Atlas Shrugged, The Movie Part One

Currently, there is a movie out of which most folks are unaware, Atlas Shrugged, The Movie Part One. One has to look real hard online, in the papers and in town theatres for any mention of it.

After some furious digging around, I found it in a jerkwater theatre on the outskirts of Denver a couple of weeks ago. You see, it's as if the powers of Hollywood and its conspiring distributors, did not want this movie to see the dark of a theatre and the light of the media. They would have been happier if it never survived the cutting room floor. Why? Because the liberal biased moviemakers don't like the movie's message of capitalism is good, making money is our right and the unbridled powers of government makes those two noble goals counter-intuitive, difficult and in some cases damn near impossible. They fear that the content of the movie may make people think differently, that is, differently from Hollywood's version of reality. That's the threat to H'wood. Hollywood infers making money is only right if you do it under their script, direction, production and distribution. Sounds like the "Department of Cultural Enforcement" at work here.

As you know, the movie is based on Ayn Rand's timeless masterpiece, Atlas Shrugged. Written in 1957, Atlas Shrugged is a 1000 page fictional tome brilliantly written with a complex message that an over-reaching and intrusive government in and of itself will destroy the ambition of the individual. Government versus the individual. The taker versus the maker. A classic battle. Rand posits, rather exhaustively, to the reader, whose side are you on? It's worth the self-examination.

The book and movie heroine, Dagney Taggert, and the quintessential disaffected capitalist/oilman, Ellis Wyatt, both pictured above, are the protagonists in this drama. Dagney and Ellis along with Hank Reardon, the other "disgusting capitalist", subscribes to the philosophy that, "I will gamble with my own mind. I won't let anybody else do it...and the most depraved man is a man without a purpose."

While the governmental fictional antagonists, The Departments of "Equalization of Opportunity", "State Science Institute", "Ministry of Welfare", "Moral Conditioning", "Unification Board", "Public Stability", "Economic Planning and National Resources", promotes the notion that, "All thought is theft. If we do away with private fortunes, we'll have a fairer distribution of wealth. If we do away with the genius, we'll have a fairer distribution of ideas." Thus, initiating a governmental fiat, "the government needs wider powers" to help the people.

After watching the movie, I thought as I always do about books made into movies...the book was better. Seriously, how do you make a movie from such an epochal novel? A movie morphed from a classic book by nature is silly and a cheap imposter of true genius.

Would I recommend the movie? Not really. It won't be up for any Oscars. So, save your money and go buy the book at a paperback discount at Costco (yes, they carry it now). Set aside a week in some cultural wasteland without distraction and read it. It will take quiet thoughtful time. It will do one of three things for sure: inflame you, change you or confirm you.

Who is John Galt?