Atlas Shrugged Producer John Aglialoro on Ayn Rand's Enduring Impact

[Jerry Biggers]

... hopefully someone will produce a better film version of Atlas in the future.

No way.

If they could spend the big bucks on The:Lord of the Rings trllogy (although the result disappointed Tolkien devotees), it should have been possible for somebody with deep pockets to do the movie(s). However, I have said before, Atlas Shrugged's length and required long lectures makes it nearly impossible to pull it off. Most moviegoers are not going to sit for the 60 minutes length, Galt's Speech. And when it was cut down (Kelley says his version is 4 and a half minutes and Peikoff, years ago, was asked to cut his version to 5 minutes), it destroy's the whole purpose of the book...

[Wolf DeVoon]

If they could spend the big bucks on The Lord of the Rings trilogy ...

$3 billion worldwide box office + another $3 billion in DVD sales

book sales:

Hobbit 50 million

LOTR 150 million

genre: fantasy

[Brant Gaede]

... hopefully someone will produce a better film version of Atlas in the future.

No way.

If they could spend the big bucks on The:Lord of the Rings trllogy (although the result disappointed Tolkien devotees), it should have been possible for somebody with deep pockets to do the movie(s). However, I have said before, Atlas Shrugged's length and required long lectures makes it nearly impossible to pull it off. Most moviegoers are not going to sit for the 60 minutes length, Galt's Speech. And when it was cut down (Kelley says his version is 4 and a half minutes and Peikoff, years ago, was asked to cut his version to 5 minutes), it destroy's the whole purpose of the book...

"The whole purpose of the book" was not Galt's speech. Getting around that speech, making it work in a movie, is a matter of creative endeavor. Merely making it shorter doesn't do that. The speech works in the novel although it makes the story stop. The story cannot stop in a properly made movie. Does that mean no Galt's speech? Not necessarily. First, is the movie a series for television or the big screen? Etc. The TV version would more closely follow the novel as it would be less compressed. Before that decision is made the big money behind the movie--it needs big money--would properly commission a screenplay for each and compare them. This doesn't mean once the choice is made that another screenplay wouldn't be done.

As a movie is a visual medium AS would need a visual genius film maker. As far as I know, good God, only Oliver Stone (Natural Born Killers) would be up to the job in that respect. This is not someone you'd let anywhere near such a project. If I were personally up to it in all respects with complete control and the three movies had never been made, I would not make the movie. I now have way too many issues with what is actually an American-Russian hybrid cultural construct and Rand's idea of heroic perfection in a human being. With The Fountainhead you can go a little wild, for that's what Rand, unconstrained by Objectivism, did.

--Brant

[Wolf DeVoon]

... hopefully someone will produce a better film version of Atlas in the future.

No way.

The speech works in the novel although it makes the story stop. The story cannot stop in a properly made movie. Does that mean no Galt's speech? Not necessarily. First, is the movie a series for television or the big screen? Etc. The TV version would more closely follow the novel as it would be less compressed. Before that decision is made the big money behind the movie--it needs big money--would properly commission a screenplay for each and compare them. This doesn't mean once the choice is made that another screenplay wouldn't be done.

First, to reiterate, the movie property has been shredded. It won't be remade.

TV is a possibility -- especially a Univision or Telemundo soap opera, 80 or 90 episodes. No railroad. Talavera Aerolíneas Internacional, risky new Ricardo Metal jet engine design, Juan Gallo walks out of nationalized Energía Del Siglo 21, declares he will stop the power of the world. Aglialoro would have to give away the TV rights for peanuts, but they can adapt all 1100 pages word-for-word, dub it in Portuguese, German, Russian, Bahasa, Hindi, and Arabic. (MSK might get to do the score after all -- make it a deal point.)

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gak! Village Voice review is in... gonna tip the Tomatometer to zero

Atlas Shrugged: Who is John Galt? Has the Year's Funniest Sex Scene

Rand's parable is meant to showcase just how much our world needs the best of us, but this adaptation only does so accidentally — by revealing what movies would be like if none of the best of us worked on them... The movie's so slipshod and half-assed that I almost feel for Rand, whose ideas have proved enduring enough that they at least deserve a fair representation, if only for the sake of refutation.

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more bad news: The Razzies have Galt in their sights

[Jerry Biggers]

... hopefully someone will produce a better film version of Atlas in the future.

No way.

If they could spend the big bucks on The:Lord of the Rings trllogy (although the result disappointed Tolkien devotees), it should have been possible for somebody with deep pockets to do the movie(s). However, I have said before, Atlas Shrugged's length and required long lectures makes it nearly impossible to pull it off. Most moviegoers are not going to sit for the 60 minutes length, Galt's Speech. And when it was cut down (Kelley says his version is 4 and a half minutes and Peikoff, years ago, was asked to cut his version to 5 minutes), it destroy's the whole purpose of the book...

"The whole purpose of the book" was not Galt's speech. Getting around that speech, making it work in a movie, is a matter of creative endeavor. Merely making it shorter doesn't do that. The speech works in the novel although it makes the story stop. The story cannot stop in a properly made movie. Does that mean no Galt's speech? Not necessarily. First, is the movie a series for television or the big screen? Etc. The TV version would more closely follow the novel as it would be less compressed. Before that decision is made the big money behind the movie--it needs big money--would properly commission a screenplay for each and compare them. This doesn't mean once the choice is made that another screenplay wouldn't be done.

As a movie is a visual medium AS would need a visual genius film maker. As far as I know, good God, only Oliver Stone (Natural Born Killers) would be up to the job in that respect. This is not someone you'd let anywhere near such a project. If I were personally up to it in all respects with complete control and the three movies had never been made, I would not make the movie. I now have way too many issues with what is actually an American-Russian hybrid cultural construct and Rand's idea of heroic perfection in a human being. With The Fountainhead you can go a little wild, for that's what Rand, unconstrained by Objectivism, did.

--Brant

Brant,

"The whole purpose of the book" was not Galt's speech."

Yes, it was.

If you (or anyone else that wants to live dangerously) suggested in person to Rand (although I would suggest asking it from a few states away), that "Galt's Speech is too long, and for sales purposes, why don't you cut it out, or summarize it down to a few sentences?" You would get the kind of response that I witnessed in another context:

Having seen Rand, en vivo, at NBI, react to aomeone asking an innocent question, regarding her opinion of William F. Buckley's NYC mayoral candidacy.... First, imagine Vesuvius exploding, and then, in a withering voice, "Do NOT mention the name of that despicable creature in my presence! "(collective gasp from the audience). In a lower voice, "I know that you did not mean to be insulting, but ask someone here later why you were!"

Seriously, A.S. could not work even if adapted to a mini-series, or even a whole season of hour-long episodes. As soon as they finally got to present the speeches (especially, the speech), the Neilson ratings would drop through the floor.

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Brant,

"The whole purpose of the book" was not Galt's speech."

Yes, it was.

Jerry,

I would check that premise if I were you.

From the opening paragraph of "The Goal of My Writing" in The Romantic Manifesto:

The motive and purpose of my writing is the projection of an ideal man. The portrayal of a moral ideal, as my ultimate literary goal, as an end in itself--to which any didactic, intellectual or philosophical values contained in a novel are only the means.

Not trying to play gotcha.

I believe this is too important to get wrong for the sake of the reader.

Michael

[Wolf DeVoon]

Seriously, A.S. could not work even if adapted to a mini-series, or even a whole season of hour-long episodes. As soon as they finally got to present the speeches (especially, the speech), the Neilson ratings would drop through the floor.

I agree with MSK's post above, but want to add: If I shot the speech, it would be the most riveting episode of the series.

No brag, just fact.

[Jonathan]

That scene from the novel was highly irrational, ...

J

What aspect was irrational J?

My take was why the hell was there any conversation, the guard should have been killed instantly.

A...

I agree that there should have been no conversation. Rand's little morality lesson via the conversation is a failure because it makes the guard unknowingly responsible for his employers' behavior, it ignores the reality of his context, and puts him in an impossible situation.

As I wrote here:

I just reread the scene in which Dagny confronts the guard, and I don't see her as trying to give him a chance to get out of the way. It would be unrealistic to think that she would've let the guard live if he had suddenly chosen to let her to pass after she drew her gun and refused to allow him to contact his superiors. Obviously she would have had to worry about him warning others. She would have had to kill him regardless of what he decided (or didn't decide). So the scene comes across as Dagny wasting time tormenting the guard with a stupid morality lesson after her bluff of posing as a superior had obviously failed. Messing with his mind seems to be a higher priority than saving Galt, so the whole situation is just way too cold for the behavior of someone who's supposed to be a good person who is heroically trying to save someone she cares about.

The thing that makes it most uncomfortable to me is that there is nothing to indicate that the guard "wanted to exist without the responsibility of consciousness," as Rand tells us in her role as narrator. Guards are trained to obey orders and to follow procedures -- that's their job -- while trying to be respectful and somewhat accommodating of superiors and VIPs. The guard was absolutely correct in saying, "I'm only obeying orders! It's not up to me!" and "I'm not ~supposed~ to decide!" and in insisting (twice) on referring the matter of conflicting orders to his "chief."

Also, I think we can safely assume that the guard would have had no knowledge of what his superiors were doing behind closed doors, so it's not as if Dagny could reasonably assume that he was guilty of anything, or that he knew that he was protecting others who were guilty of something. In that context, it could even be said that Dagny was initiating a threat of physical force against him, and knowingly placing him in an impossible situation. Her lack of remorse about killing him therefore comes across as very anti-heroic.

And here:

But it's not as though Rand created a situation in which the guard was confronted with a realistic dilemma, or even a coherent one. He wasn't given a choice between good and evil. He had no idea why Dagny was there pointing a gun at him and demanding that he make a decision which, from his perspective, would have been irrelevant (since he had to assume that she was likely to kill him no matter what he did).

Apparently Rand felt that her readers would assume that the guard was in the same category of evil or wearisome characters whom she describes throughout the novel with similar language, or in whose mouths she puts similar words. The problem is that she doesn't show us -- or Dagny -- anything to indicate that the guard was anything but a man who was properly doing his job. He wasn't engaging in any evil actions or evading responsibility. In fact he was trying to be responsible, and even quite logical and reasonable, by attempting to resolve the conflict by following the typical procedure of accommodating a VIP by contacting "the chief."

For Dagny to judge the guard as sub-human because he says things that others, who are not guards, have said elsewhere in the novel ("it's not up to me" etc.) is actually kind of collectivistic. She judges him not based on his own actions and context, but on the general attitude of the society around her. She ignores the fact that the decisions are indeed not up to the guard. She might as well have demanded that Eddie Willers fire Jim Taggart, and then judge Eddie as sub-human scum when he, like others in the novel, says "That's not up to me, I'm just a little guy, I don't have that authority," ignoring that Eddie actually doesn't have the authority.

The entire scene is about Dagny intimidating and threatening the guard, and then judging him as sub-human because he doesn't think for himself when being bullied and having a gun pointed in his face. "I order you to think for yourself, or I'll kill you! But you can only choose from the options that I've given you. Hurry up! Why aren't you thinking for yourself? You're despicable. You're less than an animal!" Blam!

As the scene is written, Dagny made the guard her victim and then held him in contempt because he behaved like a victim.

And here:

Hypothetical:

You're a corporal under the command of General Casey. He has ordered you to guard a gate and to allow no one to enter. While you're at your post, Bill Gates (or some other famous business person) suddenly shows up and tells you that he's been asked by the President of the United States, your commander in chief, to enter the facility that you're guarding. He has no written proof of his claims.

You politely tell him that your orders are to allow no one to enter. He begins to get upset, and asks if you know who he is. He reminds you of how important he is and tells you that he is there on a vital matter of national security, that time is short, and that you'd better let him in right fucking now if you know what's good for you.

What should you -- a good Objectivist who thinks for him or herself, properly questions authority, has strong convictions about good and evil, and takes responsibility for your own consciousness -- do? Since trying to contact your immediate superior is apparently something that an independent thinker shouldn't do, even when employed as a guard who is supposed to contact his superiors in such a situation, which actions can you take to demonstrate your Objectivist moral and intellectual purity? Might you quiz Gates on his philosophical views to see if he is worthy of entering the facility against the orders of General Casey? Might you try to arrange a three-way philosophical debate between Gates, General Casey and the President to see whose orders you'd prefer to obey (or perhaps "obey" is the wrong word to use among Objectivists, maybe I should say "whose orders you independently find to be 'agreeable suggestions'")? Or should you quit on the spot, abandon your post, and go home?

Seriously. I'd like to know what a good Objectivist guard should do when faced with what appears to be conflicting orders. Or is the correct answer "None of the above: a good Objectivist would never take a job in which he or she is not in charge of all decisions at all times; Objectivists should only be bosses and not employees"?

And here:

Can you point to the part in the book where it is revealed that the guard knows that John Galt is being held at the facility, and the part where Dagny discovers that the guard knows? The guard would have to know that he's being asked to make up his mind about John Galt in order to make up his mind about John Galt.

J

[Jonathan]

Seriously, A.S. could not work even if adapted to a mini-series, or even a whole season of hour-long episodes. As soon as they finally got to present the speeches (especially, the speech), the Neilson ratings would drop through the floor.

I agree with MSK's post above, but want to add: If I shot the speech, it would be the most riveting episode of the series.

No brag, just fact.

So, you've got lots of expertise with movie-making?

J

[Selene]

That scene from the novel was highly irrational, ...

J

What aspect was irrational J?

My take was why the hell was there any conversation, the guard should have been killed instantly.

A...

I agree that there should have been no conversation. Rand's little morality lesson via the conversation is a failure because it makes the guard unknowingly responsible for his employers' behavior, it ignores the reality of his context, and puts him in an impossible situation.

Agreed.

That was an interesting exchange with Barbara.

I certainly can see the "bias" she had in only denying the "I was only following orders" "defense"

which was eviscerated with the precedents established in the Nuremberg trials.

By the way, Judgment at Nuremberg is a fine film.

Another technical issue is the use of a hand gun with a silencer. Please, the guard would have been

taken out by a rifle with a silencer and flash suppressor. Hell a crossbow just for style would have

worked.

Her unfamiliarity with weapons leads to bad fiction and dead range instructors at the hands of a nine

(9) year old girl.

She investigated architecture with the Fountainhead, studied railroads and actually "drove" the train.

I am virtually certain she had no knowledge of weapons and never fired a rifle or handgun.

A...

[Brant Gaede]

Just for the record, Rand's not getting a fair shake here with these analyses. AS is not a realistic novel. Be careful with realistic criticism. It doesn't match up. On its own terms the scene was poorly written. Rand had it in with guards. She escaped from the USSR, but Kira did not. Kira was shot by a border guard. Dagny redresses that balance by shooting another guard. The scene should have been written without any of that palaver and the guard should merely have submitted and been tied up and gagged. After all, Ayn, American guards are better than Russian guards!

--Brant

[Brant Gaede]

No, the guard should not have been killed. It would have violated the style of the novel which did not embrace looking at reality that way. A real operation to free Galt and all the guards would have been killed. ALL OF THEM!

--Brant

[Selene]

No, the guard should not have been killed. It would have violated the style of the novel which did not embrace looking at reality that way. A real operation to free Galt and all the guards would have been killed. ALL OF THEM!

--Brant

Agreed.

I am certainly not being "critical" of Ayn in the pejorative use of the word.

Constructive criticism is always fair as long as the criticism is fair.

When I first read the novel, Dagny could have walked up to him naked to distract him and Ragnar could

have knocked him out from behind and I would have zipped through that scene to find out if John was

alright and that my favorite character Ragnar did not get killed rescuing him.

One premise of Atlas was risking your life for your highest value which holds true today as it did

then.

However, I was not sure it was going to be a Fountainhead ending, or, a We the Living ending...

A...

[Jerry Biggers]

Brant,

"The whole purpose of the book" was not Galt's speech."

Yes, it was.

Jerry,

I would check that premise if I were you.

From the opening paragraph of "The Goal of My Writing" in The Romantic Manifesto:

The motive and purpose of my writing is the projection of an ideal man. The portrayal of a moral ideal, as my ultimate literary goal, as an end in itself--to which any didactic, intellectual or philosophical values contained in a novel are only the means.

Not trying to play gotcha.

I believe this is too important to get wrong for the sake of the reader.

Michael

Yes, I know that, in some instances, she has insisted that she was a novelist first, and philosophy was merely a means. But I do not find her protest as being believable. .Everything (except for an unfinished novel) that she wrote after Atlas was published, was for promoting her philosophy and its personal, political,aand economic implications.

I can't think of another novelist, including several philosophers who were novelists, that injected such long and detailed philosophical passages into their novels. At least, nowhere's near what she did. As time passed, her novels became more conveyances or illustrations of her philosophy (see the comparative excerpts in her For The New Intellectual)...

As I suggested, after seeing her in action, I believe any suggestion ("live," such as at her public lectures) to her to drop or condense the philosophical speeches in Atlas Shrugged. .would have met her most indignant protests.

And note the reverse is not true, (with one exception, the short story included as an appendix to The Romantic Manifesto), in her collections of nonfiction essays (VOS, CUI), she apparently saw no need to illustrate with novelistic narratives.

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

I can't think of another novelist, including several philosophers who were novelists, that injected such long and detailed philosophical passages into their novels.

Jerry,

Dostoevsky and Thomas Mann immediately come to mind.

If I dig, I can probably come up with a crap-load of authors.

When Rand's enemies hurl this charge of long speeches at her, they would also be the first to snigger at a student who objected to the speeches in the authors above. (I wish I could claim credit for coming up with this last phrase, but I got it from Ron Merrill.)

Michael

[Francisco Ferrer]

I've read two novels by Mann and a half dozen by Dostoevsky and did not encounter a 56-page philosophical treatise in the middle of the narrative. I believe Atlas is unique in that respect.

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

FF,

Who said anything about the number of pages?

Go past 3 or 4 pages and you have a speech.

Mann has plenty. And try Brothers Karamazov before denying this exists. Maybe you didn't read that one?

Granted, neither presented any long treatises on Objectivism.

Michael

[Jonathan]

And check out the 900-some pages of digressions in Les Miserables.

J

[Derek McGowan]

Actually the speech is three hours long : )

[Derek McGowan]

Or is the correct answer "None of the above: a good Objectivist would never take a job in which he or she is not in charge of all decisions at all times; Objectivists should only be bosses and not employees"?

Thats funny

I thought what was messed up about it is that it seemed that Dagny suddenly had the power to say who deserves to live based on whether they agreed with her way of thinking or not

[Wolf DeVoon]

If I dig, I can probably come up with a crap-load of authors....

long speeches in movies -- Compulsion, Patton, Mr. Smith Goes To Washington, Swimming To Cambodia, JFK.

[Jonathan]

Or is the correct answer "None of the above: a good Objectivist would never take a job in which he or she is not in charge of all decisions at all times; Objectivists should only be bosses and not employees"?

Thats funny

I thought what was messed up about it is that it seemed that Dagny suddenly had the power to say who deserves to live based on whether they agreed with her way of thinking or not

Yeah, and exercising that power suddenly became more important to her than rescuing Galt. She stood there burning up precious time picking on the guard and ordering him to think for himself while not allowing him to think for himself.

J

[Jerry Biggers]

And check out the 900-some pages of digressions in Les Miserables.

J

O.K. I don't recall the speeches from these other novelists.....I guess they did't make it into the Classics Illustrated comicbook "condensations"!

Seriously, I can't match your knowledge of fiction. Still,, I don't think that they had nearly as much "philosophical lectures" as Rand did.

[Jonathan]

And check out the 900-some pages of digressions in Les Miserables.

J

O.K. I don't recall the speeches from these other novelists.....I guess they did't make it into the Classics Illustrated comicbook "condensations"!

Seriously, I can't match your knowledge of fiction. Srill,, I don't think that they had nearly as much "philosophical lectures" as Rand did.

I don't disagree with your general point. Other novelists have strayed from their stories, or interrupted them with speeches or history lessons, but, personally, I agree that Rand takes the cake.

J

[9thdoctor]

I can't think of another novelist, including several philosophers who were novelists, that injected such long and detailed philosophical passages into their novels.

Jerry,

Dostoevsky and Thomas Mann immediately come to mind.

Probably the best example is Molly Bloom's soliloquy at the end of Joyce's Ulysses. It runs 2 hours and 20 minutes in the audiobook I have. It's not exactly a philosophical lecture of course, but it presents a great challenge to a film maker. There have been 2 movie versions of Ulysses, and the 2nd one, called Bloom, which is the one I'd recommend if you haven't read the book, intercuts parts of the soliloquy into the body of the film, then she takes over at the end. It actually starts with her, then it moves off to the familiar "stately plump Buck Mulligan" opening scene of the novel.

Maybe that would have worked for Atlas Shrugged, though it would have taken a master screenwriter to pull it off.

Actually neither version is all that good, but they blow away Atlas, sorry to say. Even the best of it, which was Part II, IMO.