Posted on 02/11/2007 2:15:16 PM PST by saganite
Ayn Rand is one of the most controversial writers in modern American literature, known for her tireless advocacy of the right to selfishness and her hatred of big government. She has been derided and loved in equal measure and her books have sold millions of copies, attracting followers as diverse as banker Alan Greenspan, President Ronald Reagan and architect Frank Lloyd Wright.
Her most famous book, Atlas Shrugged, has long been a target of Hollywood producers and attracted such big names as Faye Dunaway, Raquel Welch and Sharon Stone. But each project collapsed in the face of turning a 1,200-page philosophical novel into a watchable movie. Now that is to change. The latest attempt to film Atlas Shrugged is set to star Angelina Jolie in the role of Rand's railroad heiress heroine Dagny Taggart. Unlike past efforts, this one seems likely to succeed. A two-hour screenplay is almost complete and filming is to start this year with release in 2008. It is being written by Randall Wallace, who wrote the Mel Gibson epic Braveheart, and is backed by Lion's Gate Entertainment.
Atlas Shrugged is one of the most controversial books in modern literature. It is a passionate defence of Rand's belief that the world is best served when individuals act entirely in their own rational self-interest. Or, to put it more bluntly, they act selfishly. Rand, who died in 1982, founded the objectivist school of philosophy and still has millions of followers. Atlas Shrugged and another novel The Fountainhead promote her views. In financial circles Atlas Shrugged has been dubbed 'the bible of selfishness'.
(Excerpt) Read more at observer.guardian.co.uk ...
We gotta get Tom Hanks in here somewhere. Maybe as Dagny's brother.
“From each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs.”
Sounds good - but never worked and never will.
I want to shoot things with guns every time I hear Ayn Rand called a libertarian. She despised libertarianism, her followers split over the very issue of even cooperating with libertarians.
Everyone loves to talk about her, but very few have ever bothered to read anything more than newspaper articles (or FreeRepublic posts) about her.
IMHO, neither Jolie nor Brad have any idea what Ayn Rand stood for. They might just have gotten the idea that this was "cool" or maybe they want to trash her work or turn it into a promotion of their own agenda. Hollywood had perverted more than one novel.
I've read several of Rand's books and essays and am well aware of that side of her work. That said, to characterize her work as only limited to selfishness ("the bible of selfishness") is way off the mark - IMO.
It's rumored to be Brad Pitt per Wikipedia
After what Hollywood did to a Tom Clancy novel, I am not optimistic about the film version.
With the central importance of railroads to the story, you can't really set it anywhere near our present. Between Amtrak and the castrated freights in this country and the hollowing out of American steel and automotive, the book becomes preposterous.
Trying to modernize the whole industrial universe (Taggart Rocketlines, Rearden Carbon Composites, Wyatt Biodiesel) would be ludicrous.
Personally, I envision it set in an alternate-universe 1950s, when America still dominated these industries. Lots of tailfins, Art Deco and those streamlined visions of a Jetsons future.
I suppose one might get the wrong idea about her philosophical premises from "The Virtue of Selfishness," where she identifies egoism -- enlightened self-interest -- to be the cornerstone of all morality, and "altruism" as the wellspring of all evil.
It ain't a side of her work -- it's the core.
Bruce Willis is too ... smirky. He's got that look that's always on the edge of a grin. Hank Rearden was too obsessed to smile much. I'm afraid I've got to agree with Harrison Ford.
Please, not Brad Pitt. If it is, I won't see it.
LOL, I barely know who the guy is so it doesn't matter much to me who is in it.
He's a pretty boy. Not a particularly good actor. Certainly not the caliber needed to play Hank Rearden. He is as wrong for that role as he was for Achilles in the remake of the Iliad.
>>the burning question is Who is John Galt?
Not sure, but currently, the more burning question, is Who is Juan Galt? with respect to Venezuela.
It just isn't ALL of her work, which is what you are implying. And oversimplifying, too. Altruism is NOT the wellspring of all evil according to Rand, btw. More like forced altruism. I can hardly cover her whole body of work in a few paragraphs.
No - not at all.
Robert Duvall as Galt, Steve Buscemi as Reardon, Johnny Depp as D'antonia.
It will suck, you can't condense a great book like that into a n overly tested and vanilla and crowd pleasing film.
Won't work.
Who will direct?
I'd love to see Terry Gilliam or Christopher Nolan or Darren Aronofsky in the chair.
Being an atheist is one thing, trying to brag about it is another.
Egad.
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