'Atlas Shrugged:' Is it really the movie Hollywood doesn't want you to see?

If you regularly watch Fox News, as I do, you've probably heard all about "Atlas Shrugged," the new movie version of the iconic Ayn Rand bestseller that opens in 300 theaters this Friday. (Yes, on tax filing day, which must surely be a sly Randian joke.) The party line at Fox is that "Atlas Shrugged," as host Sean Hannity put it, is the movie "liberal Hollywood doesn't want you to see." In fact, it's the movie's own marketing hook. If you do a Google search for the phrase "the movie Hollywood doesn't want you to see," the first thing you find is the film's Facebook page.

Of course, it would be more accurate to say that "Atlas Shrugged" is the film Hollywood didn't want to make, but that doesn't have quite the same forbidden fruit zing to it. As my colleague Rebecca Keegan has reported, the film was actually in development at Lionsgate, with Angelina Jolie attached to a script by heavyweight writer-director Randall Wallace. The project fell apart, though not because of any liberal plot. The film's financier, John Aglialoro, wanted a more faithful version of the book, which even many of its admirers will admit is something of an unlikely commercial property. Agliatoro eventually handed the filmmaking reins to "One Tree Hill" actor Paul Johansson, who had never directed a feature before.

So Aglialoro is essentially distributing the film himself. He's already had tastemaker screenings for such influential conservatives as Big Hollywood's Andrew Breitbart and House Speaker John Boehner. But will moviegoers flock to a film just because its backers say it's a film Hollywood liberals didn't want them to see? After all, didn't that scheme work pretty well for Mel Gibson's "The Passion of the Christ," which cast Gibson as an embattled outsider whose film had been turned down everywhere in la-la-liberal Hollywood?

Of course, to embrace that narrative, whether with "Passion of the Christ" or with "Atlas Shrugged," you'd have to be willing to conveniently forget that 20th Century Fox, one of the biggest studios in town, is owned by -- ahem -- conservative kingpin Rupert Murdoch.

With "Atlas Shrugged," you'd also have to ignore the reviews, not just from those pesky liberal critics who would never give Ayn Rand a fair shake, but from P.J. O'Rourke, perhaps the most distinctive conservative cultural critic of our time. Even though he's a die-hard fan of Rand, O'Rourke admits that the movie is a stinker. As he writes:  

"Atlas shrugged. And so did I. The movie version of Ayn Rand’s novel treats its source material with such formal, reverent ceremoniousness that the uninitiated will feel they’ve wandered without a guide into the midst of the elaborate and interminable rituals of some obscure exotic tribe. Meanwhile, members of that tribe of 'Atlas Shrugged' fans will be wondering why director Paul Johansson doesn’t knock it off with the incantations, sacraments and recitations of liturgy and cut to the human sacrifice. ... The movie’s acting is borrowed from 'Dallas,' although the absence of Larry Hagman’s skill at subtly underplaying villainous roles is to be regretted. Staging and action owe a debt to 'Dynasty' — except, on 'Dynasty,' there usually was action. ... In 'Atlas Shrugged' Rand set out to prove that self-interest is vital to mankind. This, of course, is the whole point of free-market classical liberalism and has been since Adam Smith invented free-market classical liberalism by proving the same point.  Therefore trying to make a movie of 'Atlas Shrugged' is like trying to make a movie of 'The Wealth of Nations.' But Adam Smith had the good sense to leave us with no plot, characters or melodramatic clashes of will so that we wouldn’t be tempted to try."

I think what P.J. is saying, in the nicest possible way, is that maybe the trashy Angelina Jolie version of the movie wouldn't have been so bad after all.

-- Patrick Goldstein

Photo: Paul Johansson at a HuffPost Comedy event at the Roxy Theater last February in West Hollywood. Credit: Angela Weiss / Getty Images

 

Comments

[cmarrou]

Who is John Galt?

No, I'm serious - in the movie, who is John Galt?

[AndreaU8]

An office building he designed had beautiful glass windows in the roof, but it leaked like crazy

- same with the Frank Lloyd Wright building in Bartlesville, OK.

[vegasgirl]

It's a book -- a highly influential one, at that. If it's a movie, great. I may just plunk down the change to see it, because I find the story line itself intriguing.
However, I am SO OVER the constant idealogical sniping over it, courtesy of the paranoid windbags at Fox, et al.
And by the same token, those with a progressive political viewpoint should withhold their opinion until they have seen it.
The film will have to succeed or fail on its own merits -- and after all, isn't that what conservatives preach (which is how it ought to be, acutally)?

[debi]

funny how people feel the need to negatively comment on something when they haven't even seen it yet- i for one can not wait and was thrilled to see that 'atlas shrugged' is playing down the road at the largest theater in boca raton, florida...i will be there opening day wearing my 'who is john galt?' hat!

[oldcats]

My favorite comment on Ayn Rand. From the misc section of villain supply:

Robotic Ayn Rand
Need advice about your latest megalomaniacal scheme? If only you could ask history's greatest megalomaniac, "novelist" and "philosopher" Ayn Rand. Too bad she's dead.


But wait! In 1963, a secret cabal of Objectivists intent on taking over the Student Union at MIT built the first robotic Ayn Rand, and now you can own a Randroid based on their original design.

Comes with stock phrases such as "Morality ends where the gun begins," "Pity for the guilty is treason to the innocent," and "Nathaniel! Bring me another gin and tonic!"


Software tends to be rather buggy. For instance, your Randroid may oppose immigration, yet be an immigrant herself. She may oppose infidelity, yet cheat on her husband. She may espouse individuality, yet believe that only those who follow her are individuals. She may oppose the control of individuals by organizations, yet laud corporate power. These bugs can not be repaired.

[Tony]

Having read Atlas Shrugged multiple times, it is quite obvious that many of the posters here have never read it.
My advice to those who are curious: Read (and Judge) it for yourself.
Who is more honest? ...those who try to prevent you from reading something, or those who invite you to read and judge it for yourself?

[ReedmanSJ]

Hollywood showed it's true colors at the Academy Awards. The biggest documentary of the year (WAITING FOR SUPERMAN) wasn't even part of the final group of nominees for Best Documentary. The Academy couldn't stomach a movie which showed unions in a bad light. ATLAS SHRUGGED (the novel) has more than enough plot and characters to be a good epic movie. It is not a subject that Hollywood likes, however. When the basic premise is that the government is incompetently bad, and individual initiative and responsibility is the most valuable thing in society, liberals are going to obviously gag. [BTW, the original title of the book was THE STRIKE, but in this case, the irony of the engineers going on strike instead of the production workers is lost on Hollywood.]

[MichaelRyerson]

Brief comment to the readers: comments openly critical of Ayn Rand are not being allowed on the blog. Let's see if you two have the guts to put that one up.

[James A. Bazinet]

I wonder if their going to keep in the bit about the workers striking in response AGAINST the government and that the management joins in. Last I heard, the conservatives don't like it when people, even if it is her "holiness" Ms. Rand, promote the right of the common man to exercise his/her right to stike.

[James A. Bazinet]

Whoops!

"they're", not "their"