“Being There” by Jerzy Kosinski, and “Network” by Paddy Chayefsky.
“Being There” for the nothingness that is Obama.
“Network” predicted the TV and Financial world we see to day. Look at the “reality” TV and the globalization of trade.
Especially when Jenzen tells Beale about Global Trade:
“You are an old man who thinks in terms of nations and peoples.
There are no nations.
There are no peoples.
There are no Russians.
There are no Arabs.
There are no Third Worlds.
There is no West.
There is only one holistic system of systems.
One vast and immane, interwoven, interacting, multivariate, multinational dominion of dollars.
Petrol dollars, electro dollars, multi dollars. Reichsmarks, rins, roubles,pounds and shekels.
It is the international system of currency which determines the totality of life on this planet.
That is the natural order of things today.”
Thank you for mentioning “Network” ! One of the greatest films ever, period.
I, and most of us here, are no doubt aware that people don’t speak in monologues as masterfully as they do in Paddy Chayefsky’s screenplay (a frequent criticism of the film), but who cares? “Network” is one of the greatest screeplays of all time, and acted to perfection by the entire cast.
“Network” is perhaps, IMHO, the most uncannialy presceient film ever made. Who can’t picture a network (any of them, the MSM or the cable networks, FNC included), making some deal with a shawdoy terrorist orginazation for exclusive footage of some atrocity or another? Ratings and money are all that matter.
Thanks also for including in your post Jensens’ monologue about the international financial system. As true today (if not more so) as it was back in the ‘70s.
I first saw this film on VHS when I was about 13 or so. It blew me away then, and it still does. I’ve used the film with Advanced English as Second Language students in the Czech Republic, and here in Germany as well. They love it, and it always leads to great discussions about the proper role of the media in society. Simply, do you report the news of the day, or do you try to create it?
Not so much predicted that, but made note of it. The public is, at best, slow to catch on, and often it never catches on. World leaders have been focused on globalization for centuries, with substantial boosts coming in the early 1900's (Wilson's presidency), the 1940's (FDR), and greatly facilitated by promoting the fiction that the press is either objective or two sided.