What Conservatives Can Learn from the Atlas Shrugged Film Fiasco
As of this writing, the popular Internet site RottenTomatoes.com is showing a pathetic 8% “fresh tomatoes” (positive reviews) for the long-awaited screen adaptation of Ayn Rand’s 1957 novel Atlas Shrugged.
Even though Rand, an Objectivist, was an ultra-pro business libertarian and the vast majority of film critics are left-liberals, in this case the critics are right.
In fact, it’s worse. Atlas Shrugged, Part 1 (save us from 2 and 3) is an amateurish enterprise of embarrassing proportions that I strongly suspect would have had Rand herself running for cover. (I also predict its decent limited release box office opening will fade quickly.)
Some writers have defended the film as being under-budgeted. This is the least of its problems. The same script shot for $300 million would have been just as bad — or nearly — as the one shot for $30 million. It would still have had wooden characters delivering wooden lines (that were largely exposition anyway) with an entirely predictable, poorly paced plot set in an oddly anachronistic near future.
Others say, well, Rand’s novel is more or less like that. Possibly. But film is a different, obviously more photographic medium with its own demands and, in the end, it is Rand’s ideas that are particularly poorly served here. The Atlas Shrugged filmmakers forgot the old Hollywood saw: “If it ain’t on the page, it ain’t on the stage.” It’s a truism for a reason.
But enough of beating up on Atlas Shrugged, the movie. What can conservatives or libertarians learn from this fiasco?
The right has long complained about being discriminated against in Hollywood. And no doubt they are to greater or lesser degrees. (Clint Eastwood doesn’t seem so discriminated against.) But whining about this bias (being “Victocrats,” in Larry Elder’s pungent term) is only part of the solution — and a very small part. The real solution — in fact the only ultimate solution — is to produce work of your own.
Roger, I think that’s a bit unfair. I saw the movie tonight and enjoyed it. My girlfriend, who is not particularly interested in politics, enjoyed it also.
What specifically didn’t you like about it? It’s a movie about a bunch of business moguls talking about steel and trains. I don’t want to insult your intelligence by asking if you were expecting there to be car chases and dancing girls… but what WERE you expecting?
I wrote about Ayn Rand and her challenge to collectivism here: http://clarespark.com/2011/04/16/index-to-ayn-rand-blogs/. Here is where I would add to Roger Simon’s deserved critique: Only Rand’s We The Living is amenable to a film treatment, for it follows the conventions of the 19th century social novel. Her subsequent novels are a mixture of Symbolism, comic books, and sci-fi fantasies. The technical details that the superheroes and superheroines have mastered are not easily translatable to images. These novels (Atlas Shrugged and The Fountainhead) are over-the-top and a bit mishugenah. Maybe a Christopher Nolan (The Dark Knight) could have done something with these novels, but even he, I think, would be daunted. It is enough that millions and millions of readers have read Rand’s novels. Not every novel can be turned into a film, though Rand’s imagination was visual and filmic.
The Fountainhead was made into a pretty good movie with Gary Cooper as Howard Roarke.
I haven’t seen Atlas Shrugged yet so I will reserve comment until after I can convince my wife to go along.
If is a sad fact that the technology described in Atlas Shrugged was dated even as the book was being written. Those who look at such details miss the message. When King Solomon of Israel wrote that “there is noting new under the sun” he was not talking about technology, he was speaking to the reality of the human condition, human desires, and human behavior. Atlas Shrugged is an indictment and prosecution of a political philosophy (progressive leftism), that message is lost if the anachronisms inherent in a novel written 50 years ago were not corrected in the screenplay.
Ayn Rand was disappointed in the screen adaptation of The Fountainhead and she really wanted Disney to produce Anthem in the style shown in Fantasia.
Flat dialogue, no characters, dull plot, corny music…. what was there to like other than a few business quotes from Rand? I think Simon was being kind.
3/4 of those things came straight out of the book. So your major objection with the movie was the music? I did not notice the music one way or another, which means 1) it wasn’t awful, and 2) John Williams wasn’t involved in scoring it, and neither was Danny Elfman.
The first third or half of Atlas Shrugged is difficult to read, but if you stick with it, it starts to accelerate. It would be difficult to get a movie version going, but, like the novel, there is an excellent opportunity waiting, if you can get to it.
I saw the film and thought it was so-so, mostly dull. What I think they didn’t do was dramatize Rand’s ideas, which are interesting to the extent I understand them. It seemed like a HyMarks outline of the novel as I remember it. A few Rand fans kept applauding at parts that must have come directly from the book. That felt like high school.
I agree, the movie was very good.
jvon, I was expecting a business movie (hadn’t read the novel but knew about it). As a movie about business, it isn’t much good… at least as business is practiced today. Can’t speak for when the novel was published.
Atlas Shrugged is not a business movie, nor a business novel. It’s a dramatization of opposing ethical values and their logical consequences. It’s the story of how the best within you is turned into a weapon and a justification to enslave you. It’s the story of a man who accepted the unearned guilt that is the tool of of the freeloaders of the world and learned he never had had to — and thereby found freedom.
Should the producers scrounge up enough funds to make a Part 2, I suggest they hire one Roger L. Simon to write or at least polish up the script. Obviously, this needs someone who better understands the craft of screenwriting and visual nature of the medium of film while respecting the themes of the material.
Isn’t it ironic that Rand wrote such difficult to adapt material when she herself had worked in Hollywood and originally aspired to be a screenwriter herself.
Part 2 is already in the can.
Direct To Video
Methinks he was expecting a 80% or higher in rotten tomatoes…
OTOH, what he said is totally true, first art then politics. Ayn Rand wrote a manifesto about movies stating that ideas are implied and not described explicitly and that’s the way commie movies saw the light, and they started hitting the American bedrock principles like water, drop by drop, until the culture crashes.
I don’t think the discrimination comes at later stage, I think right wingers are identified and marginalized (or brainwashed) in the early stages, in the schools and institutes long before they even start producing any script.
They will learn. Just like PJTV is not yet the most professionally produced TV out there, but is steadily improving. The next movie will be better.
I don’t know that I’d call it a fiasco. It did pretty well over the weekend, considering how few theaters it played in.
And, audiences seem to like it pretty well, even if the critics hate it. It would be interesting to see how well it would do if it was showing in 3,000 theaters, instead of 300. On a per theater basis it made as much over the weekend as Scream 4…and, that ain’t too shabby.
Hope your soon to be released movie is a smash hit, btw.
No, it did pretty well on the opening Friday. It dropped by 6.4% on Saturday and 39.6% on Sunday.
Yes, according to Rotten Tomatoes, only 8% of critics liked it. But they also say that 85% of the audience liked it. For another data point, Fandango gives it an “Avg. Critic Score” of 25 out of 100, but an “Avg. Fan Rating” of 4.7 out of 5.
So, the critics hate it but the people love it. If you look back at the original reviews of the book, you will find exactly the same pattern, summarized here:
“Both conservatives and liberals were unstinting in disparaging the book; the right saw promotion of godlessness, and the left saw a message of greed is good. Rand is said to have cried every day as the reviews came out.” — Harriet Rubin (2007) in The New York Times
At least the professional critics were considerate enough to actually see the movie before they reviewed it. Of the nearly 7500 citizen critics on Rotten Tomatoes, OVER 5000 SUBMITTED THEIR (MOSTLY GLOWING) REVIEWS BEFORE THE MOVIE EVEN OPENED.
Read the reviews. A significant number of te people contributing their reviews ADMIT THAT THEY HAVE NOT YET ACTUALLY SEEN THE MOVIE.
This is intellectually dishonest.
I am reminded of what Mencken said about the critic being the most democratic of all creatures, because he hates everyone equally.
It will be the audiences that determine the success of this movie, and so far, the audiences have responded positively.
I loved the movie despite its flaws.
As for critics, those who most identify with Atlas Shrugged’s villains are going to hate it no matter how good it is. Not every one is in this category but many are.
I’ve seen a wide range of reactions, from those who love the book but couldn’t get past the character alterations and other forms of clumsiness, to those who knew little of the novel and loved the movie anyway.
One characterization of the movie that I found striking (ha, get it?): It’s a Roman copy of a Greek original. The fire and passion of the original is only reflected, but through the copy, many more people can learn that the original existed. To me, the movie has a lot of value on it’s own, and it’s further valuable for spotlighting the novel.
“To me, the movie has a lot of value on it’s own, and it’s further valuable for spotlighting the novel.”
Hear hear. To paraphrase Ayn Rand’s own words, the fact that it was made proves that the characters she depicts really do exist in real life, and I find that comforting. Hats off to the gutsy producers and directors for undertaking such a daunting task. Those of us who want (need?) to hear the message are heartened by the existence of this movie. It gives me hope with it coming out at such a crisis moment in our history.
I can’t wait for Part II.
Eh. I’ve been a fan of B movies good and bad for several years. Shrugged is pretty good for a modern B movie.
And if a movie runs contrary to entertainment expections, well, did somebody around here respond to The Passion Of the Christ as “Another Slasher Flick At the Cineplex” and “….the greatest advertisement for atheism I have ever seen”? I think that movie had a different effect on its intended audience; maybe the same will be said of Shrugged as well.
This is the disconnect between reviewers and viewers. On Flixster, Atlas Shrugged Part 1 as an 8% approval rating among critics (leftist Roger Ebert, for example, gave it 1 star out of 4). However, ordinary people who saw the movie give it an 85% approval rating.
Once again the professional critics posted their reviews after actually seeing the movie. The non-Professionals, by and large, did not.
In the final analysis, any film version of Atlas Shrugged doesn’t mean much today. In a country obsessed with movies like Avatar, childish animation flicks, movies about the supernatural, and popcorn junk about Transformers and comic book heroes, I really, really, don’t think the vast majority of the American public would really care about a movie that analyzes the business world like Atlas Shrugged. Even an Academy Award winning movie like the “The King’s Speech” probably didn’t do that great at the box office when compared against a Transformers or Spider Man movie. And that’s what’s really sad about America today. We are making movies that cater to 12-year-olds (and under), so a movie like Atlas Shrugged probably had a better chance on TV or HBO than in the movie theaters. At least I’d like to think that. I’d like to think that it’s a matter of access to television, rather than an adult public not caring about an important subject.
Well, someone said Tomb Raider’s dialogue sounded like it was written by 4th Graders for 3rd Graders and critics seemed to like it… no accounting for taste, I guess.
It’s not that they make the movies, its that it is what most of our population wants to go see. The question is, why.
Oh how I would love to add a snarky comment here… Churchill’s comment about liberals and conservatives would fit nicely…
Not sure i agree that it should be art first. Lets not forget that a movie is about telling a story, thus it has two essential parts: the story and the telling. The telling cannot be the end itself, it must complement and fit the story.
Atlas Shrugged was never a passionate dramatic story, it was more a focus thought and the struggle to remain and maintain standards.
I respectfully disagree; the Atlas Shrugged novel is very dramatic.
Dagny’s struggle to build a railroad over the opposition of mediocrities and power-lusters, Rearden’s struggle to understand his wife and his own feelings toward her, Rearden’s love affair with Dagny, Francisco’s struggle to hew to his cause over his desire for Dagny, Rearden’s odd friendship with Francisco somewhat against his will, even Eddie Willer’s unrequieted longing for Dagny… all set in a society that is literally falling apart materially, politically, socially, and psychologically.
Even the “struggle to maintain standards” you cite is handled dramatically in the book in a dozen ways, whether it’s Rearden’s efforts to produce his new metal, or Wyatt’s insistence on a certain level of performance, or Dagny’s struggle to do so over her brother’s objections… there are many examples here, too.
The list is very long, but already you can see that there are actually many dramatic elements in Atlas Shrugged.
Many people choose to focus on the abstract political (and, to a lesser extent, the ethical) ideas in Atlas Shrugged. Those are definitely there. But Rand really understood Mr. Simon’s point, that the art must come first. She achieves that in the book extremely well.
I saw the movie and liked it a lot. The theater was fairly full for a Sunday night and the crowd clapped at the end so I believe others liked it also. The stark, dark, modern staging was appropriate for the subject matter. I do not see many movies and don’t watch TV so I’m easier to please on the artistic end of things. Never having read the book, I didn’t know what to expect. It was an eerie experience for me to see the movie after web-scanning the night before and listening to Michael klare who wrote the book,Blood and Oil, talk about how we needed to rely on trains for people and goods to be transported (he never once talked about our vast oil reserves and tapping into our own oil). I had also watched a CNBC newscast of oil reserves in the USA–Colorado has 3 times more oil than Saudi Arabia! Actually, I had known that, but the newsperson was suprised.
Professional screenwriters and playwrights can make similar errors. In witness to which, I give the original play “Nuts”, and its film version, written by Tom Topor.
“Nuts” is basically a polemic about the psychiatric profession’s power to get virtually anybody “committed” based on the psychiatrist’s own definition of sanity. Most psychiatrists, BTW, define themselves as perfectly sane, therefore anyone who differs from them in any way, however minor, is ipso facto “insane”; a phenomenon prominently on display in the story.
“Nuts” is not particularly entertaining. It veers between deadly dull sequences of psychiatric doubletalk and shrieking confrontations between the characters worthy of a daytime soap opera. That said, it makes its point fairly effectively.
And the critics liked it. It didn’t do too well at the box office in movie form, however, even with Barbra Streisand and Eli Wallach headlining the cast.
The moral to this is that polemical plays and films can, and often do, get either praised or panned by critics, irrespective of their artistic merits. The deciding factor being whether or not the critics like the message.
Other films which were considered “important enough” to warrant praise (sometimes with faint damns) by critics solely based on their “message” include “The China Syndrome”, “Network”, “Rollover”, and “Ordinary People”. All of which I found (in order) scientifically questionable, simply bizarre, deadly dull, and entirely too much like a daytime soap (again). But the message trumped their artistic merits, in each case, even unto Academy Award night for three out of the four. (And in the case of “China Syndrome”, we were of course subjected to yet another Jane Fonda screed on “Why Everything About America Is Bad- Except Jane Fonda”.)
I wouldn’t expect “Atlas Shrugged” to get a good review from most critics even if it were Oscar-level material on all counts. (Then again, consider that “Heaven’s Gate” (1980) was nominated for Art Direction, and director Michael Cimino nearly copped a Palme d’Or at Cannes for Best Director for that notable example of jaw-droppingly witless “cinema”.)
The critical response to this film surprised me not in the least, as the overwhelming majority of professional film critics are “progressives”, and deeply resent being told their heroes (like Wesley Mouch et al. in the story, or Obama & Co. in real life) have feet of clay, let alone seeing them portrayed on screen as the mostly clueless, often greedy, even more often wantonly destructive, and generally morally deficient fools they genuinely are.
I suspect that Parts 2 and 3 will also do better with “The Great Unwashed” than with the critics- no matter how lacking they are, artistically.
Myself, I’ll wait for them to hit DVD.
(Truth In Advertising Moment: I played the psychiatrist in a college production of “Nuts” in 1986, by virtue of being the only person the director knew with the necessary background in abnormal psychology. Having been “in it”, I didn’t bother seeing the film version; a case of “been there, done that.”)
clear ether
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A nitpick, but I can’t think of the screen version of “Nuts” without thinking of Richard Dreyfuss’ wonderful portrayal of Streisand’s public defender.
As for “Atlas Shrugged,” I wanted it to be better than it was, but I thought it was pretty true to the book. I think the producers were in a no-win situation vis a vis Rand fans. If they’d have produced a better movie, they would have had to take more liberties with the book.
I hope we see parts 2 and 3, but I’m not at all sure part 1 will make enough $ for the producers to continue.
rotten tomatoes shows the same results, bob. almost 7500 audience votes and 85% liked the movie.
Why wasn’t it given the treatment that THE FOUNTAINHEAD was given with stars Gary Cooper, Patricia Neal and Raymond Massey and a Rotten Tomatoes rating of 82%.
Where are the deep pockets conservatives and libertarians?
Answer: there are none.
I saw Fountainhead for the first time about a year ago. (Thank you, TCM.) I can’t get to the site from here, but I suspect the meta positive score at Rotten Tomatoes was due to people who haven’t seen it recently. For an A picture, it ain’t 82 percent fresh. Shoot, even Rand didn’t like it.
You are exactly right about that. I have a screenplay that has everything that should make a successful film: runaway slaves; an exciting escape across the frozen Ohio River; lots and lots of guns (and fortunately, no one gets shot); courtroom drama with thought-provoking questions concerning the conflict between conscience and law, because federal and state power; sneaky, back room machinations, as state officials arrest witnesses on the way to a federal trial; courageous abolitionists; and best of all, largely written from the actual trial transcripts. I am getting nowhere with it.
Cramer — you didn’t mention tits.
If the movie is PG then you need aliens or sci-fi elements. If it’s not PG then you have to have tits. Savvy? These are the rules. Deal.
e.g. the new series on HBO (game of thrones) is really “swords, sorcery, and tits.” If not for the latter, only fan-bois would watch it.
This doesn’t mean that what you have isn’t interesting or tells a worthwhile story. But if you want to succeed then you have to play by the rules.
You may be right. I guess to make it commercially viable, I have to make one of the characters openly gay–and everyone in 1858 Ohio applauds him for his courage.
“no one gets shot”
O.k. Take that part out. It’ll never work.
Then, just add a few gratuitous nude scenes, and I think you’ve got a winner.
I would love to read your script. I would love to lobby for it’s production.
Guess Mr Simon’s right “turn” at Hollywood and Vine involved a tutu, a tap dancer and a twirling cane?
Can anyone actually be surprised that a bunch of liberal critics don’t like this movie? Did anyone think for a minute that they would abandon their political agenda even if they genuinely liked a movie with a conservative message? I’d be much more concerned if they had said anything good about it.
I never pay any attention to critics anyway. I’m too independent and judge things for myself. The concept of reading someone else’s opinions to know what I’m supposed to like is absurd.
I saw it and liked it. But my husband, who’s never read the book, and I agree: the biggest drawback was the lack of character development. We both wanted to know more about, or feel more of a connection with, with Dagny, Hank and Ellis.
so you expect full character development in a show that takes 3 full movies to do? This is PART FREAKING 1 you do not get full character development from just a PART of a show.
Your comment is ridiculous. A talented script writer would know how to accomplish this. What if Peter Jackson waited until “Lord of The Rings: Return of the King” to establish his characters fully? Do you think LOTR 1 and 2 would’ve been as succesful? A successful script writer doesn’t just string together a a series of action scenes or a reel of pretty visuals; he/she has to bring the characters to life in order to hold the audience’s interest.
Do I expect full character development in a Part 1? YES. You have between 90 and 200 script-pages to do it in; you have the whole time of the movie; you have not just words to work with, as in a novel, but a whole host of other tools, including scenery, music, acting and inflection, subtle human interactions that would take pages to describe in a book but that a movie can encapsulate in a split second, given sufficiently talented actors and directors.
It is inexcusable to not fully develop characters in today’s entertainment world. Every story today, from film to game to book, is character-driven. If the audience cannot connect with the lead character, it loses interest. That is a simple fact.
I will still see Atlas Shrugged. I will not, however, expect too much from it now. What a shame that conservative filmmakers can’t seem to get it together; art is a fantastic tool to use when you need to educate people about your perspective.
You will like the movie, it’s well worth seeing. But, you will walk away feeling that it could’ve been soooo much more. The best thing about the movie is Jsu Garcia playing Francisco D’Anconia. In a short space of time, the character makes a connection with the audience.
I first read Atlas Shrugged 20 years ago, and liked it very much. I went out of my way to find other people who had read and liked the book, to learn more. That is easier to do now with the Internet and Google. My wife, teenage sons, and I are reading it now, discussing each chapter as we go, and listening to a podcast by Diana Hsieh called “Explore Atlas Shrugged” (it is free). She really does a good job of explaining some points that I found confusing even on my second reading.
After my first reading, I mistook it as a book primarily about politics. It is partly about politics, but primarily about ethics, on which politics depends. What is right, what is wrong, why, and how do you know it? Without a code of ethics, there is nothing by which to judge a political system. Some people refer to physics as “applied mathematics” (I don’t agree). In a sense, politics is “applied ethics”.
The movie has a tough job to do justice to the book, which involves so many thoughts of the main characters, and be a good movie at the same time. This can be done in a movie by turning some inner thoughts into dialogue or action, but it would be very challenging to fit the first 1/3 of this book into a good movie. I don’t think this movie did a good job of it.
Gone With the Wind was a great movie that swept you away, and then lived on in imagination. That’s where Atlas Shrugged ought to have been- in Lawrence of Arabia sweeping vista, heroic territory. Mr Simon makes valid points.
As it is, it’s an odd, squirrelly little cult film that is about as fun as a civics film strip so ably parodied on the Simpsons.
And, dear goodness, quit slamming the American public. There’s opening weekend, where filmmakers promise every which entertainment, and then there’s the next weekend, where people have told their friends to see, or not, a movie. Avatar sank. 300 lives on, even as little visual quotes in other films. We just drove to another town, an hour away to see a movie: the Eagle. My sons wanted to take their Dad to a movie about fathers and sons and honor. My daughter and I loitered at Tangled, the first Disney princess movie we’ve seen since Cinderella, on DVD. It was lovely.
I really almost feel terrible for filmmakers today. There isn’t so much, for films, a sort of vaudeville, where they can work out their act to immediate feedback, with an audience like the rest of America. It’s a few executives, with uneven experiences. I mean, I had to read a biography to realize how many Dawn Steele movies made up my teenage imagination. that’s crazy power for one individual. I cringe about Mr Andrew Klavan’s experience of studio executives kiboshing a film about a wife and mother. I’d like to see a beautiful version of my life onscreen.
Uh, Avatar did not “sink”! Avatar went on to make billions, far more than 300.
Also, I don’t understand why conservatives would hold up the Spartans of all people as heroes.
The Spartans were a violent people who literally threw away their young to the wolves. The elite Spartans terrorized the majority of the people under their control. What we think of as families did not exist. Read a history book.
I hope it’s a success because, if they don’t make the sequels, I’ll have to read the book.
I was thinking the same thing.
If I want to read a Libertarian book, I’ll pick up a Heinlein, Ringo, or Williamson.
Too bad their books aren’t made into movies (other than Starship Troopers which was twisted into an abomination by Hollywood liberals).
Like a couple others, I would appreciate knowing what Roger didn’t like about the film, rather than his disappointment with the lack of winning votes on RottenTomatoes. In general I really like Roger’s writing, but this movie review stinks on ice. He hasn’t given us any real information – other than the 8% statistic and the fact he is unhappy with it. So you didn’t like the movie. Why? Where the characters wooden? Was the plot heavy-handed? Presumably you have read the book, which, let’s all agree, philosophy aside, is a horrible novel. I mean, the characters are wooden, and the plot is heavy-handed. And I’ll go ahead and mention the famous 30-pageish authorial lecture which is not even disguised as plot-related. Ayn Rand made some very important contributions to philosophy, but only blind fanatics think her fiction writing was any good.
At this point, I’m still going to go see the movie. I don’t really care what “RottenTomatoes” voters say, I think I’ll make up my own mind about it.
Count me a blind fanatic… along with millions of individuals of varying philosophical education, interest, and background. AS continues to sell in the hundreds of thousands yearly. Some portion of that is due to our current society and AS’s political ideas, sure. But the non-fiction doesn’t sell anywhere near so well, so there must be something in there people enjoy aesthetically.
That doesn’t prove it’s great literature, of course. Popularity isn’t proof. But it does suggest you are in the minority here and that might make you reconsider your view.
AS is great literature. The characters are dramatic ideals in the vein of much of the 19th and early 20th century. Many of the characters behave much like the heroes (and villains) of classic Hollywood films (though their explicit philosophy is much different in some ways, it’s true). The story is complex and superbly plotted; the language is frequently poetic and the insights into human nature presented were considerable and profound. The dialogue is often very clever (especially from Francisco).
I have always loved ‘The Best Years of Our Lives”. It is a film that could’ve gone the way of politics over art although Hollywood was too pragmatic in those days to go whole hog with any kind of propaganda because over politics and art is business although one could argue that the art WAS the business because the writing was so consistently good.
BYOL is a film that does take a political view but it is a humanistic view and those views are so much in keeping with the natural flow of the characters that one takes it as story. BYOL may be anti-war but above that it is pro-human.
One can easily imagine a modern version of BYOL being hijacked by politics in the mode of Susan Sarandon or Code Pink or that odious Alice Walker. As a pre-emptive strike I wrote a contemporary treatment of my own of BYOL to amuse myself and address the very issue of this column. In my version there are 4 people, 3 men and a woman, 2 from Iraq and 2 from Afghanistan.
I did it as a thought experiment on subverting politics to story on a highly politicized and volatile subject. People first, story second, politics last – if you like the people you’ll follow them a long way. Do it the other way and you have manikins mouthing nonsense to advance an agenda.
When old Hollywood DID want to make propaganda, they did so effectively because it understood that you must identify with the characters and everything flows from that. Lessons abound in Hollywood and TV on how to subvert people’s own views by making them unwittingly take up a position contrary to what their own might be by, for example, portraying bigotry in such a disconnected yet cogent way that people become converted without the least slightly being aware of it.
Science fiction is particularly adept at manipulating perception in this regard by depicting contemporary events in such a distant way that prejudice is circumvented and perceptions shifted to allow a fresh view to emerge and one that is more fair. The original Star Trek TV show was notable for subtly shifting perceptions on race, birth control or feminism without an in your face point of view, working around public perception and also the censors.
I hope someone who actually knows what they’re doing does a re-make of BYOL because it would be a powerful film today, especially if the aspect of people caught up in something bigger than themselves but not their humanity was once again emphasized rather than the right or wrong of it; in the original they showed good and bad people, not ideas.
There was a version of “The Best Years of Our Lives” made in the early 1970s. (I recall seeing it in the early 1970s, but it may have had a different title.) I thought Tom Selleck had played Fred Derry, the B17 bombardier, but a quick check of his movie credits showed me I was wrong. US race relations played no part in the 1946 TBYOL, but I recall the 70s remake had the Fred Derry character knocking down a drugstore customer who had insulted his (Fred Derry’s) Negro friend (and fellow USAAF officer).
I’d appreciate it if someone could give me the title of the TBYOL remake. I’d like to see it again and find out which actor I mistook for Tom Selleck.
In the book, a fair number of pages were devoted to Dagny’s childhood and Hank’s experiences as a young man making his way. In the film, they appear as fully-formed characters and hence their motivations are more given than understood. Also, the depredations of government micromanagement and crony capitalism should have been shown in more depth–the hopeless business position that Ellis Wyatt has been put in before destroying his own oil field is not really made clear.
It might have worked better as a TV miniseries, with a longer amount of time made available to develop the characters and the story. OTOH, some of the scenes that will appear in the sequel (if there is one)…especially the train wreck…can be more visually effective on the big screen.
It sems to me that conservative movies would have no overt politics at all. Like country music, and unlike Rage Against The Machine, they would make their points using the truth of their stories.
I saw thhis with my wif who has not read Rand but will now. She made the following observations:
1. The Dagny Taggert role was miss cast. In a story like this you need someone like M. Streep who cn convet an emointion with a subtlye look. The role is too demanding for anyhting lss less to work.
2. You simply cannot explore the depths of the human condition in a movie like you can in a book (unless you want a lot of narrartion / voice overs). Some stories just make better books than movies.
3. The pace was too slow (but then so was the book.
For myself I liked Grant Bowler’s and Graham beckle’s preformances. Even Armin Shimmerman (Quark from DS9) and the Mouch character were good but both Taggerts and Francisco were lacking. Francisco should have had an Argentine accent.
What movie do you have coming out?
What, you think Streep needs Yet Another Movie to play herself in?
Roger, if Atlas turns a profit there is going to be a part II regardless of how bad it may be.
As for me, I have not seen it yet but intend to.
The critics loved “An Inconvenient Truth”. So much for critics.
Redford’s “The Conspirator” did the same per theater average as “Atlas Shrugged”, with AS in about 300 as opposed to 700 theaters. Not bad. Second weekend results will be interesting.
“As of this writing, the popular Internet site RottenTomatoes.com is showing a pathetic 8% “fresh tomatoes” (positive reviews) … Even though … the vast majority of film critics are left-liberals,”
I should have known that it would be a mistake to read past this idiotic opening sentence. The first piece of evidence that AS is a bad film is that only 8% of progressives liked it. It is also the best piece of evidence presented here.
I saw the movie Sunday with my husband and we both thought it was very disappointing. FWIW.
I really enjoyed the movie, as did my husband and sister. I liked it enough to go ahead and start reading the book, where I find that the characters are even more compelling and the story more intriguing. The movie follows the book nearly perfectly [omitting some things, but that's natural]–and doesn’t fix it to match what Hollywood would’ve done [redo the story, change the characters, throw a liberal twist on it...]. That is why the critics hate it.
It probably would’ve done better on HBO, but I’m not going to diss it just for that. The story is good, it follows the book, and the actors are decent.
How is that 8% percent justified when Season of the Witch got a 6% on the same site? Considering the story was fair, the characters vapid and 2d, and the actors themselves made of crud?
One thing I never do is pay attention to movie critics. I’ll decide for myself if I think a movie is good or not.
Better roads, yes. Big business won’t fund them unless they get to put in tolls. It’s going to need public support (government).
Better trains, yes. The reason they might not be profitable yet is because gas isn’t $10 a gallon yet, it will be soon. Trains can move freight more economically than truck and getting trucks off the road would save wear on the deteriorated roads we still have.
If the conservative still want to make a movie that reflects their views, how about Mein Kampf or a remake of Wall Street?
Roger L. Simon opined: “… Super trains don’t work in the Western states economically. We need better roads. But not in this movie, which seems stuck in those fifties while pretending to be 2016…”
Mr Simon must have missed the opening sequence. It was explained that due to a series of events, energy costs were enormous, and the world economy went down. There were visual indications throughout the film of the economic depression. It was explained that rail transportation replaced almost all truck transport, except from the local rail head to the market.
Mr Simon says “…We need better roads…” but he somehow missed that the streets are empty of traffic, since in the film, only the super rich can afford to drive an automobile.
I usually love Mr Simon’s insights, but now I’m wondering what has blinded his objectivity. How could he have missed so much that was plainly obvious in the film?
Um, I put Mein Kampf in the same woodpile as Karl Marx. Both hail from the same neck of the woods and both felt that totalitarianism was the only way to get things done. There is absolutely nothing conservative about Hitler’s Fascism except to people who have never studied either one.
“If the conservative still want to make a movie that reflects their views, how about Mein Kampf or a remake of Wall Street?”
And herein lies the problem. You have NO CLUE what conservative points of view are, but choose to belittle them with a not-so-subtle-or-clever reductio ad hitlerum. This is precisely why conservatives need to get their collective act together where it concerns the arts.
You are aware that the US already does move a huge amount of freight by rail, right? A far higher percentage of freight traffic by rail than in Europe, right?
Ah, the leftist socialist throwing the Nazi(leftist socialist) tag on conservatives. Enough said about your intelligence.
See also the Cracked article “5 Hollywood Secrets That Explain Why So Many Movies Suck” (http://www.cracked.com/article_19012_5-hollywood-secrets-that-explain-why-so-many-movies-suck.html). An actual script is often an afterthought in the process.
“First comes art, then (distantly) comes politics.”
Roger, I couldn’t disagree with you more on this statement. Where does one begin?
I’ve been involved in the entertainment business for most of my life as a musician and in supporting roles with recording artists, as well as working around film and the stage now and then. It’s not so much the work itself that informs, it’s the down time away from work at hand, when people speak supposedly speak “freely”. This is where most of the business takes place. Personal ties and recommendations get you access, exposure and gigs. Probably more so than in most industries. You know this, this is nothing new, and is not peculiar to the entertainment industry alone.
If you don’t come across correct politically to whoever has the pull at the moment, your chances become vanishingly low for having what ever you are pitching coming to fruition. If you are down on the mid and lower rungs, it is particularly vicious, and has this situation has become so entrenched over the years that if you mutter “I like Palin” in your sleep, your wannabe actor partner would probably feel compelled to “report” you, lest their own career be tanked with impunity for association with the Other. Whatever one may consider good artistry to be, it certainly is down the list… somewhere. Image, or the possibility of image tops all, but then again, there are so many to choose from. Why bother with a newbie who’s politics bother you when the Other Miss Nice Ass has the talent, and the proper politics, and besides, everyone will like her, therefore like you, therefore she gets get the shot. Screen writers included.
You can’t miss this. You’ve been around too long. It’s not possible. Certainly a simplification…
I’m not bashing here, or going victim, I’ve done pretty well, but I can say that may be due in part because I got in early. Today? You think Eastwood would make it walking in and letting his views on liberals be fully known in today’s film world? You yourself were liberal for time, then moved right, after you had some standing. You would have a very difficult time today. I think you know that.
Atlas is what it is. If in your opinion it’s poorly written and damages conservatism, ok. You don’t like Rand’s worldview either, but so what. That’s your take. Putting Rand up on film would be difficult in any case. And mention of the $$$ as not being part of the equation for a “bad” film”? More $$$ in the least gives you more options. A film may be better or worse for that, but nearly anyone involved would take the option of having more resources. Saying that 10 times the money would not produce a better film is a bit bitchy on your part. The script would be different, the end result would be different. Again, Rand is just not your cup of tea.
It could be a beginning. If it gets big, the money will notice. Go from there.
Anyway, keep up the good fight.
Good points. Case in point: Alice Walker, who can barely write when she blogs, has made a career because of competing for the title of the most politically correct person who ever lived and she’s far from alone.
And with Obama, buzz words and feel good stereotypes plugged into the right places equaled Presidency.
Although I live miles from Hwood, I think you completely missed the point of what Mr. Simon was saying. He was not referring to the ability to get jobs , but to the actual crafting of a movie. You concentrate on the drama first. For him, at least, this movie didn’t. I haven’t seen it yet, so I have no comment.
You can concentrate on the drama all you wish. But that alone will not get a movie made.
Not necessarily. It’s getting cheaper and cheaper to create movies, just as it’s getting cheaper to create books. I don’t think you have to be in Hollywood any more to do a movie, or live in New York City so you can schmooze with the right publishers. More and more, artists are bringing it directly to the audience, without a filter between. I can’t wait to see the first great indy conservative film of our era – and I’m sure it’s coming.
I agree. The context I was referring to was a “Hollywood” film with all the $$$ and distribution etc. behind it. The ideas presented were intended to be narrow, basically art vs. access to established resources.
This is changing, You Tube proves that. With music, recorded versions are now virtually free, with live performance and merchandise sales paying the performers. Film is different. The theater (setting) is as much a part of the experience as the film. Unless tastes change radically, showing your film on your wide screen at home, or relying on hits on You Tube, does not bode well for garnering a large paying audience.
Something unseen, unknown at this point may evolve. I’m optimistic.
my only problem with “atlas shrugged” the movie is that it is a movie
the current state of hollywood has driven me out of the market
(nothing seems a greater waste than going to the movies where there are so many variables that can make the experience worthless)
i’m thinking internet only movies
also, a movie based on a very successful book nearly always leaves a poor taste in the mouth
This movie is a disgrace to Ayn Rand. Mr. Simon is correct. She would have hated it.
This article lost any credibility when it referenced rotten tomatoes. Seriously? You were expecting a good review?
Another point of view: Clay Jones (Assistant Professor of Christian Apologetics at Biola University) – http://www.clayjones.net/ (5 part series)
Also Issues Etc, April 15 2011 (http://issuesetc.org/archive/).
I’ve read those with some interest. Some may not care for the Christian slant, but he makes some very valid points (as did Whittaker Chambers).
It’s very discouraging to see so many apologists for Rand…if the goal is individualism, then I should think being able to criticize as well as applaud her is in order from everyone. Unfortunately what I have found out as of late is that a person cannot breathe one bad word about her, her philosophy (which is opening up an entirely new can of worms), her works, or this movie without a veritable swamping of apologist comments.
Perhaps some premises need to be checked.
Agreed. Unfortunately as many Christians as have done a disservice to the message of Christ, I believe an equal number of Rand’s followers have read what they wanted to read rather than the explicit content of the text. In the same manner, I also believe that the critics of Rand are equal to the critics of Christianity, they stop at ideas that challenge them and then impugn the message.
In the end, the “Utopia of Greed” works on the exact principle of the commandment to “Love your neighbor as you love yourself”. In that commandment everyone seems to focus on “Love your neighbor” and ignores “Love Yourself”. In the “Utopia of Greed” the community is served by each member contributing to the prosperity of the community by serving themselves first.
Up front, I am not going to see the film. I’m not a fan of Ayn Rand (some fo her ideas, leavened with more than a little salt, fine — but taken altogether, no). Nevertheless, I’ve read her works.
My opinion, when I heard they were making this film, was that there was no way it would work if they kept tightly to the novel. Atlas just isn’t a novel that can be made into a decent movie — to be honest the author really didn’t give the screenwriter much latitude (which is a bit ironic, given Rand’s profession). The only way it would really work is if you “Last of the Mohicans’d” the heck out of the original work (an example of a rather dense work becoming a better movie due to a rather liberal hand of adaptation and some nice camera work and musical scoring) — even then I’m not sure about “Atlas”, because the message was the primary goal of the novel.
Once you get down to a film adaptation that’s a lot of “message” at the expense of everything else.
I think “Atlas Shrugged” will indeed wind up a sort of “Passion of the Christ” for the political set (with the addendum, whatever else “Passion” was a pretty well made movie even if you didn’t agree with it).
That’s rather sad: much as I don’t care for large segments of Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged, or Objectivism there are some interesting things to be found that are a bit relevant today (at least the movie does open up the possiblity of discussion of those ideas)…and not using one’s critical faculties to call an “A” and “A” (or in this case a bad movie a bad movie) smacks of the sort of thinking that would have driven Rand bonkers (she might have been pleased at the adoration, but she’d have probably still said mean, disdainful things about you for not checking your premises).
I haven’t seen the film yet so I can’t comment on Roger’s opinion. Just a couple of thoughts though. The reason I suspect that they didn’t have big name stars is that no big name star would attach themselves to the project regardless of their political leaning. From everything I’ve read (both liberal and conservative anecdotes, blogs etc) to be a vocal conservative (or even a silent one if found out) means career death unless you have grown so powerful as to be bullet proof. Rogers use of Clint Eastwood as an example of a conservative who hasn’t been hurt by his poilitical leanings is, at best disengenuous. Eastwood began his rise to power in the late 60′s and reached a point in the 90′s where he was so bankable (as an actor, producer, director or writer) that the left didn’t even try to topple him. During his rise Hollywood wasn’t nearly as left and Eastwood pretty much kept his politics to himself. He still does. Mel Gibson is another actor who kept his political viewpoints to himself during his rise to Hollywodd power.
The budget for the movie was pretty small but from what I’ve read it seems to be money well spent. This movie was not going to be made with big Hollywood backing. Anybody with money who wasn’t liberal would also know that whatever they created would be savaged by the critics because of the nature and the subject of the film and the nature of most critics themselves. If it wasn’t going to make a pot of cash they weren’t going to risk their Hollywood contacts for it.
Anyway, sooner or later it will come up to the Great White North. Maybe it is a dog but at least I’ll be forming my own opinion.
I went out of my way to see Atlas Shrugged since I had stopped going to movies. I thought the movie was ok; good not great. But it clearly showed the virtual persecution of anyone who wants to run a company well and make a profit. The profit motive is NOT greed, but self-interest. It showed the liberals such as Reardon’s wife and friends, unappreciative as they party and feast off his profits. Then there are the business people who don’t want to compete, but simply rig the rules to their benefit. This is what our government has become; it has devolved into a favors factory. Whoever pays the most gets the rules (in their favor).
Some clarity, there is a lot of subtlety in Atlas Shrugged that seems to be missed by both supporters and critics. Ayn recognizes a need for government but also its danger. She appears to support big business but condemns “crony capitalists”. She appears to condemn organized labor but makes a case for a moral purpose to labor unions. She is an atheist but suggests a remarkable sermon by an enigmatic preacher. To the simple, these are contradictions. To the thinker, good tests of one’s premises.
Whitaker Chambers wrote in his review of the book that Atlas Shrugged was a political tract disquised as a novel. He also complained over paper-thin characters, unimaginative antagonists, and a simplistic plot welded to a political belief system. It appears that the filmmakers stayed true to the original novel/tract.
You are being far too tough on the movie.
I liked the movie and look forward to part II and part III. so did my husband – and he was reluctant to attend with me, preferring to be entertained and fearing a bad political movie. But, it did entertain!
It’s not a “classic” -but so what — and it is so timely that it’s scary — and for that reason, it resonates beyond what one would expect.
It’s not a classic? Atlas Shrugged (The Book) sold 500,000.00 copies last year it’s a 54 year old book. That’s 10 times the amount of Barack Obama’s books sales combined.
I don’t know that it even matters if the film format of Atlas Shrugged is a popular success. People are reading Rand.
I don’t decide to watch movies based on critic’s reviews. I decide to see a movie based on what “pleases” me to watch. The movie will end up on DVD, and be available to an even a bigger audience.
The question isn’t who is going to let me; it’s who is going to stop me. ~ Ayn Rand. ‘
Honestly, this is the first negative review of this movie I’ve read. Every single other review I’ve been exposed to (both published and anecdotal reports from friends and acquaintances) has said it is an excellent film that does a great job of making an entertaining movie out of an almost impossibly boring but worthy book.
I saw it yesterday and it was better than I thought it would be. The book may be unfilmable as so much of it consists of people sitting around talking about economics, morality, and philosophy.
Now I think the conversations are often fascinating (and infuriating) but that doesn’t translate well to film. So what you get within a 2-hour movie is characters sitting around talking but rather than long extended paragraphs, the characters can only offer up platitudes here and there. For example I think Francisco d. Anconia’s speech on money is absolutely great, but how can you transfer that to film w/out losing a lot of its power? That’s a challenge, to say the least.
So I thought the first half of the movie was slow, but once Dagney started the John Galt line and got OUT of the office, the story and the pace really picked up. So I give it a mixed review. I say, “damn good try” and “thank you” for the effort.
I am interested in seeing the movie, simply to see what they managed to do with the book. (85% approval from actual audiences is, at least, something)
I read Atlas Shrugged once— or rather, I tried to. It was a tangled snarl of verbs and nouns from the very first page… I waded through about three or four pages before I gave up. The woman may have had some insights about human rights, the true source of wealth and progress, but she wrote like a Russian: laborious, plodding and convoluted.
Atlas Shrugged was a great concept done poorly. I mean, think about it, what a plot: America is staggering its way into a new totalitarianism, the noose is tightening on the common man, when suddenly the most vital people to the nation’s survival in its darkest hour– the inventors, innovators, the producers and creators— begin disappearing! The only clue is a single name, passed by word of mouth between these men and women shortly before they disappear… John Galt.
A person who couldn’t make a gripping screenplay out of that basic outline, regardless of era, isn’t even really trying…. so long as he wasn’t forced to cling too closely, other than in concept, to the rather verbose and cluttered source material.
I agree with Mr. Simon. It was horrible. I can’t believe someone compared it to Passion of the Christ. Good grief.
I mentioned “The Passion of the Christ” as reference only to some people enjoining others with “you MUST see this movie” without any other recommendation than “you MUST”. Admittedly, I find this to be a bit of a turn off (which is the reason why I did not see “The Passion” in movie theaters either…although I found it very intriguing and well made once I rented it — can’t really say “enjoyable” due to the subject matter, but nonetheless it was worth watching).
I may rent “Atlas”, and at that point I may decide it wasn’t that bad (but given the raw material, and the knowledge that they did not “Last Mohican the snot out of it”, I highly doubt I will be intrigued). I will not however give into exhortations to see any movie “just because”.
Roger,
Correct me if i’m wrong, but i always thought that the people that run the hollywood studios were in it to make money? So when you have the 3rd highest per theater gross, and 85% of the 7500+ CUSTOMER reviews of the movie are positive, i would have to say that parts 2 and 3 should already be slated for production. I have not yet seen the movie, and have not been to a movie theater in years. Yet, i think i just may take the wife out and go see this one, just to see who i agree with more… The critic or the consumer.
Roger doesn’t appear to know the difference between freight trains and those super trains dedicated to passenger use. His lightly asinine review of ‘Atlas’ is half-hearted. To the point he says he may be wrong about the film’s popularity. Obama isn’t the only elitist who leaves himself a door slightly ajar to amend his strongly worded opinions. LOL The movie is fine.
I have to agree. In addition to being a politically active libertarian I am also a bookseller and huge fan of crime fiction. Apparently Mr. Simon is as good a critic as he is a crime writer….I’ve never heard of him before, though I did see the drunken liberal himself, Mr. Dreyfuss play Moses Wine many years ago.
Oh critics hated it? Then I will enjoy it. hah
Roger,
I just lost all respect for you. and yes, I used to like you!
It is apparent to me that you have neither read the book (within the past 15 years at least), or were awake during the movie. Congratulations-you have graduated to the status of beltway SNOB!
In addition to the other comments defending the work, I would like to point out that all these things can be said about the Fountainhead move, with Gary cooper and Patricia Neil. Any Rand said that it is not important–the movie is really just an advertisement for the book.
and its IDEAS!
Now, go and redeem yourself.
Danneskjold
calm down, you give the randians a bad name. I also disagree with Roger, but from there to “I just lost all respect for you” there is too much space.
“First comes art, then (distantly) comes politics.”
I agree. That is how I felt when I saw the prolife movie, Bella, or the C.S. Lewis Narnia movies. I know some think those movies were great… but I would respectfully disagree.
But it isn’t all on our side. A lot of times, a preachy “liberal” movie will get great reviews when it is just as awful as a bad conservative flick. One sign that it stinks is when no one goes to see it. The difference is that for a that flick, it will have the academy and all the critics giving it a lot of buzz.
Thankfully, every once in a while, a conservative movie will blow my mind and so happen to be wonderfully conservative. Some of my favorites are LOTR, Forrest Gump, and United 93.
I’m still hoping to find some conservative TV/Cable as good as Mad Men! Maybe Roger will help make it happen.
back to school is my favorite “conservative” film
real world economics versus academic economics
a right-wing history teacher (professor terguson)
and family values (father and son trying to reconnect)
One thing to remember is what box office websites call the “Fanboy Effect.”
Certain films that adapt books or comics have a very loyal following due to their source material, and, regardless of reviews, they will rush to see the film, and often praise it, regardless of merits as long as it is reasonably faithful to the source. You most often see this in comic book movies, but is is true of any book that has a strong following. This is known as “preaching to the converted.” (And yes, if you have a family member who didn’t read the book, but who shares the same worldview as you, of course they’ll like it.)
The 85% favorable rating among fans at Rotten Tomatoes is there most likely
because only rabid fans care enough to post about it. It’s the same reason you’ll see Ron Paul win GoP presidential polls on open web sites, folks.
Or why Battlefield Earth rated well with Scientologists.
But was it good cinema that reached a wider audience? Perhaps not. We’ll see.
Note that you CAN reach a big audience with a powerful conservative movie, whether it’s Passion of the Christ or (to take a pro-military example) Top Gun (which probably did more for navy/air force aviation recruiting in the 80s than all the recruiters out there…).
To do this, though, it can’t just be a “stump speech” movie that hits all the best lines you remember. Those are great for the fans – just like a comic book movie that repeats all the catch phrases and throws in favorite villains – but they don’t resonate with the public. For that, you have to go back to the basics of what makes good drama.
If you take the same basic characters but reversed their ideology, what would you think of the movie? Would it simultaneously entertain and infuriate you? Or would you yawn?
Passion of the Christ outraged the left because it was powerful. This movie? Not so much, I think.
I saw the movie Saturday night in a liberal university town. There was literally a line around the corner to buy tickets, which sold out and people were turned away. The audience applauded when the movie ended, which says to me that they mostly enjoyed it.
I’ve long dreaded a movie adaptation of this book, for fear of it being twisted into some leftist apologia. I agree that both the Taggart characters are rather thinly drawn, as is Francisco, though he is meant to be an enigma for the first part of the story anyway. I found the Rearden character by far the most compelling, while Wyatt was amusing and sympathetic. The villians are, I think appropriately and realistically, mainly rumpled milquetoast “beta” males or stereotypical union thugs.
A few bits of dialogue are stilted, and one or two particular lines are practically cringe-worthy. But overall I thought they adapted Rand’s (also sometimes tilted) dialogue pretty well.
As far as the practicality of railroads in 2016, one apparently needs to watch and listen closely to the movie’s prologue. The airlines are bankrupt due to high fuel prices, and no one can afford gasoline, since it’s over $37 a gallon. Is this our actual future? Probably not, but I think it’s a reasonable way to quickly adapt the railroad to the future for the purposes of the story (which of course is not really a story about trains).
I grew up reading Rand, and while I certainly don’t agree with her ideas 100%, I very much enjoyed the movie, and so did my 18-year-old daughter. I liked spending 142 minutes in world where, for once, business people like me aren’t automatically assumed to be the bad guys.
Really good review. Curious if you saw it in Berkeley?
I thought the book was difficult to read and when I heard a movie would be made..I had my doubts. The work is so ponderous and complex that is hard to stick with it. But then again, you could say the same thing about Moby Dick, but Hollywood did a decent job with that long long book by concentrating on the story and a couple of really strong characters. I don’t know if that is possible with Atlas Shrugged.
The only standard a motion picture should be scored against is “Was it entertaining?” I thought AS Part 1 was. Was it as entertaining as my favorites? No. Was it more entertaining than others? Yes. Would I have liked to see such a great narrative given a larger canvas, like an eight our miniseries with top drawer talent? Yes. Will I watch Part 2 if it’s produced? Sure.
The film made more sense as a business story than Syriana did as a geopolitical one or any number of countless leftist movies did, or rang true, as anti-war polemics. And I found the characters vivid enough, and the plot compelling.
Roger should look again at the Rotten Tomatoes ratings. Atlas Shrugged got 8% from the critics, but 80% from the audience! Would Mr. Simon prefer the opposite statistics for his own film?
Isn’t it funny that most of the public liked it and the lib critics didn’t. Wow-what a shock. i guess if they made a movie about socialism and taking from the achievers to give to the non-achievers the critics would love it
This movie will end up one of the most profitable this year. Oops! I said profitable-sorry critics.
Sour Grapes Mr. Simon. The series of Atlas Shrugged movies will do VERY well in attendance and bottom line. Far better then the absolute crap coming out of Hollyweird over the past 3 decades. And as investment money dries up and if taxes go up – disappears – bloated high ego bad films will be the last place anyone with even one lobe for a brain will chose to invest their money.
Mr. Simon. Although the professional reviews on Rotten Tomatoe are, indeed, 8%, the private reviews from the PAYING public are at 85%. Is there any reason you fail to mention this, other than your dishonesty? Also, the budget was $10 million, not $30 million, as per the producer himself. Also, it was the third grossing per theatre the first weekend, although showing in just 300 theatres.
The film is good. Actually, better than I expected. Ayn Rand’s message does come through. The film leaves you wanting for more and very curious as to what happens next. In this case, Mr. Simon, you’re totally off.
The movie was fine, Roger. Certainly not a masterpiece, but like many other readers here I saw Atlas Shrugged in a packed theatre and it got a cheering applause at the end credits.
Very disappointing — poorly written, badly executed, and missing the point entirely.
I mean Roger L. Simon’s review, of course. The movie was excellent.
Too many people are judging this for its entertainment value as a movie, which is like comparing Atlas Shrugged the novel to the Twilight series. The book is not great entertainment, but as a fictionalized ideological treatise it holds up very well, and the movie is similarly endowed.
Again, very disappointed in you here Roger.
What Ive been hearing is that the movie has pretty good production values, and as you say Roger is similar to Rand’s book stylistically.
It will be successful financially, bringing in more than it it cost to make at the box office….and the DVD sales will make it very successful and are sure to have a very long tail.
But more than that, it will be a Modern Classic, which will make Rand more accessible to a much wider audience. I can name a 100 movies which are classics and could have been better, but Ive seen every one of them (many of them with philosophical and political messages), and that is the real importance of this movie.
A six hour film with a top notch conservative-libertarian message, sure to be watched by countless teenagers writing “book reports” in perpetuity.
I predict a Cult Classic.
It’s all good Roger. Dont be such a Negative Nancy.
Whenever someone cannot find a real job they do one of the following things: 1) start a church; 2) paint houses; 3) run for public office; 4) start a landscaping company; or, 5) become a movie critic.
Atlas Shrugged was a great movie! Good acting. Quality casting. Marvelous photography. Screenplay was top notch. Plot easy to follow. I loved it!
I can’t wait until Part 2. Don’t change anything. The movie is moving in the right direction despite what the so-called “experts” say.
6. Get teacher’s credential and subsequent govt union job
It wasn’t Hollywood. It didn’t have an overbearing musical score. The camera work was pretty clunky and the pace was off sometimes (both of which are a lot like life). We didn’t get tons of back-story about he characters because the characters aren’t the point, the ideas are the point.
It wasn’t up to Hollywood standards. . . which is a plus in and of itself.
The critics hated it. . . another plus.
Don’t worry, there’s more action to come!
I went to see Atlas Shrugged with low expectations but I left the movie quite impressed. It has been perhaps 25 years since I read the book Atlas Shrugged, and the movie brought the book back to me in subtle ways that make me want to read the book again. For instance, toward the end of the movie Dagny goes on a search for a young engineer in the Colorado area, and she eventually meets a man who refuses to help her. I couldn’t help but notice that the man was smoking a cigarette which was embossed with a “dollar sign.” I immediately recalled this from reading the book. The cigrarettes with the “$” stamped on them, were a sign that the person smoking the cigarette is a member of the John Galt community.
There is a scene in which Hank Rearden gets out of bed (apparently after having sex with his wife) and I seemed to remember that in the book Hank’s wife is reading the New York Times while Hank does his love-making. Did I just dream this up? Perhaps. I’ll have to go back to the book and check it out. I thought the scene in which Dagny trades her diamond neclace with Hank Rearden’s wife for a bracelet made from the first pouring of Rearden Metal spoke tons for character, of which Mr. Simon found so little in the movie.
I saw the movie opening night and I am still thinking about it. This is one of my indications of what makes a great movie…a movie that sticks with you and makes you want to see it again, or perhaps to go back and read the book. The only faults I found with the movie were that the lighting of the interior scenes was insufficient, and I didn’t agree with the pronunciation of Wesley Mouch’s last name. In my brain’s ear it was always pronounced “Mooch.” In the film it’s pronounced like he was a Chinese dictator with the sniffles.
In many scenes the voice of Wesley Mouch can be heard coming from television news shows in the background. It is background noise with a message. This is often hilarious. For instance, at one point Mouch’s background voice says that Colorado has more money than the other States, so he is instituting a 25% tax on Colorado to even things out with the other States. Go to the movie with your ears open.
Very enjoyable film. I’ll probably go see it again to see if I missed anything.
Agree. It’s not “Mowch,” it’s “Mooch.” My mind’s ear read it that way 30 years ago. Also, why couldn’t they have gotten Henry Waxman to play Mouch? Not even a stretch.
Actually, I like the casting. All of it. No “big names” to highjack the story.
And I’m still thinking about it, too.
Saw it on a very large, very clean screen at the AMC Rolling Hills, in Torrance, CA. Picture and sound were terrific. Audience enthusiastic and applauded at end.
Can’t wait for Part 2.
Actually, when I read the book about a dozen years ago I read it as “Mowch.” When spoken out loud, “Mooch” would probably sound a little over the top.
I’ve thought for a long time that movies are the most difficult art form. So many things have to be right; the script, the actors, the settings, the direction, the costumes, the cinematograpy, the sound track, and on and on. One thing goes wrong, and the whole thing can be a mess. Making a good one surely must be one of the hardest things peole can attempt. And on top of everything else, movies reflect life, something that most peole have some experience with. Picasso could get away with some bad paintings. Who would know? But everyone knows how real people look and sound and what life feels like. And there have been so many good movies through the years that it’s easy to see what worked and doesn’t.
I suspect the AS filmmakers wanted to make ideological points, which may have made the project even more difficult. The movie might have been better if it had been made by some poeple who just wanted to create a good movie, and leave it at that.
Great overall point about getting the art right first and foremost. It’s one of the reasons I watch Jon Stewart and Colbert just about every night, because they are consistently laugh-out-loud funny. They’re “right” (i.e. conservative like me) only about 10% of the time, but they’re funny over 80%. The mastery of their art (comedy) always comes before everything else (which makes it easier to stomach their leftist tripe)
Looking forward to seeing A Better Life ~
Saw it. Loved it. Wife and I will see it again with a neighbor who wants to see it.
In my opinion, it needed to be longer. Take some time to meet the characters. I already know it’s a trilogy. I expect to be less than wowed.
I get Roger’s disconnect with Obama and his passion for high speed rail, but for me it’s just the opposite from Roger’s concern: Obama wants me out of my car and jammed into his trains like cordwood.
Reardon and Dagny want the train for what has always been its true purpose, and remains so today: to move goods — especially oil — across the country economically and reliably.
Ironically, Roger’s politics (right though they be) have colored the movie, not the other way around. Trains are still absolutely critical to the success of this nation, just not the way Obama thinks.
Just about any book can be adapted – it’s just a matter of proper scope and a good screenwriter to start. George R.R. Martin once said his own “Song of Ice and Fire” fantasy series was unfilmable because of its dense complexity but here it is on HBO and apparently quite good.
They said the same thing about the Lord of the Rings Trilogy and Dune series yet the trilogy of films for the former and mini-series of the latter are among the best ever made in their field. In particular the screenplay adaptation for the “Children Of Dune” mini-series may be as good as their is because of tackling such nuanced material for the screen.
That’s why I mentioned “Last of the Mohicans”. Anyone with a passing knowledge of Fenimore Cooper, important as he was to the history of American literature, knows that his works can be a bit…aesthetically and even logically cringeworthy. I can’t think of anyone outside of an American literary history buff who reads Fenimore Cooper for “fun”. When they made the movie I really wasn’t thrilled with getting dragged to the theater (a friend had a thing for Daniel Day-Lewis back then; I had just gotten over slogging through Cooper in a graduate course), but nonetheless I saw it, and suprisingly it wasn’t a bad time at the movies.
But they took a lot of license with the original work, a lot (some of it questionable or at least I can see some political inclination). However, I will give them credit: they kept a lot of the positives of Cooper (and there is a lot of horrid prose and goofy action/setting situations to get through to do that) and they accentuated it while managing a lot of the negatives — like horrid prose and some really illogical situations(plus they really did a great job with with the camera work and sound track; it really “fit” the story, and gave a little insight perhaps into what Cooper was trying to convey). And that is probably what a really good movie is supposed to do…made me take another look at Cooper (which made me find a lot of things that were interesting in him).
If you look at what Peter Jackson did with LoTR, he took a lot of license himself, but it didn’t harm the original (and hence you don’t really notice it) — in fact, you could almost say he improved on it a bit (in regards to making a more easily digestible, wonderful entertainment that perhaps made people pick up or go back to Tolkein, who can be a deceptively difficult, if kindly writer). And that would be for everyone, not just people who were already fans or had a political reason for being fans, or was doing this at the urgent prompting of friends, coworkers, or loved ones.
If Atlas does that, then it’s probably a good movie, but from honest reviews I’m hearing it didn’t, and yes, I think Mr. Simon is just being honest here.
I really like the version with Lewis and agree that Jackson improved the story in LOTR by changing and dramatizing certain sequences like the story of the sword, ‘Isildur’s Bane’.
Wish we could get some cool versions of some Edgar Rice Burroughs stuff. Shrugging Atlas’s are fine but I have the mind of a child and prefer David Innes running around “At the Earth’s Core”.
If a version of ‘Atlas Shrugged’ comes out with a giant statue of Atlas coming alive like in ‘Jason and the Argonauts’ and stomping flat the city with John Galt driving it using levers in the giant head let me know. I don’t think Rand would approve but it could have the Rebecca Black song ‘Friday’ on the soundtrack for fun, fun, fun and then we’d be rolling like a party. Also, instead of retreating to a mountain top they could hide in the real Atlantis itself in a dome under the sea surrounded by hostile giant squid and hosted by Capt. Nemo’s grandson with a massive fleet of submarines.
Or maybe an asteroid.
I liked the movie and may now read the book but I’ll probably wait until the sequels are done. I will be using this movie to rate movie critics. I will never again look at the movie reviews of any critic who disliked this movie.
I am so sick of either liberal posturing in movies, or mindless explosions and stunts every thirty seconds that this movie is a standout. It actually showed people struggling to building something they were proud of.
In my neighborhood, people have been struggling to replace a bridge in Stillwater, MN for thirty years. The liberals who have been blocking it in real life are even more obnoxious the the bad guys in this movie, but the movie does give a feel for how vile these people can be. The same suspects are, of course, raiding the taxpayers to pay for a new Vikings stadium. The parallels with the movie are amazing.
Critics and movies are intimately connected. Critics love to see their names on the page. And since they have no talent to make movies, the next best thing is to praise one, even if it stinks, so their name gets in the advertising and/or on DVD cover.
I have an immutable law: when selecting a DVD at the video store, the greater the number of names of critics on the cover, the less I will enjoy the movie.
If a movie is good, everyone knows, and it doesn’t need some know-nothing critic to sell me.
Well, Rand’s novel is more or less like that. I speak, btw, as one who has read Atlas Shrugged twice and bought copies for my grandkids. But darn it, a lot of her dialog is stilted and wooden, and sometimes it comes across as almost phony. She had the same problem with the movie she made of The Fountainhead, where she personally had the last word in all artistic decisions.
Her ideas, of course, are right on. I just wish she were a better writer and had a better sense of humor. I do love her for her mind.
Although the movie wasn’t terrible, it wasn’t great either. Should have been closer to three hours to better develop how loathsome and conniving the looters are. The only way to truly do the book justice would be as a 10 – 12 hour TV mini-series like Band of Brothers, the Stand or Shogun. In fact, the brevity of the Atlas Shrugged movie, reminded me of when one of the networks back in the mid-eighties decided to cut down the run-time of Shogun from 12 hours down to 3 to show it in one night. If you had not read the book or seen the original mini-series you would not be able to follow the cliff-notes version. The AS movie was missing too much of the back story of Dagny and Fransisco’s history or the events that lead to the fall of the 20th Century Motor Company just to name 2 examples. There also wasn’t nearly enough story development of the back-stabbing and deal making that lead to the break-up of Hank Rearden’s companies. This movie was clearly rushed to beat the option deadline and it shows. Color me disappointed.
I am shocked to hear someone say Ayn Rand wasn’t a good writer. I read Atlas Shrugged for the first of probably twenty times in the mid-70s while working for the dean of arts and sciences at my university and obtaining a degree in literature. I asked the Doctor why I had never heard of Rand in any of my classes. He gave me a nervous look and said she was far too controversial. I thought “All these books about weird sex etc. are LESS controversial than a book that says capitalism and pursuing happiness your own way are normal?” I was hooked. I think she remains the most important writer of the past 100 years. Love her or hate her, she makes you think–and coming from Russia, she was one of the first to recognize the seeds of communism being sown in our country. It makes me feel a little safer to think that more people are ready to hear her message: “I swear by my life and my love of it that I will never live for the sake of another man, nor ask another man to live for mine.”
A few points–with the caveat that I haven’t seen the movie yet but plan to.
(1) Everyone I know who has seen the movie (so far) likes it or loves it. I expect to like it a lot.
(2) Rand herself was emphatically NOT a libertarian and did not even like the word “libertarian,” although many of today’s libertarians came to the libertarian movement through her.
(3) What did you expect from Rotten Tomatoes?
You can criticize all you want, I don’t care. But I DO care if you get your facts straight.
She didn’t much care for conservatives either, probably more enamoured of classical liberalism if she was of anything (which is difficult to say, as she was first and foremost an individualist).
It really might be wonderful if we had her around now — at the very least I think she would give us all an interesting earful, and some of her current fans might not like what she had to say.
I will give her credit for that: she didn’t hold anything back and did celebrate the individual (big business, not so much as some seem to think).
If Atlas was in the theaters here, I didn’t see it advertised. So I have not seen the movie.
But I probably would be the last worthy to make popular recommendation. I walked out of The King’s Speech thinking it was the first movie in five years that I actually though worthy the price of admission, skipping the stale popcorn.
I don’t know if that means I have high standards, am difficult to please, or simply don’t appreciate “the artistry” of Hollywood.
The King’s Speech is technically flawed, which is annoying. It shows what value nowadays attaches to Oscars – they are like the Nobels. Cluelessness rules OK.
Go to the Atlas Shrugged movie site, and it will show you where it’s being shown, our local paper down here, didn’t preview it, it’s much like Andy Garcia’s labor of love, about pre Castro Cuba, only opened in a dozen theatres, you can’t wait, just as with Battle; LA
Clint Eastwood is hardly a Tea Partier, Roger.
Not to mention there are are HUGE number of movies every year which put leftist politics first and art second, and some of them make a LOT of money. I am so sick of being propagandized, I can hardly go to movies anymore.
I am in Dallas/Ft. Worth and have not seen Atlas advertised here either.
My favorite recent movie? Battle: Los Angeles, a thoroughly pro US military film that has done VERY well overseas too, against all the predictions of the leftist cognescenti. Perhaps world attitudes about American strength and goodness and decency aren’t as degraded as we are led to believe.
As you alluded to, “Atlas Shrugged” the movie was going to be a challenge anyway. They should have done Anthem. It could be done on a shoe string and still would have been very powerful.
Actually, Ayn rand wanted Walt Disney to do Anthem… In the style of Fantasia
I’ve already posted my review in a couple of other places, but I feel pretty strongly about it, so here goes again:
—
I’ve seen it twice and I loved it. (I decided to do that a while ago if I liked it, in order to give it a big opening weekend.) If anything, I liked it more the second time. On Friday night the theater was 1/3 full, which was disappointing. Saturday night there were even fewer people, but there was a raging downpour going on which might have depressed turnout. Both nights, the audience applauded at the end.
I read Atlas Shrugged in 1997 and I’ve read almost everything Rand published, including her philosophical essays. I first discovered her when I was almost 40, so her ideas were not an adolescent infatuation in my case. In fact, I didn’t get around to reading AS until after I’d already read most of her other stuff.
For a long time I couldn’t imagine how a movie could be made from that book, it was so densely packed with characters, plot, and ideas. In addition, the book was published in 1957 when railroads were still a major form of transportation. They were soon surpassed by trucks and airlines, and most of the old railroads went out of business. So I was puzzled about how they were going to handle the time frame. If it was set in 1957, many younger people would regard it as a period piece with little relevance for today. If it was set in the present day, then how could a railroad be depicted as a vitally important industry?
The filmmakers solved that problem by tacking on a beginning that explained that the Middle East had melted down, causing oil prices to skyrocket and making trains once again the most cost-effective means of transportation. Then they dove straight into the book. I thought that was a stroke of genius which was elegant in its simplicity.
The filmmakers ruthlessly pared the book down to its essentials. It’s only an hour and 40 minutes long, which I thought was shockingly brief. Yes, I would have preferred it to be about 3 hours, but who else other than Rand fans would have gone to see it? A 9-part TV miniseries would have been even better, but there was only so much money available.
The point is to get as many eyeballs in the theater as possible. You’re not going to do that with long, intricate philosophical discussions. That’s what books are for. Movies are for telling entertaining stories. I was initially skeptical when I first heard about this project, but I am very pleased with the result. I think they did about as good a job as could be done.
This movie must succeed. Our country needs for it to succeed. The timing of its release could not be better. It’s–dare I say–Providential. These kinds of ideas must be spread to as many people as possible. Lots of people have heard of Atlas Shrugged but have never read it. If this movie sparks interest in some of those people to investigate Ayn Rand further, it will have done its job.
This movie will be a hit if I have to drive the damn thing myself.
I think it’s more important that the movie appeal to people who have never read Rand than to her fans. The filmmakers didn’t distort or water down her message, nor did they bludgeon the audience over the head with it. I think they struck the right balance.
rickl…”In addition, the book was published in 1957 when railroads were still a major form of transportation”
The railroads still *are* a major form of transportation–for freight. The total ton-miles carried by rail exceeds that carried by truck and is vastly in excess of that carried by air.
The very high oil prices in the film were useful for explaining why *passenger* transportation by rail had again become important, and also were probably necessary given that so many people do assume that rail is an obsolescent industry.
You’re right, of course, and I knew that. I was just trying to keep my comment as brief as possible and not introduce unnecessary complexities.
I think the tacked-on beginning, after which they followed the book closely, was better than trying to update the book by making Taggart Transcontinental an airline, for instance.
Haven’t seen Atlas Shrugged myself (it’s showing too far away), so I’ll reserve judgment. I did predict, long before this past weekend, that the railroad theme would have no resonance for an American audience, which today associates railroads not with individualism and grit but with Amtrak, public subsidies, and mythological socialism.
That said, I suspect what Atlas Shrugged, the Movie needs more of is vampires.
Being a guy with an amalgamation of different views (closer to libertarian, really, than anything else), I have to say that most movies with large political messages, whether left or right, usually leave me cold, because I don’t like sitting in the dark for two hours while the screen lectures me on what is “right.” It’s like a preacher shows up, and you had no intention of going into his church.
I haven’t seen the film, but I have read the book, and, from what I’ve seen in clips and images, I don’t really want to see the film, as what I’ve seen looks distractingly cheap.
That, and I have mixed feelings about the book. At times, I was unable to put the book down, and, others, I wondered why people seemed to talk in speeches all the time. I get what Rand was trying to do, and she does make good points at times, but I just think it is jarring in a novel format.
On the other hand, I did enjoy The Fountainhead.
I just envy you
I don’t expect to see A.S. at the movies here in Europe anytime soon. I’ll have to wait for the dvd and order it.
God Bless America!
Good luck with your film out in late June, Roger-but I’m pleased to have you mis-underestimating Rand’s appeal. And this film’s potential to deliver.
Rand is complicated and so many undestimate her. But as Shoshana Milgram-Knapp’s forthcoming biography shows, her life as a screenwriter some 70 years ago well-prepared her for writing narratives with visual compliments. Her skill at blending stiking ideas, controversial subjects, with imaginative plots and characters means that she is easy to mis-understand.
Originality is tough for even the talented-worker, so used to conventional genre treatments, to comprehend. This is no less true today as it was in her time.
From the Chicago Sun-Times (hat tip Instapundit):
Box-office power of Ayn Rand’s ‘Atlas Shrugged’ baffles insiders
Roger, you are spot on. But the views are lively. The movie in short is like that VW ad years ago, tag said: They Said It Couldn’t Be Done [with Wilt Chamberlain with one leg in the car] Tag End- It Can’t. You can’t make AS with 10 million dollars. Nope, you can’t. It was awful.
Also in IMDB Atlas is doing better between user than with critics
I went in expecting a train wreck (no pun intended), but was pleasantly surprised. I suppose the most dissappointing aspect was that it ended just as I became more emotionally connected to the characters! With a less limited budget, perhaps two movies each around 2:15 long would have been more ideal. But despite that, I did truly enjoy it. Oh, and Ebert can go pound sand FWIW.
There’s so much more interesting details, to come with Rearden’s trial, with
the disaster on the Colorado railroad, et al,
I loved it. If hollywierd had more fiasco’s like this, I might go to a movie once in a while. Last movie I saw in a theater was The Return of the King.
Is Roger upset that his part wasn’t bigger?
Seriously, Breitbart liked it, and he was only in for a second, also.
.
I want to see all three parts, but I wish Lionel and Roger would lend a hand in putting together the next two. That would make for boffo pix!
When I decide to go and see a movie based on complex historical or philosophical themes I do t with full responsibility and without expecting a true expression of the facts or an artistic master piece.
I am hoping that, although I don’t expect viewers to leave the cinema understanding the underpinnings of “objectivism’, it might wet their appetite enough to read the book and study the subject.
They could do worst than by starting with a precise and short explanation of Rand’s philosophy and why it is so important to our times by reading “Who Is Afraid Of Ayn Rand?” at http://www.robbingamerica.com
It’s obvious that the reviewer, if he even watched the movie, missed the entire point. I have read the book several times, and Atlas Shrugged Part 1 did a decent job of portraying the idiotic nanny state socialist mind set of those currently in control of one house of Congress and the White House. The book is prophetic of course and to assume that the infrastructure of the U.S. will or will not collapse to the point where rail travel is the only viable method of transport is irrelevent. The point is that the continued journey down the road of the looters, moochers and whiners will destroy what is left of democratic capitalism in this country. The film does a good job of paraphrasing the zero growth in Washington, and a good job of pointing out how out of touch the social and political glitteratti are, that glitteratti seem to now include the reviewer.
Making any film is a very difficult endeavor but I love the art form. I’ve loved many films that critics hated. And I’ve been left unimpressed by films the critics loved (I seldom hate a film)
I’ve noticed a correlation that critics tend to love the films they are supposed to love, the social justice films. They never like films that are just out and out fun which is why comedies never win awards.
I am unqualified to analyze a film but I do believe that writers are underrated in their importance to the success of a film since I’ve noticed that films adapted from best selling novels tend to come out better.
Having said all that, making Atlas required overcoming near impossible odds, including barriers put up by Ayn Rand and then her estate. Rand and her work has never been widely understood, hated by the left, of course, but also by the right, by the religious and by academics of multiple disciplines. Anyone associated with the project stood to be vilified professionally and personally.
I loved the book but Atlas the book violated many accepted writing norms of the mid 20th century and was criticized for the unnaturalness of the characters and the sci-fi story line. Nevertheless, Rand established her own rules and the book has remained a best seller. BTW, she did write a couple of screenplays besides the Fountainhead (which I found really stiff). Check out imdb.com.
As a Rand acolyte I was concerned the film would disappoint me. It did not. But, as an acolyte, I believe my judgement is tainted. I saw the film with my wife, who didn’t even remember if she read the book, and two fundamentalist Christian friends, one of which never read any Rand. We all liked the movie a lot and look forward to parts 2 and 3. (I heard Jar Jar Binks will be in part 2 and part 3 will be a musical).
In my case, I liked it because I was relieved it was not stiff like Fountainhead and the left out the loooooong speeches that I loved in the book but which would have made a film dull. Perhaps the casting could have been better. But we all liked the choice of actors. The most amusing comment came from the person who never read the book: What’s the big deal. It looked like real life.
To Mr. Simon: After the Bible, Ayn Rand’s book Atlas Shrugged is the most popular book sold since it was published. It hardly matters if the acting was not up to your expectations. The book is brilliant and each person will get what they want from it. It is, indeed, the movie goer who is the real critic. Expecting a mega hit from only 300 movie theatres is unrealistic. This movie is a philosophical drama and cannot properly be compared to a “regular” movie.
I loved the movie, an would suggest that you are being waaay to literal-minded. Big powerful trains are the perfect representative of a creative industrial economy the has been requlated out of existence. It had to be trains.
Here is what I said of this review to friends who pointed it out to me:
I read this review and I don’t know this Roger Simon guy at all so don’t know what motivates him. If he’s a conservative then he’s definitely going to despise many aspects of Rand. To rise above that anathema to her ideology and see the movie in a disinterested way would be too much to ask. He’s antagonistic to Rand and Objectivists for sure and that comes across. And his bias shows in the first sentence where he says 8% liked it but forgets to mention the 86% audience vote
.
He does say a couple of things which are spot on for movie-making however e.g., “First comes art, then (distantly) comes politics. If you’re not up to the job artistically, you might as well stay home. And filmmaking is not a simple art. …” AND “…But film is a different, obviously more photographic medium with its own demands and, in the end, it is Rand’s ideas that are particularly poorly served here. The Atlas Shrugged filmmakers forgot the old Hollywood saw: “If it ain’t on the page, it ain’t on the stage.” It’s a truism for a reason….”
It’s good advice for all message-based movie making and I appreciate the above and Agliaoro voiced similar sentiments in the panel that Nick Gillespie hosted from Reason. However he’s unduly critical of the movie saying it would not have been better even with $30 or 300 million — which is nonsense of course. It would be a poor film at any cost for someone who despises rand’s ideas which is conservatives (even those that claim to be libertarian). He makes grand predictions though so we will see.
Moreover, just keep in mind this: a number of “true-blood” objectivists did not /will not like the movie — they are TOO close to the book and have a number of pre-conceived notions of how it should have been done. Fortunately they don’t matter. IMHO the ONLY thing that matters is if this movie makes people i) want to read the book and/or ii) ask fresh questions such as – are we really our brothers’ keepers? OR what IS the proper role of the government? are business people who truly provide honest value really evil just because they want to make money?
THAT my friends is ALL I ask, anyway. Whether the movie meets that modest objective or not? I don’t know, time will tell
. On a personal note since I enjoyed it (for more personal, rather than cinematic, reasons), I am glad it was made.
Reena Kapoor, thank you for your wise views. Let me be clear: my attitude toward this film has NOTHING to do with my attitude toward Objectivism, which is largely sympathetic. I think the film itself was slapdash. They never wrote anything close to a polished screenplay, so in the end Rand was not served, even though some of her fans seemed to have enjoyed the movie. It never, however, got outside her fan base. According to this week’s Box OFfice Mojo, the movie is a failure. It has dipped from 14 to 18 in the rankings in one weekend, not much lower to go. The greater public is not interested – a missed opportunity.
BTW, regarding budget, I have worked on a fair number of films myself, some successful and some not, and there rarely is a correlation between the budget and the success of the finished project. There is a strong correlation, however, between the quality of the screenplay and the finished product.
All the best
Roger:
I agree with most of what you say. It is true that the correlation between a film and the budget is quite weak. But in this case the budget did get in the way. They hired a bad director, was certainly one consequence. Time or lack of it, was a factor too. And I agree actually the screenplay could have been a LOT better. But time and money CAN fix those issues in THIS case because inherently the story, plot and characters are strong and interesting. It’s such a clever plot but it does need good treatment. It’s not the best representation of her work (again I agree) but if it does what I stated were very modest objectives for Atlas then I think the job was done. Could it have been gang-busters? YES!! But when you say it could not have been better for $30 or $300 then it suggests to be you’re a little biased. I appreciate your cinematic criticisms but your overall assessment does not seem fair or constructive.
PS> And I’m a film buff and married to a film-maker so I know a teeny bit…
Reena,
I too agree with you for the most part. And I certainly appreciate your film background. Even where we disagree, these are matters of opinion, not fact. All movie reviews are no more than taste, no matter who is doing them. One unfortunate fact, however, is that film is failing at the box office. It dropped in its second weekend from 14th to 18th and appears not to have “legs,” as they say. The larger public is evidently not interested. I am sad about this because I would like movies seen as conservative or libertarian (or “Objectivist,” as the case may be) do well. I suspected from my viewing that this one would not. I am often wrong about these things. In this rare instance, apparently I was not.
I confess I haven’t seen “Atlas Shrugged”, but at least part of my reasons for not doing so are pertinent to this discussion. I’m pretty much a free-market fanatic, but have to admit all it took for me to lose any enthusiasm I had for this film’s premiere was a few minutes in front of its dreadful trailer . My heart sank as I watched it weeks ago on the internet. Honestly, I clicked it off wondering, “Why on earth would I ever want to plunk down $10 to watch two hours of that?” From much of what I’m reading here, it sounds like the full product mainly lived down to the unimpressive promotional clips. If I feel that way as an unapologetic, politically-tuned-in, film-loving conservative, can you imagine how the average movie goer, never mind the liberal critic, is going to respond to this movie? No wonder it’s tanking.
Atlas Shrugged Part 1 is a great movie! The reviewer, Roger L. Simon, is completely wrong. I saw Atlas Shrugged twice and loved it both times. And, I never see a movie twice. In fact, it did so well, it was held over an extra week at my local theater. This quote about writing:
“…there are a lot of highly opinionated dilettantes..who have never published anything but have a million opinions on writing.” – Philip Coates
does not seem to apply to Roger L. Simon, but if you replaced it with “who have never produced a low budget $10 million dollar movie based on a lengthy classic book,” it probably does apply. And as of today, May 22nd, 2011, 81% of the audience at Rotten Tomatoes liked the movie!