The Fountainhead

Buy This Item The Fountainhead by MGM (Warner)  Available from Amazon  $19.98  on 11-28-2008     Exhibiting a darker edge to his hero persona, the strapping Gary Cooper has the (Frank Lloyd) Wright stuff as architect Harold Roark, a "fool visionary" who refuses to conform his artistic ideas to popular taste. His inflexibility makes enemies out of a tabloid architecture critic and a tycoon (Raymond Massey), who proclaims, "All men can be bought there are no men of integrity." Keating (Kent Smith), a former classmate, urges Roark to take "the middle of the road so it's sure to please everybody." But Roark will not compromise, and when one of his building designs is radically altered without his consent, he resorts to drastic measures. Adapted for the screen by Ayn Rand from her towering and controversial bestseller, <I>The Fountainhead</I> is about as subtle as that phallic drill Roark wields so impressively, which catches the frenzied eye of the formidable Dominique Francon (Patricia Neal in her film debut). She recognizes Roark's nobility, but fears he has no chance "in a world where beauty, genius and greatness have no chance." Rand did little to dilute her polemics for the screen, resulting in melodramatic scenes that border on high camp, such as Roark and Francon's rather sexually charged discussion about limestone. Rand practiced what she preached. According to a bonus featurette about the making of the film, she refused to trim Roark's then-unprecedented six-minute courtroom speech in which he defends his actions. Even for those who don't adhere to her philosophy, <I>The Fountainhead</I> does offer something rarely seen on screens these days, a man of unshakable principles. And Hollywood could sure note Rand's object lesson about the perils of mediocrity and catering to "the mob." For Cooper fans, <I>The Fountainhead</I> is an essential addition to your DVD library. <I>--Donald Liebenson</I> Reader Reviews I had never heard of Ayn Rand before last summer. Somehow she had slipped through. Upon recommendation I read "The Fountainhead" while traveling. Now home, I watched the 1949 film adaptation last night. I have admittedly never read anything else by Rand. But with "The Fountainhead", both as a novel and as a film, I have a very conflicted relationship. I will refer to both the novel and the movie as basically being one in the same. The film for me, and I suppose this is a criticism, was basically a recap of the book. The novel is written in such a way that from the start it reminded me of a Hollywood studio picture, and as the film proves the jump from the page to the screen was not a long one. Sure the film cuts out a good half of the material in the novel, but that which remains stays true to Rand's general style and her ideas are put across with no loss in complexity or meaning. That too was a criticism. And with the film, just as with the novel, I had the same conflicting urge to both marvel at its bravado and, at the same time, to throw the whole thing out the window. Ayn Rand is a terrible writer. And the filmmakers behind this movie were no masters themselves. I found it amusing that "The Fountainhead", a story about restless individualism and groundbreaking originality, should be made by a group of such un-notable studio yes-men. I also found it appropriate. Ayn Rand, as a writer of fiction, did not seem to have an original bone in her body, and neither do these filmmakers. It is a 1940s studio film of only the most standard quality. Sure it may have been a bit more ruggedly sexual and pseudo intellectual then its contemporaries, but in regards to both content and especially form the movie is distinctively average. The camera does nothing of note, and neither do the actors really, then again Rand's characters are so astoundingly static and one-dimensional, in both novel and film, that it would have been a near Howard Roarkian feat to bring any life to them. The only actor I thought particularly well suited for his role was Gary Cooper who was finally given a character as bland as his own style of acting. I'm sure there are lots of diehard Cooper fans out there. I am not one of them. But if we are to praise a film for accurate adaptation then there are certainly triumphs to be had. The film is as pedantic and clichéd as the novel. The characters are as insultingly unrealistic as they are in the novel (Roark, D. Francon) and given just as little chance for redemption if flawed (Keating, Wynand). And Ayn Rand's philosophy of objectivism is both as intriguing and at the same time annoyingly frustrating as it is in the novel. So now that I've had a bit of a rant about how, in terms of form, just how bad "The Fountainhead" is, let me now address my conflicted relationship with its content. As bad as "The Fountainhead" is both as a film and a novel, I would say that few things I have either read or seen in recent history have had a greater impact on me or have stuck with me as persistently as this work. This is a compliment. Ayn Rand may have been on to something. Her views on originality and self-determinism do hold merit with me and I have often found myself thinking of Howard Roark when trying to find direction in my own life or when attempting to figure out what to do next. I like her description of selfishness, I think her views on genius and individuality are often healthy and inspiring. Unfortunately I also think that they are often the cause of most of the world's troubles, namely wars and industrialism. George W. Bush possesses perhaps a little too much of the Roarkian spirit. Her views are also often unfortunately simplistic and occasionally near infantile. Most people are not geniuses. Most people are unsure of what they want out of life. Most people, geniuses included I feel, have doubts, fears, pressures, insecurities, and, yes, even an unfortunate consideration of what other people think of them. This is healthy. It is part of being human. It is also an essential ingredient of great art. Ayn Rand believes that we should have an ideal to strive for, and that with Roark she has provided one, but she has made it so dogmatic, so beyond the grasp of any real person, that I fear little more then disappointment and loneliness would lie in wait for anyone who dared to reach for it. Her biggest failure to me as a writer is her apparent blindness to the ways society and humans as individuals actually behave and operate and her insistence on presenting her readers and viewers with her own completely unrealistic and climate controlled universe, the only universe where an actual rendering of her ideals would be possible. Maybe I am just one of the `second handers' or `parasites' she so flippantly condemns and therefore cannot see the heights to which man can aspire, but, if so, I feel that I am not alone, that in fact there may be no alternative. The ultimate frustration for me, and the proof of the unrealistic heights of her ideals, is again the poor quality of the work. She insisted, in a Roarkian manner, that no changes be made to her script for the film. She obviously felt that, like Roark's buildings, her ideas were her own, most likely brilliant and groundbreaking, and that no opinion or touch of the public should be thrust upon them. Good for her. That's all well and good, and maybe her example should be followed, but I find it ironic and disheartening that a writer so in praise of originality, so quick to triumph that which paves new ground for humanity, should present her ideas in such a pedantic and uninspired manner. Either Ayn Rand was a failure from the start or we now live in a world, some seventy years later, so oversaturated with every possible form and manner of `artistic expression' that originality is no longer possible. I have trouble believing this and instead feel that Ayn Rand is a hack, not because she is so original and so beyond my grasp that I, like Roark's public, cannot come to terms with her brilliance but because she, as a writer, cannot come to terms with everything that surrounds her little self-made, ideal bubble. The world and the people that inhabit it are not that bad. Concepts of community and society, as groups of people, are not inherently negative. Perhaps Ayn Rand could not see that. "The Fountainhead" is a second-rate adaptation of a second-rate novel by a second-rate writer/intellectual who had the basic notions of some possibly first-rate ideals, ideals she herself proved to be unobtainable. I have, so far, a very conflicted and ever evolving relationship with Ayn Rand.

The Fountainhead Available from Amazon Price: $19.98 Updated on 11-28-2008.

SPONSORED LINKS