Posted on 04/19/2011 6:27:19 AM PDT by Diana in Wisconsin
On Saturday, my parents called to report they had driven an hour into Reno, Nevada, to see Paul Johansson's adaptation of Atlas Shrugged. Despite the film's strongly negative reviews, the theater was full. Curiously, this scene was true across the nation this weekend, as the film brought in more than 1.6 million despite only opening in 300 theaters: an average of $5,600 per theater, leaving it behind only the heavily advertised films Rio and Scream 4.
Unfortunately, the quality of this adaptation is representative of its low budget and brief production time. The film meticulously retains the original plot of Rand's opus, going so far as to lift much of the dialogue directly out of the novel. However, due to the large amount of material being covered, the result leaps through the original plot line in a somewhat disjointed portrayal, which can be difficult to follow. While Johansson is to be commended for finally bringing Atlas Shrugged to cinema after almost 40 years of negotiations, delays, and difficulties, it is disappointing that the end result is not more impressive.
Despite the film's mediocre quality, its end was met by a surprising response in Reno on Saturday. As the main character, Dagny Taggart, climbs a flame-engulfed hill to be confronted with the destruction of petroleum magnate Ellis Wyatt's oil fields — the lifeblood of what little remained of the American economy — she screams in terror. The camera pulls away, revealing Wyatt's parting farewell: "I am leaving it as I found it. Take over. It's yours."
The crowded theater began to applaud.
While some people of all ideological persuasions, including libertarians, find Ayn Rand's rather idiosyncratic beliefs and obscure moral code distasteful, the theater's reaction captures the hidden resonance of her greatest work on grounds she would not have completely anticipated. Indeed, many of the film's difficulties are less the fault of the director, and more of Rand herself. The primary protagonists of the book are emotionless industrialists, stilted and one-dimensional in their behaviors, thinking only of metal, railroads, and factories.
Atlas Shrugged is compelling, not for its heroes, but for its villains. Published in 1957, Rand's description of politicians and lobbyists in a time of economic crisis is almost prophetic. These Washington insiders scheme behind closed doors to retain and expand their power. In elaborate press conferences, they attempt to convince the unsuspecting populace of their legislation's necessity by vilifying productive companies and portraying their own destructive, self-serving designs as being in the interests of the advancement of equality, stability, and progress.
For instance, in Atlas Shrugged, the lobbyist Wesley Mouch decries the capitalist Hank Rearden's invention of a wonderful alloy that is stronger than steel. And last week, in the real world, Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr. took to the house floor to declare that Steve Jobs's iPad was killing jobs. Congress must, according to Jackson, recognize that Apple is driving companies such as Barnes & Noble and Borders out of business, and the company should be stopped in the interests of fairness.
Jackson decried Congress for failing to foster "protection for jobs here in America to ensure that the American people are being put to work." It's as if he wanted us to believe the printing press was harmful to the economy because it decreased the demand for scribes. Such a condemnation of a successful business and a demand for protection of failing industries could easily have been lifted directly from Rand's novel.
However, the similarities are not restricted to a lone Democratic congressman. Similar absurd arguments were bountiful on both sides of the aisle in debates about policies ranging from Obamacare to the bailouts. Americans are directed to believe that if they would just allow the federal government to act in order to prevent further change in the economy, then stability could be restored.
It is this paltry masquerade of politicians feigning action and granting themselves greater power in the name of equality and economic stability that leads Americans to Rand's story. Indeed, Republicans and Democrats both put on a charade of activity last week, claiming to remedy our nation's budget woes. Both parties threatened to shut down the government over a series of austerity measures amounting to a final savings of $352 million this fiscal year. That's $352 million out of budget deficit of approximately $1.6 trillion, or .02 percent of what would be required to actually balance the budget. Politicians bickered over funding for relatively low-cost line items like NPR and Planned Parenthood, all the while ignoring the harsh reality that our public debt is on track to surpass our GDP.
In other words, Republicans and Democrats have managed to mortgage the entire household worth of the United States. Their remedy for this self-imposed tragedy? Grant themselves greater power through increased regulations and rising taxes.
With each repeated failure of federal action to remedy our economic situation, politicians reveal themselves more fully to the American people as nothing but self-serving villains. Their strategy relies on the appearance of action coupled with soaring rhetoric to convince Americans of their good deeds. Meanwhile, these politicians are gambling with our lives and prosperity, risking the well-being of hard-working individuals in thoughtless policies designed merely to secure reelection.
It is due to her apt depiction of these self-serving villains that Ayn Rand's novel has climbed to number four on the top-sellers list on Amazon and that the film is likely to do far better than its mediocre quality would merit. Americans are growing tired of politicians gambling away their prosperity to preserve their own power. The crowd in Reno applauded as Ellis Wyatt walked away, not because he was some great hero, but because they understood the pain of working tirelessly while a reckless and unproductive government needlessly spends away the results of your labor and rewards your hard work with mounting regulations.
The idea of walking away has become attractive — and indeed, Americans are increasingly leaving the United States for opportunities abroad, with record numbers emigrating to Australia and East Asia.
So long as Ayn Rand's villains continue to resemble the reality in Washington, the story of Atlas Shrugged will remain popular. The average American may not be a powerful railroad executive or steel magnate, but most believe they are entitled to the fruits of their labor. Many are beginning to realize that their future is being gambled away by politicians whose only risk is losing the votes of the individuals who have lost everything.
Rand wrote the novel, in part, as a reaction to FDR's New Deal. Her villains are his bureaucrats.
I first read the novel in the 1990's and I thought, "Her villains are Clinton's bureaucrats."
Anyone reading the novel or seing the film today will surely think, "Her villains are Obama's bureaucrats."
Same old same old. Until the revolution.
Went on Friday, Packed house in Boston (of all places!)...
Her villains look much like the various government officials and associates of the largely forgotten early part of the Great Depression. Most people remember such things as Social Security and the huge construction projects of the Hoover Dam and the TVA, but if you look back to when the National Recovery Administration enforcement officers were raiding businesses to see if they were charging a nickel more than allowed.
I think they missed an opportunity by glossing over the Reardon Aniversary Party. Including the philosopher's and author's statements would have significantly identified the problems with the society.
Representative Jackson's tirade this week about the iPad is a joke that just writes itself!
I think the villians on par with the bureaucrats in the novel were the corporations that attached themselves to these bureaucrats.
Rand clearly had a prophetic gift. Too bad for her that she has no idea where that gifting came from — but she was gifted nonetheless. BTW, there was applause in our theatre in NC too. About half full, Saturday afternoon, right before we had all those tornado’s.
The problem in tying Mouch to Jesse Jackson is that no one - not even my liberal neighbors - take Jesse Jackson seriously. He is a characterure, plain and simple.
The other problem is that when you worry too much about government intervention, it will happen. If you keep going out and making new things, you can keep ahead of them. Think google, think facebook, think twitter. Trying to control it? walk away from it and build something else. The problem is the characters in Atlas shrugged gave up. They were the weak ones.
I’ll wait for the DVD release, which shouldn’t take long.
Wasn't this the party in which Francisco gives his "Money is the Root of All Evil" speech? If so, that would be a shame to not include some reference to that speech!
for those of us that have read the book, we will certainly find flaws in the movie (I thought there were many instances of ‘spoon-feeding’)... however i am hopeful that many people will see the film and then be inclined to read the book, or if the don’t read the book, they may finally ‘get it’...
There were guys from the freestate project handing out flyers too with the saying “WHERE is John Galt?”...
Homework Assignment: Read Ayn Rand’s “Return of the Primitive”.
With the Wisconsin thuggery fresh in mind, this collection of her writing’s will simply make you say “Wow!” out-loud.
I haven’t seen the movie yet. Do you think people that haven’t read the book will “get it”?
Francisco’s “Money” speech is at another party, in part 2 of the book. I was expecting it in the movie too, but when I went back to the book, I realized it is in part 2.
The strikers in the book didn’t give up. Did you ever read the book?
I’ve been thinking of creating a new game: “Randian Villain or Democrat?”
I read atlas shrugs, and was worried that it may come to pass....i recently read a paper by the Mackinaw Institute about the myths of the great depression. I was shocked to learn that most of the book DID come to pass under hoover and roosevelt......that paper was a real eye opener to me, and it debunked most of what I was taught about the depression, it’s causes and effects...totally shocking
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