Barry Germansky
Contributor
Critics have long celebrated Network as the masterpiece of legendary screenwriter Paddy Chayefsky’s career; however, I’d argue it’s a title that should be shared with another film: The Hospital.
Made five years earlier in 1971, The Hospital satirically examines the crippling effect that bureaucracy has on the once-benevolent institution of medicine, just as Network tackles the television business.
Chayefsky believed the central problem in the health-care sector was the gap between modern medical advancements and the apathy of the hospital staff. In the film, doctors and nurses know how to cure people and have the means to do so, but they just can’t be bothered thanks to all of the bureaucratic rules suffocating them. The relevance of this message has only increased over the years.
The cast is uniformly excellent, but George C. Scott’s performance as a moralistic doctor trapped in a mid-life crisis towers over all. Scott does not merely verbally express his chronic dissatisfaction; he displays it through his body language. His drunken, melancholy facial expressions are among the most nuanced and powerful I’ve seen. His face, contorted with anguish, transcends channelling emotion and becomes a landscape of suffering. Couple that with his spontaneous delivery of Chayefsky’s signature melodramatic monologues, and this performance proves Scott was the greatest actor of his generation.
The best scenes in The Hospital morph quickly from sheer lunacy to sophisticated satire, from emotionally devastating drama to romantic love story and so on.
Chayefsky proves that some of the greatest and still untapped innovations lie within the writing department, revealing another one of Chayefksy’s strengths: his multi-layered approach to storytelling.
Ultimately, The Hospital’s “auteurship” belongs more to Chayefsky than director Arthur Hiller, who contributes little to the form of the film. The Hospital disproves the idea that the director is the primary author and creative force behind a film in more ways than one: George C. Scott’s performance is so meticulous in terms of emotional range that he almost controls or “directs” some of the movie’s scenes himself.
It’s always refreshing to revisit this scathing satire that not only has grown in significance over the years, but breaks all the rules that have been imposed throughout the ages, and makes contemporary films look tame.
