Posted on 07/26/2010 7:06:51 AM PDT by Ed Hudgins
I spoke with Dagny Taggart the other night. “It’s a huge honor to be part of this film,” said Taylor Schilling, who plays the heroine in John Aglialoro’s independent production of Atlas Shrugged. Tuesday evening, July 20, marked the completion of filming. We caught up with Aglialoro and his team in a weary but ebullient mood as shooting wrapped after an intense five-week schedule.
The movie covers Part I of Ayn Rand’s novel, with two more films in the planning stage to tell the rest of the story. With six months of editing still to go on “Atlas Shrugged, Part I,” Aglialoro expects it to be ready for release by next March—unless it is accepted for Cannes or other major festivals, which would probably mean a June release.
In entrepreneurial courage and talent, the film project to date is fully the equal of the story it tells, Dagny’s heroic struggle to build the John Galt rail line.
Having optioned the film rights to Atlas in 1992, Aglialoro (pictured above with producers Harmon Kaslow and John director Paul Johansson) has worked with a number of studios and independent producers, with one project after another coming to grief. In the ten years I have been advising him about scripts, I have read at least six distinct scripts for everything from TV miniseries to feature films. Hopes ran high for a deal with Lionsgate Films and Baldwin Entertainment for a single feature-length film, with a good script by Randall Wallace and Angelina Jolie as the lead. After that effort fizzled, Lionsgate undertook a lower-budget miniseries last fall. But the script…
[For the rest of the story plus a video interview with Aglialoro, visit The Atlas Society website!]
(Excerpt) Read more at atlassociety.org ...
ping for later blogging
240B — You have no clue what you’re talking about. There is zero indication that Rand was alcoholic or was even a casual drinker. (Have you read any of the biographies?) There is some controversy over whether her husband was an alcoholic. Rand was a heavy smoker, which is probabaly what killed her.
Scouts Out! Cavalry Ho!
I thought angelina jolie was playing Dagny?
From the above article:In the ten years I have been advising him about scripts, I have read at least six distinct scripts for everything from TV miniseries to feature films. Hopes ran high for a deal with Lionsgate Films and Baldwin Entertainment for a single feature-length film, with a good script by Randall Wallace and Angelina Jolie as the lead. After that effort fizzled, Lionsgate undertook a lower-budget miniseries last fall. But the script proved unworkable and Lionsgate withdrew altogether. By March of this year, Aglialoro was back where he started.
I know who Rose is, but have not read any of her books. I probably will once I get through my current list. I Know Rose was more politically active and led a very interesting life. To be honest, that is a bit of a turn off for me.
I am more attracted to the simple struggles of simple but brave people. With the politicization of “libertarianism” a lot of these ideals were lost to elitists who tended towards decadence and atheism, which would have been anathema to the simple pioneers who lived the philosophy.
OK
if you expect me to argue with you? It will not happen. You are right, I am wrong. I wish you a strong and healthy life.
Will they alter the story to show it taking place during the reign of the first halfrican American president?
Indeed. I've often thought that the end of society will be less Orwellian (think Gestapo thugs kicking down doors, an all-powerful, all-controlling regime) and more Randian (people more or less just giving up, society deteriorating due to apathy and a "not my job" attitude).
Thugs kicking in doors may be the end result, but it would take a long time to get there.
I had an interesting conversation with a consultant last week.... I was talking about my experiences with a large three-letter behemoth of a technology company. I thought that it was a horrific place to work - for various reasons that I won't go into right now - BUT...
...I said that "if I was 55 or so and had a few years to go to retirement, that this company would be a great place to work because I could work there, lay low, not do too much, collect a decent salary, grab some excellent bennies+retirement, for 5, 6, or 7 years before they even figured out who I was or what I did."
The (very smart, BTW) consultant's reply? "So, you quit this company because you just hadn't given up yet?"
More people are Galt than you would think.
So was Hemingway
Please, if you do not mind, tell me please what you know of Hemingway?
I am curious.
Have you (or anyone else) read The Obama Timeline: From his Birth in 1961 Through his First 100 Days in Office by Don Fredrick? It sound like the most complete background book on Obama. I wonder if it is well sourced.
Which needs to be cut to 5 minutes, 10 at most.
Atlas ping. Good news.
Kinda like Avatar.
Yep. She didn't think anyone really understood it. Her editor at the time was none other than Bennett Cerf, who begged her to cut the "This Is John Galt Speaking" speech. Her reply was a masterpiece of modesty: "Would you cut the Bible?"
But she knew it was too long. She stated in an interview that she'd budgeted three months to write it and that it took two years. When Publius and I were doing the Book Club thread on it I found the thing so dense and tightly-written that it was extremely difficult to discern a structure. It was there, it was just that the thing had been polished so much at that point that you couldn't fit a dialectical wedge into the seams.
You wouldn't need a speech like that in a movie, and it's doubtful whether the novel needed it either to succeed as a novel. It was a major roadblock to the dramatic narrative, but from Rand's point of view the dramatic narrative existed to present the speech, and not the other way around.
You can sort of tell by the uneven quality of writing where she chose to focus her effort. Certain bits are lyrical and tragic - Eddie Willers' fate, for example. Others appear hastily-written and ludicrous - the scenes with Francisco shooting guns out of people's hands and Ragnar Danneskjold crashing through a window like Tarzan on steroids. Rand the philosopher wrote The Speech, Rand the novelist wrote the Willers dénouement, Rand the scriptwriter wrote the raid. IMHO, of course.
Eddie Willers didn’t really have a fate, did he? IIRC he was left standing in the desert by some train wreck, and we never heard from him again. If Cheryl Taggart hadn’t killed herself, they’d have been a well-matched couple.
I thought so too. Rand was brutally hard on her secondary characters. Personally if I was Cherryl I’d have beaten Jim Taggart with a ballbat and sued his sorry butt for divorce. In that order.
I used to watch the Outlaw Years, loved it!
Elitists don't think 'the little people' are really people at all. I'm not nearly as great an admirer of Rand as I was in college.
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