrobe, a white gown and a single more casual outfit, composed of white trousers and light yellow t-shirt), which is another way to tell us that even her clothes serve her professional purpose, which is all she is about. In his book, Sidney Lumet recalled his meeting with Faye before she accepted the role: “Crossing the floor of her apartment, before I’d even reached her, I said, ‘I know the first thing you’re going to ask me: Where’s her vulnerability? Don’t ask it. She has none.’ Faye looked shocked. ‘Furthermore, if you try to sneak it in, I’ll get rid of it in the cutting room, so it’ll be wasted effort.’ She paused just a second, then burst out laughing. Ten minutes later I was begging her to do the part. She said yes. She never tried to get sentimental in the part, and she took home an Academy Award.” Faye Dunaway blazes the screen with fire and no sentimentality.
Almost every outfit is accented with a wide leather belt in a shade of brown, marking the waist.
A sleek, 1920s style bias cut white silk evening dress, with deep V neck and back, recalling to mind a Madeleine Vionnet gown,
as the designer was the one who introduced the bias cut to the fashion world in the ’20s.
Photos: stills from the film, Classiq Journal. Credit: MGM, United Artists
, by Gwyneth Paltrow and Julia Turshen, is my favourite cook book is not an overstatement. But before getting into details, I’d like to say a few things about my own eating philosophy. More than fifteen years ago, when I was still in high school, I started to develop an interest in healthy food and to change my entire diet. It’s been a gradual process, although from the very beginning I stopped eating red meat, white bread and other products containing white wheat, eliminated shop bought sweats and instead went for home-made desserts made with raw cane sugar. I considered this to be the first step to a more healthy lifestyle.
(1961) is a stylish film altogether. Set in Paris, on the sounds of jazz, with a good-looking leading cast and beautiful costumes. Paul Newman is Ram Bowen, a trombone player making his living in a jazz group, while aspiring to make it as a composer. Sidney Poitier is Eddie Cook, also a jazz musician playing in the same band, who has moved to Paris to escape the racism in the US. Two American tourists, Connie Lampson (Diahann Carroll) and Lillian Corning (Joanne Woodward), arrive in Paris for a two-week vacation and it’s not hard to imagine the romantic turn the film takes. But let’s talk about the clothes.
. Somehow, it felt like it was preparing us readers for some idyllic place and beguiling tales that usually come along in this kind of a setting. Anjelica does recount a picturesque childhood in Ireland, at the family estate in St. Clerans, County Galway, spent in the company of her mother, Ricki, and her brother, Tony, with only occasional visits of her father, John Huston, often away on film location. I think the book is also a father-daughter story: whether when describing how the house would come alive whenever John Huston was there or any other mention of their many a time turbulent relationship, those depictions of her father often seem to transcend the rest.
