Last week I watched the DVD of Atlas Shrugged movie director Vadim Perelman’s House of Sand and Fog.
Since he’s going to be the proverbial “god” of the new Atlas Shrugged movie, I figured it would be worth witnessing his previous cinematic work first-hand.
This is a dark movie, no question about it. I can easily imagine some Ayn Rand fans liking the movie, and others actively disliking it.
The writing, acting, and directing are excellent — but it would be hard, and an act of questionable integrity, to squeeze a feel-good movie out of such a tragic novel.
So instead you’re left with a gorgeously filmed and produced adaptation of a sad and disturbing story.
Personally I would recommend the movie highly — but only to someone with a fair tolerance for psychologically dark films.
If you do rent the DVD, I highly recommend watching it again, a second time, with the “commentary” feature turned on.
I’m not normally a big fan of watching the commentary for a movie — but, in this case, it was very well done and I found my appreciation for the movie deepening even more.
The commentary is by Perelman, Kingsley, and the author of the original book — who was positively beaming about Perelman’s adaptation, for whatever that’s worth.
…And it’s probably worth a lot, because it speaks to Perelman’s ability to remain true to a novelist’s vision, while still making a credible and compelling screen adaptation of his work.
I hope to write a fuller review of this movie for the Atlasphere one week soon.
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WSJ: Ayn Rand on Armagnac
Today’s Wall Street Journal contains an interesting reference to Ayn Rand’s view of (the alcoholic drink) armagnac, as evidenced in her characterization of Guy Francon in The Fountainhead.
The article is titled “Cognac’s Cousin From Gascony.” Below are some relevant excerpts.
Armagnac has an image problem. To start with, not that many people seem to be sure exactly what it is. …
[T]o the extent most folks have heard of armagnac, the impression they have been given is that it is a pompous quaff for phonies and poseurs and heavies — characters such as Senator Planet, Guy Francon, Sheridan Ballou and Eugene Lopwitz.
… A few years later, Ayn Rand picked up the theme. The novelist prided herself on penning caricatures of phonies such as Guy Francon, who in “The Fountainhead” embodies everything her architect hero Howard Roark despises. A rich and successful architect, Francon is intellectually lazy and stylistically derivative. Francon “hasn’t designed a doghouse in eight years,” but when he did, he was fond of such touches as “Corinthian columns of cast iron painted gold, and garlands of gilded fruit on the walls.” And what does Francon like to drink? Armagnac.
Rand seems to associate armagnac with the most contemptible sort of self-satisfaction. The paragraph that ends with Francon declaring he has fired Roark (because “the insolent bastard” refused to mock up a simplified Doric design for an office building) begins with the boss bragging about how he buys his favorite armagnac for “a hundred dollars a case!”
Poor armagnac.
Telegraph India Covers Atlas 50th Celebration
Thanks to Jerry Johnson for the heads-up about this new article in Telegraph India — titled “Take a bow, Ayn” — covering the events in India that Jerry helped organize in celebration of Atlas Shrugged‘s 50th Anniversary.
It begins:
Govind Malkani is in his nineties, with failing eyesight that cannot cope with the regular update of literature on Ayn Rand that is mailed to him in Mumbai from all over the world. He has outlived his wife Tara with whom he used to run a well-known Ayn Rand readersâ?? club in Mumbai in the 1970s.
Jerry Johnson, 25, has never met Malkani but he knows him as a fellow traveller. â??Malkani possibly owns the largest collection of Rand material in the country â?? books, videos, audio cassettes,â? says Johnson, who has kept pace with Malkani in spreading the R-word.
Both are ardent Objectivists, the strain of philosophy that the Russian émigré in America created over half a century ago. On October 12, in their own individual ways, they and other Rand fans celebrated a half-century milestone, the publishing of Atlas Shrugged, her best-selling seminal novel.
See the full article for more.
Jerry points out some errors in the article he’s trying to get fixed — such as prominent Indian movie star (and Rand fan) Shammi Kapoor’s statement that “money is the root of all evil.” Oops.
C-SPAN This Weekend: Atlas Shrugged & Business
C-SPAN will be broadcasting the “Atlas Shrugged and Business” panel discussion from the Atlas Society’s recent 50th Anniversary celebration in Washington, D.C.
Of this discussion, moderator Robert Bidinotto writes “It’s a fascinating hour-long overview of the appeal and applicability of Rand’s ideas to the world of business.”
I lead off with brief remarks on the reasons for the widespread hostility toward business and businessmen, and how Rand’s philosophical ideas not only repudiated that popular view, but led her to romanticize businessmen in Atlas Shrugged.
Younkins gives a superb presentation on the brilliant economic insights that Rand incorporated into her visionary novel.
Ed Snider reads revealing correspondence between himself and Ayn Rand, in which he first approached her with the idea of setting up a new organized effort to promote her ideas.
Rob Bradley takes on modern university teaching of “business ethics,” as seen through the filter of Rand’s own ethical thinking, and then demonstrates exactly what ideas led to the collapse of the Enron corporation, where he used to work.
It’s scheduled for broadcast on Saturday, October 20, 2007 at 3:00 pm Eastern time, and on Sunday, October 21 at 3:00 am Eastern.
See Bidinotto’s full announcement for more information.
Taunted by John Galt in Indiana
Ayn Rand is incredibly popular in India, but not so much with (presumably Indian) Indiana University student Indira Dammu:
On my daily walk to class, I am taunted by chalkings that declare obscure statements such as â??Who is John Galt?â? Undoubtedly the handiwork of some pretentious â??free-thinkingâ? student group, these chalkings echo a disturbing trend among college students to identify themselves as libertarians.
Apparently “the promotion of social and economic freedoms” is not very “charming” to her.
I wonder what is. Communist bread lines? Socialized dental plans? Inquiring minds want to know.
I say keep up the taunting, guys, until we can get to the bottom of this.
UPDATE (10/18/2007): Thanks to Ryan Kraus at the University of Indiana for alerting me to the fact that this happened in Indiana, not India. 😛
The Uncompromising Ayn Rand Is Still Relevant
This choice quote appeared in today’s Washington Times, drawn from Brian Doherty’s recent subscribers-only article on Ayn Rand and the right in the Wall Street Journal:
[Ayn] Rand was, despite her exile from the conservative movement, a fan of Barry Goldwater, the modern Right’s first serious presidential candidate. She told him, ‘I regard you as the only hope of the anti-collectivist side on today’s political scene, and I have defended your position at every opportunity.’ For his part, Goldwater said that ‘I have enjoyed very few books in my life as much as ‘Atlas Shrugged.’
Why does she matter to modern politics? It’s not like she is around for conservatives to seek her endorsement. But it is worthwhile for political activists to remember that Ayn Rand was utterly uncompromising on how government needed to respect the inalienable right of Americans to live their own lives, and of American business to grow, thrive, innovate and improve our lives without niggling interference.
Zogby Poll: 8% of USA Has Read Atlas Shrugged
This just out, instigated by Atlasphere member Logan Darrow Clements:
Los Angeles, CA (PRWEB) October 17, 2007 — A Freestar Media/Zogby poll found that 8.1 percent of American adults have read the book Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand. The poll of 1,239 adults was conducted by Zogby International between October 10 and October 14, 2007 at the request of Freestar Media, LLC. Among the poll’s 80 questions was “Have you ever read the book Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand?”. The poll has a margin of error of plus or minus 2.8 percentage points.
Atlas Shrugged chronicles an America where government has taken control of nearly all aspects of the economy. As society collapses the heroine follows a trail of clues surrounding the disappearance of innovators and the rise of a mysterious phrase “Who is John Galt?” Last week Ayn Rand fans celebrated the 50th anniversary of the first publishing of Atlas Shrugged.
Have you ever read the book Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand?
It’s influence is rising. A 1991 poll by the Library of Congress and Book of the Month Club found that Atlas Shrugged was the second most influential book after the Bible. 2008 Presidential candidate Ron Paul often quotes the author and even named his son “Rand”. Next year a movie version of Atlas Shrugged will be produced with Angelina Jolie in the lead role.
Could reading Atlas Shrugged promote financial success? The poll found that 14% of those earning $100,000 a year or more have read Atlas Shrugged while only 2% percent of those earning less than $35,000 a year have read it.
About the same percentage of men and women have read Atlas Shrugged, 48.2% men vs. 51.8% women. However, respondents living in the east (11%), west (10%), and south (9%) are about twice as likely as those living in the central/Great Lakes region (5%) to say they have read the book. Among the poll’s other findings: 38.7% of passport holders have read it, as have 10.8% of people who visit YouTube.com a few times a month.
Freestar Media, LLC was created by Logan Darrow Clements to produce media applying Ayn Rand’s philosophy of reason, individual rights and laissez-faire capitalism to current events. The company’s most popular project was The Lost Liberty Hotel, a rebellion against eminent domain abuse that involved applying the Supreme Court’s Kelo vs. City of New London ruling to one of the justices who voted in favor of it. Mr. Clements is currently producing two documentary films, one about socialized medicine, the other about eminent domain abuse.
Only 92% left go go….
We interviewed Clements a few years ago about his thoughts on entrepreneurship and his participation in the California 2003 recall election.
NYC's Grand Central Terminal As an Article of 'Atlas Shrugged' History
An interesting piece in Stamford’s The Advocate begins:
NEW YORK – Grand Central Terminal provides visitors with frequent train service, dining and shopping options, and to some, the meaning of life.
Some Metro-North Railroad employees say one of mankind’s greatest achievements lies in New York City’s deepest basement – a rotary power converter that once provided electricity to the entire railroad and to the historic train terminal.
Recently, nine Grand Central visitors got to see the converter close up to compare it with its literary equivalent – John Galt’s motor in novelist Ayn Rand’s 1957 magnum opus “Atlas Shrugged.”
To celebrate the book’s 50th anniversary, the visitors, who dubbed themselves “Friends of Atlas Shrugged,” a subgroup of the Ayn Rand Institute in Irvine, Calif., went to Grand Central for an exclusive tour in hopes of seeing some of the philosophical and technological inspirations for the novel.
“I have never been down in the bowels of a train station before,” said Jean Binswanger of New York, one of the terminal’s visitors, who included former Ayn Rand Institute board Chairman Peter Schwartz, a Danbury resident. “I think this is a fitting way to celebrate the anniversary.”
Keep reading for more.
WSJ: Rand and the Right
Brian Doherty has published what looks like it might be an interesting article in the Wall Street Journal, titled “Rand and the Right.” It begins:
Because of her opposition to New Deal government controls, novelist and philosopher Ayn Rand started off thinking of herself as a conservative. By the time her blockbuster novel, “Atlas Shrugged,” was published 50 years ago this week, she’d changed her mind. She decided she was a radical — a “radical for capitalism,” that is.
Conservatives, she’d come to believe, were insufficiently principled in their defense of a free society and once the novel was out, the official conservative movement turned its back on her.
While “Atlas Shrugged” was a ferocious defense of certain values shared by many conservatives, then and …
Unfortunately, you must be a WSJ subscriber to read the full article.
Atlas Shrugged Symposium on Book TV
From Robin Orenbuch: On October 13, 2007 there will be an Atlas Shrugged Symposium on Book TV at 12 noon (presumably Eastern time, since Robin is on the East Coast).