{"id":2858,"date":"2011-04-26T17:24:35","date_gmt":"2011-04-27T01:24:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/hodakvalue.com\/blog\/?p=2858"},"modified":"2011-04-26T17:24:35","modified_gmt":"2011-04-27T01:24:35","slug":"atlas-shrugged","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/hodakvalue.com\/blog\/atlas-shrugged\/","title":{"rendered":"Atlas Shrugged"},"content":{"rendered":"

Unlike Ayn Rand, I will quickly get to the end of the story:\u00a0 if you are an Atlas fan, or at least someone with strong libertarian sympathies, you will probably like this movie.\u00a0 You will think the screenplay was a reasonably faithful adaptation of the novel, and may even appreciate the degree to which it wasn’t, leaving out as it did much of Rand’s clunky dialogue.\u00a0 You will think the scenes were visually rich, and the characters were superbly acted.\u00a0 You would be generous, forgiving, perhaps charitable, in your critique.<\/p>\n

If you hate Rand, or what you think Rand stands for, then you are likely to be objective, unforgiving, even ruthless.\u00a0 Being in a skeptical mode, you will notice the residual unwieldiness of the screenplay (you simply can’t purge Rand’s writing from her story).\u00a0 You will think that the visuals are cheesy, especially against the standards of modern epics being made for ten times this film’s budget.\u00a0 You will think the acting looked forced because acting generally looks forced when you’re simply not into the story, and you refuse to view this film with the suspension of disbelief that one might normally accord to a cinematic experience.<\/p>\n

This simple difference in perspective is very likely why 85 percent of the people<\/a> who saw this film liked it, and 95 percent of the professional critics hated it.\u00a0 The degree to which critics hated it worse than the viewers like it may account for the legitimate flaws in this film, but more likely that difference is caused by the mismatch between the medium and the message.\u00a0 Rand’s writing style is more Dostoevsky or Tolstoy than, say, John Grisham.\u00a0 Turgid, Russian novels are her literary heritage, and something no sane, modern Hollywood producer would consider committing to celluloid.\u00a0 I’m frankly amazed that producers Harmon Kaslow and John Aglialoro did as well with it as they did.<\/p>\n

To paraphrase Mad Men’s Don Draper, “When a man walks into a theater, he brings his whole life with him.”\u00a0 One can claim that they are only reviewing the film on its artistic merits, but reading their reviews and seeing the audience data, their protestations ring hollow.\u00a0 At no time is that pretense laid more bare than when they compare the Atlas Shrugged movie unfavorably against the insipid 1949 production of The Fountainhead.\u00a0 Gary Cooper couldn’t save that hulk.\u00a0 Patricia Neal looked positively psychotic.\u00a0 I contrasted that with Grant Bowler’s sharp performance as the uncompromising Hank Rearden, and Taylor Schilling’s compelling ice princess portrait of Dagny Taggart.\u00a0 They were a pleasure to watch.<\/p>\n

I’m not hopeful that this film will be a commercial success.\u00a0 It may not really be good enough for that.\u00a0 I’m certain it would offend Rand’s sensibilities, everything she stood for, really, for her fans to encourage others to see the movie to artificially boost its returns in the hope of getting the sequels done.\u00a0 Ironically, if the film’s parts two and three get made, it will likely be for non-commercial reasons.\u00a0 Could a true Objectivist live with that?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Unlike Ayn Rand, I will quickly get to the end of the story:\u00a0 if you are an Atlas fan, or at least someone with strong libertarian sympathies, you will probably like this movie.\u00a0 You will think the screenplay was a reasonably faithful adaptation of the novel, and may even appreciate the degree to which it […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2858","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-movie-reviews"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/hodakvalue.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2858","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/hodakvalue.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/hodakvalue.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/hodakvalue.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/hodakvalue.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2858"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"http:\/\/hodakvalue.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2858\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2865,"href":"http:\/\/hodakvalue.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2858\/revisions\/2865"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/hodakvalue.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2858"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/hodakvalue.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2858"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/hodakvalue.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2858"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}