Broadcast news has something to say
Some of the best comedy-dramaromance films have been set in newsrooms, including His Girl Friday (Howard Hawks 1940) and
The Front Page (Billy Wilder 1974), with meddling editors questioning the ethics and habits of feisty newspaper reporters.
Writer-director-producer James L. Brooks sets Broadcast News (1987) in the Washington bureau of a fictional American television network and the frantic business of getting the nightly news on the air. It is the late 1980s, a period before scandals led newscasts and the likes of Fox News found an audience for infotainment.
Brooks situates the satiric narrative in the childhood of three protagonists growing up in middle America in the 1960s. Young Tom (William Hurt) is the kid who gets Cs on his report card, a simple background for the unflappable news anchor he will become.
Jane (Holly Hunter) is driven by a teenage passion for reading every available daily newspaper, marking her as the brainy producer of nightly news.
Aaron (Albert Brooks) is the nerdy high school valedictorian who develops a reputation for field reporting from global hotspots. He fancies himself an ethical voice on news gathering.
Tom and Aaron are in love with Jane, a source of tension among all three. Jane carries the burden of a woman who buries her emotional life to negotiate the temperaments of both men, part of her gendered characterization as a professional woman rising in her field in the 1980s.
In a self-effacing moment Jane confesses to Aaron, “I’m beginning to repel people I’m trying to seduce.” This is not the frippery of conventional rom-coms, but a measure of the film’s serious reflection, as the narrative shifts between drama and comedy, speaking to the punishing stress of live broadcasting.
From her key backroom position calling the shots, Jane feeds script and breaking news to Tom through his earpiece. After-hours he tells her, “How seductive it is
having you inside my head. It was like great sex.” Such is the headiness of a telecasting process that creates intimacy between anchor and producer in real time.
Most of the action occurs within the news studio and tight quarters housing technicians, writers, producers and messengers, racing to assemble the nightly newscast from the Washington satellite station — with the national anchor Bill Rorish (Jack Nicholson, wearing a frozen expression from years on the job) stationed at networkcentral.
Shooting on location in Washington envelopes Broadcast News in the atmospheric social scene of the federal Capitol, where Tom, the city’s celebrity anchor, is the darling of the political class. At a posh event on the hill, a glamorous woman eyes his body as if planning her private agenda.
The satellite Washington station becomes a focus of network downsizing. Loyal employees mill about carrying personal belongings and exchanging good wishes. A weary middle-aged man calls his wife, assuring her he will be home soon. Jane’s teary assistant (Joan Cusack, funny and fine as always) is among the casualties of the corporate decision. Network anchor Bill Rorish visits the station to view the aftermath, an outsider with nothing to say when someone suggests he save the day by foregoing a million dollars of his salary.
Broadcast News is Brooks’ first feature film, an independent production from the company, Gracie Films, he cofounded in 1986. He co-created
The Simpsons and wrote and produced The Mary Tyler Moore
Show, a strong track record of influential television on the workings of special communities, and the role of satire.
Viewed today, Broadcast News anticipates what has come to pass when cynicism, “alternative news,” muddled opinion and twittering rule, a state of affairs inviting strong journalism as never before.