Atlas Shrugged ~ Pt. 1 (movie) & Ayn Rand

We were in our local stationery/book/video store the other day to buy a birthday card. About to leave, I spotted, on the "Best Rental" DVD shelf "Atlas Shrugged. Part 1". I've been curious about Ayn Rand's supposed tour de force for a long time, yet too lazy to read the 1000+ page book. Outcome: we watched the DVD that evening, so as to get the DVD back in time for a discount. The movie was certainly not worth the full rental price, we have no wish to give it a second airing.

Having made those disparaging remarks however, I didn't find the movie nearly as bad as some critics whose reviews I read after watching it.

My husband felt it'd have been better produced as a TV mini-series. I agree. He still didn't like the film though. I didn't exactly enjoy it, but was curious about Atlas Shrugged and remain so.

Part 1 takes us only part-way into the plot. It appears that parts 2 and 3 are not due out until 2012 and 2013 (if the producers still have the stomach for it after so many bad reviews), by which time we'll have forgotten all about it. That being said, and the author's politics apart, it was a mediochre, slow, and slightly weird offering rather than a totally worthless one, I'd say.

I was interested to see Ayn Rand's, for me highly objectionable, political views translated novel-wise. One oddity I spotted immediately: it was set in 2016, but everything still looked like the 1950s. Background is a dystopian USA. Air travel is almost non-existent (the reason was a bit obscure, possibly lack of oil - or maybe I just didn't catch the relevant dialogue). Trains are the preferred method of travel. Rail lines are worn out though, and iron ore is becoming a scarce commodity, making replacement of rails difficult. An enterprising manufacturer has invented a strong type of metal to use for rails and bridges which needs less, if any, iron ore. This is the focus of part 1 of the storyline. Oh yes - there's the discovery, in an abandoned factory, of a very special kind of motor which seems to violate most known laws of physics. I'm not sure where that part of the plot is likely to go in part 2.

The government appears to be attempting a mild form of socialism: restricting business owners to a single business enterprise, for instance; and trying to bring about some semblance of fairness generally. But as one reviewer put it, the action takes place in, to 21st century viewers "an unrecognisable twilight zone", labelled 2016, but with no high tech, no evidence of computers and all the trappings with which we have become so familiar. The feel of the film is a little weird throughout because of this anomaly.

Ayn Rand's philosophy was along the lines of allowing personal excellence and unrestrained industrial productivity, endorsing selfishness and the right of the successful few to hold sway over "the Great Unwashed". A form of 20th century feudalism, in fact.....or, put another way, as it often was in Britian in the
'50s: "Im alright Jack, bugger the rest of 'em!"

On a superficial level, I thought Taylor Schilling (the blonde at centre in the photograph), playing the lead part of Dagny Taggart, a "strong woman" and entrepreneurial whizz, seemed a tad too young, fragile and glamorous for the content of the part, though she turned in a decent enough performance, just didn't look right. It's only a story, I kept telling myself : poetic licence. For a toughie such as Dagny I'd envision someone more like a right-wing version of Susan Sarandon.

There's no humour in evidence. None. Even in hard times, with a dystopian background, surely someone would have cracked the odd joke or seen the funny side of something?



Adding to the "twilight zone" feel of the tale is a constant mention of one John Galt, who we can only surmise is a guy who occupies himself in spiriting away all the best and brightest of business people, financiers, inventors and suchlike - putting them on a kind of "strike" footing. No doubt he aims to show the Great Unwashed how far they'll get with la crème de la crème out of the picture (I guess that's what's going on).

I'd watch part 2 and part 3 if the DVDs were available now, but fear my interest will have waned by the time they appear.

The best advice about the novel Atlas Shrugged I came across in my searches was that it'd be best to read it in tandem with The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists, by Robert Tressell, a novel portraying the other side of the coin. Balance is everything - in all things!

The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists tells the story of a group of working men who are joined one day by Owen, a journeyman-prophet with a vision of a just society. Owen's spirited attacks on the greed and dishonesty of the capitalist system rouse his fellow men from their political quietism. The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists is both a masterpiece of wit and political passion and one of the most authentic novels of English working class life ever written. (See here)

Tressell's cast of hypocritical Christians, exploitative capitalists and corrupt councillors provide a backdrop for his main target — the workers who think that a better life is "not for the likes of them".

ASTROLOGY ~~~
I've muttered about Ayn Rand's astrology before in these posts. Once in comparing some politicos all born with Sun in Aquarius, then on another occasion more generally about her and her chart. I'll copy a few relevant lines from my archived posts, along with her natal chart.



She was born in St. Petersburg, Russia on 2 February 1905. Astrodatabank gives a "C" rated birth time, probably rectified, not 100% to be trusted as accurate, but I've used it anyway. The rising sign may or may not be as shown, Moon's degree likewise, but Moon would have been in Capricorn whatever her time of birth.

Perhaps the best way to safely describe Aquarius Sun people is to say that many, or most have a inclination towards politics. My Pollyanna-ish idea, formed years ago, that Aquarius Sun people are always going to think as I do is wrong, wrong, wrong!

.... Aquarius has co-rulers: Saturn and Uranus. Saturn traditionally ruled the sign, before the discovery of Uranus. That these two planets stand for opposite ideas is significant. Saturn = conservative, status quo, authoritarianism, Uranus = forward thinking and change. Two other zodiac signs have co-rulers: Pisces has Jupiter/Neptune; Scorpio has Mars/Pluto. They do not suffer from the clash of opposites as does Aquarius....But some fundamental differences lie not in the stars but in education, environment, experience and family background. Sun sign is just one component in a natal chart, astrology is just one component in the structure of character and personality.

The astro-key to Rand's right-wing conservative/libertarian views is the placement of Saturn in Aquarius, with a secondary key being Moon in Capricorn (ruled by Saturn). Aquarius Sun people are often politically inclined, with a yen to "change the world" in one direction or t'other - direction being governed by the rest of their chart, and by their own life experiences.

There's an interesting piece by Cathy Young from 2005: Ayn Rand at 100.Penultimate paragraph of that piece kind of describes the conflicting traits of Aquarius/Saturn/Capricorn within Rand:

Rand herself was a creature of paradox. She was a prophet of freedom and individualism who tolerated no disobedience or independent thought in her acolytes, a rationalist who refused to debate her views. She was an atheist whose worship of Man led her to see the human mind as a godlike entity, impervious to the failings of the body or to environmental influences. (Nathaniel Branden reports that she even disliked the idea of evolution.) She was a strong woman who created independent heroines yet saw sexual submission as the essence of femininity and argued that no healthy woman would want to be president of the United States because it would put her above all men.