Two Cents is a Cinapse original column akin to a book club for films. The Cinapse team curates the series and contribute their “two cents” using a maximum of 200-400 words. Guest contributors and comments are encouraged, as are suggestions for future picks. Join us as we share our two cents on films we love, films we are curious about, and films we believe merit some discussion. Would you like to be a guest contributor or programmer for an upcoming Two Cents entry? Simply watch along with us and/or send your pitches or 200-400 word reviews to cinapse.twocents@gmail.com.
The Pick: Broadcast News (1987)
The Team
Julian Singleton
Broadcast News was my introduction to James L. Brooks’ films, and notably for this series, to Albert Brooks’ turns as a leading man outside of child-friendly fare like Finding Nemo. Both creatives made an indelible mark on me with this film, a hilarious yet melancholy ode to the reporters and anchors who put in unending thankless work to report the news in a media landscape increasingly dominated by flashy, narrative-based antics rather than substantial, impartial coverage.Brooks’ Aaron Altman is as much a lovable schlub as he can be incredibly grating, someone who fails at every turn to be recognized for his potential worth–whether it’s as a newsman or as a potential romantic partner to his longtime work crush Jane (a sterling Holly Hunter). The irony is that Broadcast News gives Aaron plenty of chances to go for it, and each moment reveals with painful, biting humor just how much he is capable of (a lot, but never enough). Brooks’ comedic genius is in Aaron’s teflon-like unflappability, whether it’s in trying to laze about his house to distract him from the news segment he was rejected from participating in, or how the poor guy powers through a truly historic case of flop sweat on live TV during his first anchor gig (and gets right over it afterwards, since no one important would’ve been watching anyway).
The film is rightfully praised for all of its wonderful, humorous set pieces: the best being Joan Cusack running to deliver news tape Raiders-style to a control room seconds before air, or a magnetic game of telephone between Aaron, Jane, and telegenic dope anchor Tom (William Hurt). But the glue that holds Broadcast News together is how all of these characters feel so real–their concerns can be petty and selfish, but in the world they live in, all of these stakes take on climactic heft. By the time Aaron builds to his agonizing confession to Jane, the Brooks behind and in front of the camera have charged the moment with as much moral reckoning for Jane as they do for Aaron. Aaron is being unbelievably petulant and selfish towards Jane, but he’s still right in how Jane needs to confront that a potential relationship with Tom stands against everything she’s fought her life to defend about the news. Aaron sarcastically intones “Nothing like wrestling with a moral dilemma, is there?” when it comes to his industry’s casual treatment of on-air propriety–but the same is remarkably true when these newsroom dwellers are forced to step out of their spotlit cages and into the harsh light of real life.
It’s so dang fitting that this was also one of the first adult films I’d seen that featured a love triangle where no one ended up together–but still managed to make longtime friendships work. The film’s closing moments ache with the possibility of what might have been, but finds so much joy in the fact that Aaron, Jane, and Tom are grown up enough to know just what there is to treasure about the connections they have. (“BIG FINISH!”)
Ed Travis
Does it make me a bad cinephile that I’ve often mistakenly conflated Network and Broadcast News?
I’m fairly certain I saw Broadcast News in my childhood, or at the very least my family owned a retail copy of the VHS. And while I definitely watched Network in college, I wasn’t prepared for the tone and feel that Broadcast News brought because I think I was expecting it to be “mad as hell”. But this isn’t that!
What shocked me most about the stellar Broadcast News was the romance at the core. Not quite a romantic comedy, although it is both funny and relational, Broadcast News feels like an authentic representation of the television journalism of its time that is filled with competent, funny, and passionate people colliding. And boy does James L. Brooks’ script sing, and move, and compel.
Whenever I’m watching a romance film, I can’t help but get sucked in more deeply when I find myself empathizing with the lovestruck ones. Would I move mountains to rescue this princess? Would I go and see about a girl? Would I stay alive, to find you, no matter what occurs?! Let me tell you, Brooks eases the viewer into falling head over heels in love with Holly Hunter’s Jane quickly. No, I couldn’t quite see myself in the handsome, failing upward, success-just-finds-him William Hurt character and rising tv news anchor Tom. But I sure could understand how hard he falls for Jane, logic and maybe ethics be damned. But Brooks’ character, the awkward, earnest, nerdy, lovelorn Aaron who is twice the journalist Tom is, but half the journalist Jane is? Yeah, I shed a tear or two when he confessed his love knowing it was likely unrequited.
As this is an Albert Brooks piece, I’ll say that he was really acting in this one, playing a character unlike others of his that I’ve seen. Sure he’s a little neurotic, but he’s participating in an ensemble cast under James L. Brooks’ vision here, and he fits right in. But it’s Holly Hunter who absolutely dominates this film; a force of nature every other character (and audience member) can’t help but fall madly in love with due to her competence, fire, ethics, and charm. It’s got a lot to say about the journalism of its era, the soul sucking nature of corporate layoffs, the tension between entertainment and hard hitting journalism. But it’s got even more to say about love, reality, and the unpredictability of life.
Jay Tyler
Network has long been my go-to answer for my favorite film ever made. That is mostly due to it having all the cinematic qualities I am a sucker for (dystopic hyperbole, wildly quotable patter dialogue, an ensemble cast all operating on the same frequency), but also over time has become depressingly more culturally relevant. Thus Broadcast News, something of a reflective piece made over a decade later, has a lot of qualities that I also find very drawing.
But the great strength in Broadcast News is not in its biting social commentary on the tension between the news being both informative and entertaining, but in the human element that lies beneath those tensions. The core relationships that undergird James L. Brooks’ best film provides the baseline for a story of love, jealousy, and realizing that maintaining some form of connection is more important than relationships moving in the directions you envisioned.
This is a slight shift in our Albert Brooks series, as we move from Brooks as central auteur to Brooks as an actor in someone else’s project. But I also would argue you can’t have an Albert Brooks series without talking about Broadcast News. I would argue his turn as Aaron Altman, the chattering news reporter who both holds a sense of decent standards and a dangerously high opinion of himself in the same hand, is his most important performance. He gives himself over to something truly astonishing, a performance that both gives him the high ground but also shows how he is just as shallow and self-concerned as everyone around him. He can talk a big game about what he stands for, but under the skin he wants the same thing everyone else does: success and comfort.
But it’s hard to argue that his performance works if not for the triangle he is a part of. Holly Hunter and William Hurt are both equally astonishing in this study of human fragility, of the need to both prove yourself and tamp down those questions you always have prodding in the back of your mind. The fact all three were nominated for Academy Awards speaks to how much the acting of this film nails its sometimes dense script and plot; the fact that none of them won is a crime.
ALBERT BROOKS 101
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