Janine and I saw Atlas Shrugged Part I last night with my parents. It was faithful to the book. My mother noted that it was much easier to watch the movie than to read the book. I read the book about thirty years ago. It took me three days to get through the complete 1100 pages. (I even read John Galt's speech.)
While the story was written back in 1957, it eerily echoes things happening today. Ayn Rand was born in Russia in 1905 and in 1925 she escaped the communist environment to the United States. Having experienced first hand the perils of government control and intervention of the economy she was very hostile to attempts to justify increased government in the United States.
Atlas Shrugged was her last novel and tells the story of a struggle in society between those who produce and those who demand others provide for them, because of their "need." If you would like to read more about the book you can check out the Wikipedia entry. You can read the first paragraph from the Ayn Rand Institute.
The movie is about an hour and a half. I liked it. It was very professional. Some critics tried to claim it was less than theater quality, but I disagree. The actors were great, and the villains made me squirm. The one thing I would have liked taken out was the 30 second bedroom scence.
I recommend the movie.
If you haven't already seen the trailer, here it is:
2 comments:
I did not know this movie came out. Thanks for the post.
My guess is that the people giving bogus arguments for costly value transfers in real life simply don't intuitively engage with abstractions, and thus don't intuitively believe the world to changeable, or really, even to exist apart from their life experiences.
The name "Objectivism" is apt, as it is criticizing people who don't believe in a real world outside of their sight that their phrases reference, but only in the people they currently see and in rituals by which they act to protect and expand what they see as their interests.
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