Damn, BrainGlutton. You got me. To be honest, I usually think you are wrong on this board, but in this one you are right. Good job, and thank you.
That’s not sarcasm. I honestly like it when I am corrected and forced to learn something.
Exit to Anthem?
Sir,
I believe you are mistaken about this point, perhaps based on a misunderstanding of what Rand meant by “collectivism”.
I believe Rand defined collectivism as (these are my words based on my understanding of what she wrote) the judgment or treatment of individuals based on whatever group (i.e. collective) that they might belong to, rather than as individuals, with individual values and characteristics. Hence her espousal of “individualism” over “collectivism”. I believe this is the dichotomy which she was pointing out.
Racism is precisely collectivism under that definition - i.e. judging or treating people based on the race they happen to belong to, instead of based on their characteristics as individuals.
Roddy
This is not an accurate representation of how Rand defined collectivism. Her (rather cartoonish) characterization says that collectivism relegates the individual entirely to the group:
(from The Virtue of Selfishness)
[sub]Ick. Now I feel dirty.[/sub]
That’s exactly what I mean about being able to change the word “collectivism” to “liberalism” and getting an out of the box, modern day, right wing radio talk show hack.
Thank you. I didn’t have anything with me to look up.
I would argue that my description is a subset of what you quoted, and well within her intent. The individual has no rights because the individual has no value except as he contributes to the group; individual differences don’t matter; the only value an individual has is based on the group he belongs to.
Racism is particularly invidious in this regard; when individuals are judged and treated a particular way because of their race, their individual worth is ignored, only their membership in the group (race) is considered to be relevant. This can be true of members of one’s own race, as well as members of other races. Sounds like collectivism to me.
Roddy
Ok, she used the word “collectivism” differently than most people. Here’s a more complete quote:
*”Racism is the lowest, most crudely primitive form of collectivism. It is the notion of ascribing moral, social or political significance to a man’s genetic lineage - the notion that a man’s intellectual and characterological traits are produced and transmitted by his internal body chemistry. Which means, in practice, that a man is to be judged, not by his own character and actions, but by the characters and actions of a collective of ancestors. . . . Racism claims that the content of a man’s mind (not his cognitive apparatus, but its content) is inherited; that a man’s convictions, values and character are determined before he is born, by physical factors beyond his control.”
*
Vertical or horizontal? Social/political collectivism or economic collectivism?
Of which type of collectivist society would racism be emblematic? Socialist? Fascistic? Democratic? Hippie communes?
IMHO - Beware one dimensional representations of political, social or moral philosophies. Such representations are intended only to serve as convenient counter examples to philosophical snake oils.
But that’s still not collectivist, even by her definition. In fact, it contradicts her definition since it divides the collective.
I suspect that the difference is that Orwell shows how a run for big ‘S’ Socialism can turn into Totalitarianism. Rand shows how any attempt at big ‘S’ Socialism will either result in a stalled economy, totalinarianism, or both.
It’s like Dosteovsky’s Crime and Punishment. He doesn’t examine one possible emotional result of having committed a murder. He exhaustively goes through them all, to show how each version isn’t a positive and why it’s certain to always be one of those. The story itself barely even amounts to a boy-meets-girl tale.
Though, yes, Dostoevsky is a good writer and Rand is a fairly mediocre one.
Back to the movie itself-does anyone want to tell me how the first third of the book could be made into a movie that somebody besides a rabid Randian might want to see?
That’s a very good question, and I was wondering about that myself. The thing is 1000 pages, but the plot itself should only take roughly two and a half hours to tell. My guess is that they will flesh out the characters with subplots that weren’t actually in the book.
And you’re right. Let’s get back to talking about the movie.
And *The Fountainhead * DID get made into a motion picture, with actors including Gary Cooper and the recently-departed Patricia Neal, within a few years while it still was a fresh, hot property. IMO AS’s suitability for making into a popular film suffers in contrast with The Fountainhead in that it is one thing to write a novel with a message, it’s another to start with an entire social philosophy and then try to “novelize” it so that people will stick around to read the whole story long enough for you to pound their heads with your message first wrapped around a rock, then a brick, then a 2x4, then a wrecking ball, and then there’ll be a quiz.
That said, the proposed production for AS looks… I dunno… like something worthy of the SyFy Channel on an off-season. The earlier mentioned possibility that this is a placeholder project just so the rights do not revert may not be entirely implausible.
And the movie was a steaming pile of crap. No, not even steaming. A cold, dry pile of crap.
Minuscule budget+television actors+small but rabid fan base=direct to video (except for a few private showings.)
There was this little Christian Football* movie called Facing the Giants.
With a budget of 100,000 and NO name actors the studio managed to get 10 million out of it and it opened at number 10 on under 500 screens.
So a film with limited appeal and no stars can still do well if it is distributed correctly.
*yes, Christian Football. The coach dedicates his life to Jesus and starts to win games. The team does as well and the film probably has the best line ever. “Jesus gave me a new truck!” I shit you not.
But, but, but… it had a REALLY dishy, sultry Patricia Neal and a rather wooden, studly Gary Cooper. And for me, anything with Raymond Massey is great fun to watch.
And it is worth it just for the over-the-top, sexual symbolism scene in the marble quarry! Oh, how Cooper grasps his tool! And the glances between them! You can see it here!
:p:p:p
I ddn’t mind the original Fountainhead. It had its moments - especially when compared to other movies of its time. Not great, but acceptable.
Atlas Shrugged has been in “development hell” for decades. There are two reasons for that:
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Rand, and later her estate, exerted iron control over the script. They knew that Hollywood is full of lefties who would love to pull a “Starship Troopers” and make a movie that’s a parody of the book or antithetical to its values.
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The book is very hard to translate to film. There’s a lot of internal dialogue and philosophical exposition, and the underlying plot is somewhat confusing and meandering. It really isn’t a very well written book judged solely as a piece of fiction.
And also, since Hollywood IS full of lefties, it was just going to be hard to make this movie. Hard to get funding, hard to get talent, hard to win against the bias of reviewers, etc. So the project has drifted around, attached to various Hollywood power brokers, and then ultimately being abandoned.
That was about to happen with this project. It was stalled so long that the option was about to revert to the Ayn Rand estate. So the holder of the option was forced to rush through a low-budget production of the movie just to retain the option on the property.
That doesn’t bode well. And it’s hard to see how the trilogy concept works. The book does break into three fairly separable parts, but it’s hard to see those parts being compelling on their own. The Lord of the Rings had very satisfying mini-resolutions for each movie, so they could be enjoyed on their own merits. It’s hard to see how that works with an Atlas Shrugged trilogy.
I just watched that clip (I’d never seen the movie). The foreman calls Dominique “Miss FRANK-en.” Pronounced like the esteemed Senator from Minnesota. From reading the book, I assumed it was pronounced Frang-CONE. Am I alone here?
Where are you getting your data? Not according to Box Office Mojo, which says it was ranked 12th for the weekend it opened, behind other first weekend films such as Open Season, The Guardian, and School For Scoundrels, and ranked far below 2nd weekend holdovers such as Jackass Number Two, Gridiron Gang and Flyboys. It never got any closer to the top 10.