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Movies About Live TV, Ranked by Stress
Saturday Night recreates the chaotic 90 minutes leading up to the first SNL episode; see how other filmmakers have explored live TV’s highs and lows.
Nevertheless, for a film in which a TV host attempts to resurrect his career only to end up signing his audience’s death warrant, Late Night With the Devil is morbidly funny — the cut to a “station difficulties” intertitle after a bout of on-air demonic possession is an understatement if there ever was one. His entire life has been one carefully constructed illusion, the production of which alternates between meticulous, with the townspeople springing into choreographed action when it looks like he might uncover the truth, and amusingly slack, letting him get close enough in the first place (one of the film’s funniest and yet most tense sequences is when actors have to perform live “surgery” on the fly for a peeping Truman). Director Gary Ross captures a level of stress the polished live broadcasts and their chipper commentary couldn’t possibly — his quick cuts and shaky cam convey the disorientation of hallucinatory experience, and the high-pitched ringing in the aftermath of an explosion is unnerving.
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