In Atlas Shrugged, Ayn Rand explained the pig-headedness of stalwart progressives while recounting the history of the 21st Century Motor Company. It wasn’t that people were too stupid to see they were practicing shoot-yourself-in-the-foot economics; the problem was that each privately expected that he would be able to work less and get more if the fruits of everybody’s labors were pooled and redistributed equally.
Already, negative reviews for “Atlas Shrugged: Part I” abound. The film is criticized for having poor special effects, no big-name stars, etc. According to one review of which I only have second-hand knowledge, people were laughing, but at the wrong places. It is probable that those who thought people were laughing at the wrong places thought Dagny’s insolence toward the union boss was disrespectful and ignorant or that Hank should have supported more parasites than the hundreds that wanted his money to continually fund activities that made it more difficult for him to work at a profit.
Libertarians are asking whether or not the film will do any good. The film pretty much answers that itself. It shows how good people trying to keep their jobs are forced to be ambassadors of the sound bites their employers demand they propagate. Hank had invented the best steel in the world, but the institutions published reports saying it was bad because public opinion was against it. Public opinion, of course, was shaped by crony capitalists who weren’t smart or energetic enough to stay in business, so their bottom line relied on their lobbyists swinging special taxes and regulations on the guys who could.
The movie is a good condensation of Rand’s work. A lot of high-power slams against parasite mentality were retained or improved upon. The acting was good in all but a couple situations in which the thirty-something characters may well have been portrayed accurately with awkwardness. One negative comment about the movie might be the way the liquor flowed. I didn’t read the labels on the bottles; maybe it had something to do with a corporate sponsor. Anyway, Rand’s characters were chain smokers. Although smoking is now politically incorrect, Rand used the cigarette as a symbol of man controlling fire. Rand’s characters were workaholics, not alcoholics. This didn’t come across in the film. One had to suspend one’s disbelief to imagine the lushes performed so intelligently, innovatively, and vigorously with the blood-alcohol contents they must have had.
Rand has been faulted for her characters being one-dimensional. That was intentional, as each (except for those who cycle out of codependency after a visit from the man in the trench coat) was the embodiment of a character flaw. It wasn’t her goal to create believable characters. She was dealing with the evolution of the cream of the crop – that minority of conscientious hard-hitters plagued by both high IQ’s and an ability to make things work. People with that level of self-mastery usually don’t have time for too many vices. But today, it is considered evil to think that man can rise above parasitic dependence on a Father Christmas form of government. Nobody is supposed to see that the cornucopia is not magic, but filled by the stressful hours sacrificed by a working class continually forced to put in more hours to cover the costs of ever-growing numbers enticed by government checks – and keep up with government regulation designed with “unintended consequences” to bring them down.
As somebody who hates movies, can’t sit still, and last went to a movie theater about fifteen years ago, I regretted the final minutes of the movie. I could see the end coming, and thought, “Not now! I could sit through another six hours!”
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