Posted on 04/15/2011 1:31:44 PM PDT by RobFromGa
A final note - the crowd literally applauded when Dagny threw the union thug out of her office.
That this happened in a movie theater in generally pro-union Pittsburgh still has me amazed.
“”Going to see it again with my son at Noon today!””
I’ve thought about it too!! I have no idea how long it will be in Duluth but I would love to see it again.
Very elegant production, especially considering the low budget. Actress playing Dagny superb, as is Hank Rearden. They managed to pull off a pretty good chemistry.
Loved the beautiful John Galt line scene as the train soared across the bridge.
Setting the story in the future was a stroke of genius--placing it in 1955 would have been clunky and probably very expensive!!
They made Orrin Boyle look like Henry Waxman! LOL! And Lilian reminded me of Nancy Pelosi!
Screenwriter did a great job of telling the story with little dialog, mostly with scenes and pictures. Ayn Rand is too didactic a writer of dialog, but her stories are cinematic. The screenwriter picked up on this beautifully.
“”In the book, that testimony was one of the most compelling arguments against socialism that I have ever read””
I agree! Remember the old man who couldn’t buy any more records for his collection because a neighborhood girl needed work done on her teeth? To leave all that out was my only disappointment in the movie.
I was enthralled by it!
The characters were realistic and captivating. The cinematography was beautifully done and majestic.
My daughter was so taken with the beauty and fidelity of the work that she had tears rolling down at several times in the movie. Everyone should see this!
Its one of the great movies of all time.
“”Bob Beckel’s brother, who is a libertarian, was on Hannity last night, he has a role.””
Graham Beckel played Ellis Wyatt. I nearly fell out of bed when I saw that on Hannity. I caught the tail end of his show so tuned back in at the midnight hour to catch it again.
I’ve seen Graham Beckel only once with Bob Beckel so I did not recognize him in the movie.
I can see now the majority of us are going to be spending our day on this thread.
Summary: It is far better than its modest budget and relatively unknown cast would promise. It is a little flat, lacking the didactic punch of the novel, but the actors do a good job. If I did not know the novel, I am not sure this movie would make it clear. If you have any interest in the novel (and at least some familiarity), you will probably enjoy this.
Casual moviegoers, the uninitiated, those who play ticket roulette (hmmm! Lets go to that one), will be disappointed: the movie is not bad, but absent knowledge or interest in the book, it is not particularly entertaining. While it may be more than straight preaching to the choir, I am not sure it will win many converts.
Longer Summary (some mild spoilers):
It is a long time since I read the book. I am not a fan, or at least I am not an obsessive fanboy. I enjoyed the book, but found it hard going. I had some sympathy for the general thesis, but found Rand's vision of reason above all else, and her division of the world into the great and non-great too stark. Of course, that didactic punch is its great strength.
Many readers will have strong opinions on how characters should look and talk. I doubt the filmmakers could please everyone on that count. Having less connection with the book, I am also less invested in how characters are presented; I think the characters as presented in the movie are a fair representation of those in the novel.
Although written in the late 1950s, I have always felt that the novel seemed like it was set in the 1930s. The opening setup, showing economic and energy crisis, does a good job of making the idea of a railroad seem less anachronistic. This works far better than some attempt to modernize it with Facebook or Google types. Nobody doubts the smarts of the Facebook or Google types, but the characters of Atlas Shrugged need to show mastery of the physical environment; the bending of metal a reflection of bending the world to their will.
The problem with the novel is that it is, truth be told, a little hammy. Some of the dialog is stilted, and the characters are closer to caricatures. The novel succeeds by having plenty of surrounding text to explain. The problem for the movie is that it lacks the surrounding text. Scenes that in the book may have had plenty of explanation here rely on only the actor's presentation; it is the text without the context.
At times, it felt more about corporate intrigue, one group trying to dupe some guy out of his fortune, and not the passion for creation, ownership, and control. While the movie does present the moochers as corrupt, that corruption seems more about money rather than the spiritual corruption of the novel.
***Some Spoilers here***
Part of the success of the book is its lack of subtlety; part of the movie's problem is its subtlety.
The scene where Riordan arrives home to an unappreciative wife and her uninterested friends lacks the bite that I am sure the novel had (I do not remember the book that well). They chatter on about how hard he works. He presents his wife with a bracelet made of Riordan metal and she makes jokes about railway ties. I am sure the novel left us with contempt for the characters and their attitude to Riordan's passion; here they just look snooty and annoying.
A later scene where Dagny offers Riordan's wife a presumably expensive diamond necklace in exchange for the Riordan metal bracelet lacks the emotional intensity I imagine the novel portrayed. I suppose it would be clear to most in the audience that the wife's trade represented a complete rejection of Riordan, and Dagny's offer was an expression of admiration for Riordan, but somehow it just felt flat.
The love scene between Dagny and Riordan seemed more about two attractive strangers getting together on a business trip. It was not the meeting of minds and mutual passion for achievement of the book. My memories of the book is that intellectual passion led to sexual passion making the cheating on his disinterested wife more excusable. In the movie it just seemed throwaway, more soap opera than opera.
If you liked the novel, you will probably like the movie. If you have an interest in the book, you will probably like the movie. If you think you might like to see the movie, you probably should. It is not great, but it is certainly good enough.
For those who have asked the sex scenes are short and about what you might see on evening TV. The act is clear but the presentation is not explicit. The movie received a PG13 rating, and that reflects in what you see on screen.
BTTT!
“”One bit of advice, don’t read “the speech”. That is, by far, the hardest part to get through.””
I’ve read the book 3 times and when I take it off my bookshelf again, I do it just to read the speech.
Same here about Graham Beckel, so glad I caught that bit of Hannity, I usually don’t watch FOX anymore. And ditto about reading here. I went to the first showing in Tucson yesterday but now want to go back and see it again today! I have a to wait a few days though....:0)
My Pappy and I are in a Houston theater right now awaiting the 11:45 showing. My thoughts after...
I plan to see it a few more times at theater also..
and just for your consideration all...
if you go to any movie in the next month or so BUY THE TICKET FOR ATLAS SHRUGGED & then go to the other movie..
I know it is devious but we can get extra $$ for the film
:0)
Hi DollyCali — I hadn’t gone to a movie theater in years, I can’t even remember the last time. We do like watching movies at home, but...
Anyway, I’m going to be one of those who goes over and over. I’d better try to read what I can of the book in between, lol.
I agree, that’s a bit much for pieces of flat aluminum alloy. I was also disappointed in the flat slab links — the book calls the bracelet a “chain”, so I expected something like either curb links or even mariner’s links, something heavy and substantial, and true to the book, I expected them to be greenish (even if anodized).
It is worth it - and we need as many folks to see it as possible so they continue making parts II and III....
Let me first say, I see a LOT of movies. My wife usually catch one or two every weekend, more in the summer. Also, I haven't read the book since the mid-70s, so it's a little difficult for me to speak with any authority about how closely the movie mirrors the book. I think generally though, it does remarkably well, especially considering the scope and breadth of the source material. Some of the characters aren't nearly as well developed as they are in the book, but that's probably unavoidable.
I went into not expecting very much at all. It largely surpassed expectations. My wife, who's an English professor, had more problems with it than I did - not subject-matter problems, but artistic problems. Adapting this kind of book for the screen is tough. And, you can tell that the screenwriters struggled at times, and the dialogue suffered because of it. Also, some of the principle leads just weren't up to the task. The young lady who plays Dagny, while stunning, is just miscast. She portrays zero gravitas, and the film suffers because of it. Her brother's part is also, from what I can remember, a bit different from the book. Does it work? Not for me, but I could see how people wouldn't be to put off by it.
The pacing is acceptable but the cinematography is uneven - sometimes it's very, very good and other times it feels hurried and small. On balance, i think the film is very, very OK - average. If it was a broadcast TV movie, you'd say, "Oh, this is pretty well-done for broadcast TV". The special effects especially seem low-budget, although the imagining of some of the futuristic trains is interesting and capture a 1950s feel very nicely. The color-timing of the film is odd. Some of the sets work really well, some don't.
Ultimately, while I applaud the effort of the first time director, and screenwriters who have NEVER come close to writing something this complex - one is horror movie guy and the other doesn't have a single writing credit to his name - I came away with a bittersweet feeling about what the movie could have been. On a tiny budget, with near-amateur filmmakers and a c-list character actor cast, the movie is passable and entertaining. If it would have had a competent, experienced director, crew, cast and studio-sized budget, it could have really been a masterpiece.
It's a big book that needed a big film(s) to do it justice. This isn't a big film. It's not horrible, but it's not excellent either.
Do read Publius info (above).. it is very helpful for overview..
I am a movie addict. I go many times a week & see most of what I consider “good” stuff. Many here would not agree. I have a great system here at home but to me there is nothing like the big NICE theaters.
I do NOT go at busy times however so parking & theater noise/crowd issues are not problematic
Oh, I saw the stuff from Publius and saved it, thanks!
My husband had a furlough day and I took a vacation day yesterday. It looked like we were the only non-retired ones, and based on the people we talked to also. SUCH a nice crowd, completely polite, completely silent at the critical times, not even a cough, and I certainly didn’t need to worry about setting my purse down on the seat next to me. It was almost full other than the first three rows, but people were so kind (like the gentleman who sat down in the row in front made sure to move one over so he wouldn’t block me whatsoever). I was so impressed :0) Not the usual gang-banger and/or leftist Tucson types that are too often in the theaters here and why we gave up going.
But now, I told my husband that whenever he has a furlough day, I’ll take the day off and we’ll go to the movies. You’re right, nothing as great as the theater.
My parents go several times a week, but during the quiet times also.
I think these two particular paragraphs offers a better critique of the overall film than I could have possibly constructed.
Unfortunately, Aglialoro then cast a pair of TV actors in the key roles of Dagny and Rearden. Taylor Schilling (Mercy) is an appealing performer, but she’s not really equipped to project Dagny’s passionate determination; and Grant Bowler (True Blood), an actor of low-key warmth, is too unassertive to hold the screen as the uncompromising Rearden. It may be unfair to judge these two on their work here—they don’t seem to have been given much in the way of useful direction, and they’ve been set adrift in a succession of poorly blocked and shot scenes. Because of budget constraints, presumably, the whole movie seems underpopulated; and the one big party sequence is so low on energy that it resembles a casting call for which the auditioning actors have turned up already in costume. There’s quite a bit of narrative padding and a woeful lack of action. We see rather too much footage of sleek trains speeding through countryside (assisted at times by surprisingly crude computer generation), and there are lingering shots of hilly, verdant landscapes shoehorned into the proceedings to no purpose. (At one point there’s even a close-up of a flower.)Anyone not familiar with Rand’s novel will likely be baffled by the goings-on here. Characters spend much time hunkered around tables and desks nattering about rail transport, copper-mining, and the oil business. A few of these people are stiffly virtuous (“I’m simply cultivating a society that values individual achievement”), but most are contemptible (“We must act to benefit society”…“a committee has decided”…“We rely on public funding.”) These latter creeps should set our blood boiling, but they’re so cartoonishly one-dimensional that any prospective interest soon slumps. We are initially intrigued by the recurring question, “Who is John Galt?” But since the movie covers only the first third of the novel (a crippling miscalculation), we never really find out, apart from noticing an anonymous figure lurking around the edges of the action, togged out in a trench coat and a rain-soaked fedora like a film-noir flatfoot who’s wandered into an epoch far away from his own.
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