The Fountainhead Movie

[Backlighting]

I never really liked the movie. For me, Gary Cooper seemed almost robot-like with the dialogue, like he was reading the script from a teleprompter. No emotion. More like a monotone recital of his lines.

Perhaps some day it will be re-done, but until then I prefer reading the book.

[Chris Grieb]

Reading the book is probably always better. There a richness that film can't show.

[Brant Gaede]

I never really liked the movie. For me, Gary Cooper seemed almost robot-like with the dialogue, like he was reading the script from a teleprompter. No emotion. More like a monotone recital of his lines.

Perhaps some day it will be re-done, but until then I prefer reading the book.

Who doesn't? Look, the movie made The Fountainhead a best seller again. And consider what WAS SAID in that movie delivered into what was the cultural wasteland of the late 1940s. It's NOT one or the other! They were both The Fountainhead! You can make ten criticisms of the movie to one or two of the novel--yes, the novel!--does that mean we denigrate the novel because, for instance, Howard got laid for the first time too late into it? If Rand had had more time for the writing he would have gotten laid sooner! Would you have enjoyed the perfect novel more? There is no such thing! It's unwritten! And there is no such thing as the perfect life! How boring that would be! The real question is do you regret that The Fountainhead was made into a movie at all? If No! then tell us what you enjoyed about it--what was the value you found there.

--Brant

[Selene]

Good points Chris.

Just to throw my "2 cents" in, "The Medium is the Message", in certain respects, this is a critical observation that does matter.

When you read, you are employing a sequencial "Guttenburg" input of information into your perceptions. It is a "hot" medium, as posited by Marshall McLuen of McGill University.

It is the critical difference between listening to a radio broadcast of a baseball game, for example, and watching it on television.

The radio broadcast fills one sense completely and directs the mind to "imagine".

Powerful medium. One of the major reasons why the AM talk show business paradigm succeeded so well. It is "hot" and it involves the mind at a different level than television.

Television is defined by McLuen as a "cool" medium.

Film as it was in the media environment of the Fountainhead and because of the fact that people went into an environment that involved a large degree of voluntary sensory deprivation is not simple to define. It is certainly "hot", but the engagement of the visual and aural sections is somewhat unique.

Additionally, the manner in which the "picture" moves across a movie screen of that era is quite unique and distinct from the way the "television" picture is perceived by the mind.

Television is believed to be "tactile".

Finally, I agree with you Chris. I would much rather look forward to a good attempt at the movie than nothing.

I saw the Fountainhead in the mid-fifties and did not read either the Fountainhead of Altas for two or three years, but the film electrified me.

It spoke to what I knew to be right for me as an individual.

Thankfully, my parents emphasized critical thinking as a life path. Moreover, I did not have the imposition of religion as the only way to think.

Mote than likely because my father was formally excommunicated by the Catholic church in the thirties for refusing to renounce Masonism.

Adam

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Las Vegas,

Here is a thought experiment for you and hopefully it will allow you to get more pleasure out of the movie.

King Vidor (the director) was a very accomplished silent film director. The Fountainhead (movie) reflects this in so many ways that it is fascinating to observe. Instead of watching the movie thinking about what you see nowadays all around you—with all the special effects and naturalistic acting—or what would have happened if, say, Spielberg made it, try to envision Vidor's form as a transition from silent films to talkies—as a separate category.

From that perspective, The Fountainhead is a magnificent movie. And it's not hard to get your head there if you approach it right.

Michael

[Adrian]

For me, Gary Cooper seemed almost robot-like with the dialogue, like he was reading the script from a teleprompter. No emotion. More like a monotone recital of his lines.

Cooper does indeed come across as rather markedly self-controlled and undemonstrative (except when he wants to be). But isn't that in keeping with Roark's character?

Edited March 7, 2008 by Adrian

[Greybird]

[...] try to envision Vidor's form as a transition from silent films to talkies — as a separate category.

A pithy and direct framing of it, methinks. Seeing this doesn't have to involve just a "thought experiment," either. Do as I've recommended here before: Watch the tape or disc, once, with the sound turned off.

What would be better yet is an alternate audio track, with just Max Steiner's magnificent and perceptive score. (And cutting-edge, certainly for the time. Listen to what he uses when Dominique finds Roark in the quarry.) Such a track would make it seem as if a late-'20s big-city-theater orchestra were accompanying a silent film.

That may not be feasible now, sixty years after the film was made, but a few astute filmmakers are including such score-only tracks. (Such as Thomas Newman's effusive and searching score for "Little Women" in 1994.)