ABSTRACT
This chapter reflects in a deeply personal way on the contrast between a man open and caring to the outside world, yet experienced as largely emotionally closed to those ‘on the inside’, with whom he appeared able to put his feeling life into words, yet only in writing. The sentiments in the film – Sidney Lumet’s Oscar-winning Network – about a television company’s manipulation of news anchorman Howard Beale (Peter Finch), who announces mid-show that due to falling ratings he will kill himself live on air the following Tuesday – “I’m mad as hell and I’m not going to take this anymore” – have remained fused inside me with the events of that April evening. ‘Forging’ a life is of course a usefully ambiguous term.
