Quote of the week...please share your favourite line from Ayn Rand's writings

“Happiness is that state of consciousness which proceeds from the achievement of one's values.”

Monday, February 7, 2011

Atlas Shrugged: The Movie

Atlas Shrugged movie will be released on April 15th 2011.

IMDB Internet movie database has a storyline of the movie:

A powerful railroad executive, Dagny Taggart, struggles to keep her business alive while society is crumbling around her. Based on the 1957 novel by Ayn Rand.

John Aglialoro showcased a ten-minute clip from the Atlas Shrugged movie for an exclusive audience in New York City. Richard Gleaves has a description of the movie clip in The Atlasphere. Excerpts:

I am hopeful, but my fears are not totally dispelled. Whether the movie is really good or not depends on how they handle the stylistic disconnect between the quasi-naturalism of their storytelling technique and the stylized romantic language of Galt, etc. And that stilted exchange with Mulligan worries me. Visually, however, I think it will be excellent — even innovative.

I think it will be as faithful as a Harry Potter adaptation, which has pitfalls of its own, of course — namely that, in the rush to get everything in, you linger on nothing and so the film becomes a “greatest hits” recap of the book.

The production quality is far higher than I expected; they’ve done a lot with very little money and they definitely “get” the story. So there’s a lot to be hopeful about.

The Atlasphere has an interview with Producer John Aglialoro. Excerpts:

Who is John Aglialoro? Probably no one since Ayn Rand has invested so much in Atlas Shrugged. For nearly two decades he has championed the novel — financially, intellectually, logistically — because he was determined to make a movie that would do justice to Rand’s masterpiece.

TA: The country seems thirsty for the vision that Ayn Rand presented in Atlas Shrugged. What effects would you hope the movie would have in our culture?

Aglialoro: I hope that the political class will be replaced by political leaders with the sense of our Founding Fathers. This is the notion of reluctantly, with great pain and suffering, leaving their farm and their town in order to put two long years into elected office out of gratitude for having the freedom to make their way in the world, to be successful, and to get up every morning and do whatever their sense of life dictates.

Those are the kinds of political leaders and statesmen who had self-love and love of their country. Today we have people getting out of law school, entering the political class, making a career in government, garnering power, doing all the things that they must do to stay in office and get reelected.

They have only a vague motivation, if any, to get society moving in the direction where individuals control their own destinies, where government takes a limited approach to governing.

An obvious solution to this problem would be term limits. If terms were restricted we wouldn’t have career politicians with incentives to concentrate more and more power in government so they can pass out money and favors in their bids for reelection.

That’s my hope. It’s a big hope, but we do see that some of the elected folks today seem to be more libertarian and have a great respect for Ayn Rand. So maybe we’re at the beginning of a five- or seven- or eight-decade trend where we repopulate the awful and disgusting political elements that rule Congress, the states, and the regulatory bodies today.

TA: After completing the filming, what are you most pleased with about the movie?

Aglialoro: I’m pleased that we pulled it off. And that we have an entertaining movie based on such an important book. We had Paul Johansson as director and we had a great team. We asked Brian O’Toole to take a truly great book and faithfully adapt it as a near-great script for Paul and the team to bring to the screen. That effort was successful, and we shot the film in just under six weeks.

There were some changes to the script along the way, and some things I would have liked to have had added. Those who know the book will remember the scene with Phillip Rearden and his mother going to Hank Rearden’s office to ask for a job for Phillip. I thought that would have made a fabulous little two-minute scene. But we were trying to do so much already that various circumstances kept us from doing everything we would have liked.

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