NYT: Producer of ‘The Godfather’ Lands Rights to ‘Atlas Shrugged’ Novel
"Mr. Ruddy, whose canon includes films as varied as “The Godfather” and “The Cannonball Run,” almost had a deal back in the early 1970s, when he wooed Ms. Rand personally while sitting on a small couch in New York.
But Ms. Rand, who had left the Soviet Union in the 1920s and feared the Russians might acquire Paramount Pictures to subvert the project, wanted script approval; Mr. Ruddy, as adamant as she was, declined. “Then I’ll put in my will, the one person who can’t get it is you,” Mr. Ruddy recalls being told by Ms. Rand, who died in 1982."
But Ms. Rand, who had left the Soviet Union in the 1920s and feared the Russians might acquire Paramount Pictures to subvert the project, wanted script approval; Mr. Ruddy, as adamant as she was, declined. “Then I’ll put in my will, the one person who can’t get it is you,” Mr. Ruddy recalls being told by Ms. Rand, who died in 1982."
Perhaps the old history between Mr Ruddy and Ayn Rand can be considered water under the bridge - the whole world has come a long ways down various paths since then. But his insistence back then on not allowing her script refusal while she was alive is a bit disturbing. Especially with the history of the Fountainhead.
Fast forward to today and this article says that Mr Ruddy sees this rendition as a "love story". Good grief, we all know it is way more than that.
And the wishy-washy characterizations as this being "Ms Rand's insistence on this being a film for the future", and then "redrawing its capitalists and creators" as something newer than an antiquated image of a relic era gone by is eye brow raising.
As reported in this story, Mr Ruddy is apparently quoted as saying "If you can re-imagine the Old Testament and the New Testament, why can't I re-imagine Ayn Rand?" This is absolute arrogance - if reported correctly. I would rather have heard that "No, I have retained numerous Ayn Rand scholars to ensure that the scripts will stay true to the principles and ideals expressed by the author, Ms Rand".
Hopefully, the article is misrepresenting Mr Ruddy's intentions. But, I would also add that his statements of making this only a six or eight hour TV version is very disappointing. This will not do justice to the monumental work for the same reason the 3 movies fell short, and will miss the opportunity of the essential effort becoming an on-going addictive multi-season series so popular these days.
Hopefully, Mr Ruddy has been seriously misquoted in this article.
There is one good argument I heard for keeping it set as it was and that would be the unique period in time that would allow for a collapse as she envisioned it. The readers of Atlas Shrugged post WWII would have had context to believe such was possible-I think most millennials now won't buy into it. But that is just my opinion. He will want a wide audience and a loyal one. I think he can probably handle both , given his expertise and track record.
Mr Aglialoro did a fine job of 'getting it right'. If the world had been ready for a shot of raw distilled Ayn Rand, his first film would have done well at the box office (our metric); the next 2 films would have taken off from there.
We obviously need an entry point for the philosophy. A love story is a strong beginning, for one has a choice and can chose to love both the person and his ideals. Dagny's lovers reflect a consistent philosophy, but each has a better embodiment of it, ending with the archetype of John Galt.
The lamentable almost-rape scene is another expression of outdated worldview. In modern times, it is quite acceptable for a woman to be an enthusiastic and physically assertive lover without having had to be raped to give permission for that level of intensity. We are in a different world and this needs to be taken into account.
Jan
_ It occurs to me that the dark energy needed for FTL travel (per the Alcubierre equation) may also be a key to unlimited power generation. Hmmm...
I have not done further research to see how this varies cross-culturally, but there was a comment, that I think was perceptive, that rape fantasies are stronger in people with sex-guilt association.
So may I change my statement to take this new knowledge into account? I would like to propose that in low-guilt randian archetypes, rape fantasies would be rare and, when they exist, would indicate a flaw in the character that portrayed them.
Jan, thanks for the insight
Jan, Yo Ho Ho!
It would be very difficult to rewrite Atlas Shrugged into a different era because it would destroy the plot mechanisms and remove the possibility of retaining much of Ayn Rand's dialogue. The time period of Atlas Shrugged is not an excuse to rewrite it.
A movie cannot be a direct image of a novel transposed to film for many reasons, but the farther it strays from Ayn Rand's story, especially in the hands of someone exploiting it without regard to or antagonistic to Ayn Rand's theme and sense of life, the more damage that can be done. That is why Ayn Rand insisted on retaining the right to approve the script. Ruddy tried to pull a fast one in 1972, promising her to honor her conditions while expecting she would give in to get the contract, and then reneging on his promise when she refused. It is no wonder that so many people familiar with Ayn Rand and her ideas are skeptical of turning it over to him as a Hollywood pro now especially with his dismissals like the one in the article:
"As for concerns about faithful Rand fans objecting to any liberties he might take with the book, Mr. Ruddy said he had none. 'If you can reimagine the Old Testament and the New Testament, he said, 'why can’t I reimagine Ayn Rand?'”
The movie is not supposed to be about "reimagining Ayn Rand" to be whatever some Hollywood type wants to imagine.
And let's not forget Ragnar Danneskjöld's vessel. I had thought that if you set it only a few years from our present day, Ragnar could get his ship by hijacking USS Enterprise CVN-65 from the Navy as the Navy were planning to scrap her. I'm sure every viewer would get the irony.If you projected AS a few years into the future, you could have Ragnar somehow capture the new USS Enterprise CVN-80 (a planned Ford-class aircraft carrier) by carefully substituting her launch crew.
Bottom line: I think an updated AS, with references to current or projected modes of transport, could work.
A sort-of-AS story set in the present day could not both keep to the principles of AS and be really believable, both because those businessmen are not especially our allies and because many of them have political and social agendas that are not ours, so they would certainly not participate in John Galt's strike.
I would like to see AR (or someone who can fill her shoes) write such a story, though, because it would teach us how to sell our cause to that type of businessman.
If you're hypersensitive about gay issues, don't watch it, because that's the filter you'll be seeing it through. I turn 70 in a few weeks and know a bunch of gay and lesbian people and couples and the gay sex is quite 'off-screen' and there's a lot of hetero-stuff that goes on, too.
Whatever lights or extinguishes your fire... :)
Oh, my apologies to khalling for sliding off topic on her thread. I'll stop here.
Edit: Happy Birthday, plusaf!
Ah, if you want controversial topics, there are scads of non-PC shows all around. There are enough gay/lesbian/straight-sex subplots in Grey's Anatomy to warm the whatever's of any PC-maven's heart... we like the characters, the subject material and acting and DVR all the episodes for later viewing. Aside from missing lots of dialogue because the background noises and music make it impossible to understand....
what he will do will in no way be a credit to Ayn Rand's philosophy. it will be a disaster and not have a positive effect where some one will say having seen this program i want to read the book. you are right to be concerned.
But I'm not The Producer, Director or Screenwriter. What do I know? I do know that when I read a good book, I picture all of it in my mind as a TV movie and I'm damned good at telling the good from the bad and the ugly. I could not possibly imagine 'positioning AS as a "love story"...'
khaling.... 'thousands' have come to read AR and AS by watching the movies...
BFD. We need tens of thousands, maybe millions to see the miniseries and, out of that, take a look at how they're living their lives and how they're influencing their own Government in lots of Bad Ways. But, As A Love Story?! If it works, FINE, but I certainly have a LOT of trouble seeing a 'love story' as carrying the plot or message from beginning to end of such a series!
Back to one of my frequent comments on this and other similar threads... What Is The Purpose of Making A Series of AS?! If it's to make lots of money for Hollywood and TV media, (and Netflix or whatever), so be it. Fess up and move on. If the intention is to convey Rand's ideas into the mainstream, sure, it might work, but not in my mind's eye.
Good luck to all... but please Decide First! If it's an already-made Decision to be a "Love Story," why is anyone humoring us by asking our opinions?
+af
Perhaps what he is imagining is an adaptation like West Side Story to Romeo and Juliet. R&J, as written, is nearly incomprehensible to most modern readers, and they reasons for hatred between families are completely lost on us in the absence of true family feuds. The true tragedy of R&J is not that the two families were just being mean to each other and to their children, but that it was an inescapable position for the lovers. West Side Story put that struggle into terms modern viewers could understand... between warring gangs. Two sides that could never see eye-to-eye.
I think this has quite the opportunity to bring home the magnitude of the repercussions of collectivist and altruistic politics on the real world. Shutting down a railroad does not have the same effect today as it did when the book was conceived, and so taking the literal railroad approach would not have the same impact on viewers.
Objectivism holds that the purpose of art is to represent abstract concepts in a concrete manner. Something to which we can point when we are understanding the intangible. Would we truly understand what a hero was if we didn't have literature or films to demonstrate one for us? So let's see what he does, I at least think he has the right starting point. Perhaps he can bring AR's ideas to what was a previously unreceptive audience.
The message of Atlas Shrugged caught fire 60 years ago. It continues to burn for people for whom it illuminates their inner selves.
do not think that Rand would lament what is happening.
I expect that she would desperately want to see more
people knowing her story, as we do. -- j
.
Remember when Ayn Rand started AS in the forties what technology was. Television was rare. Computers were huge machines. Satellites were pure science fiction.
The mini series will sell better with some updates.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=STnUl...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8l_2s...
But Atlas Shrugged is also the self-discovery and escape of Hank Rearden. If Al Ruddy misses Hank Rearden, his series cannot work. He must make sure he gets a few clues. For instance: Ragnar Danneskjöld challenges Rearden on his insistence on law and order. Then in the last chapter we find Rearden as a full member of Ragnar's rescue team. That, sportsfans, is no accident.
I must agree with Flootus5. A six- to eight-hour mini-series would not do this work justice. It needs at least the same kind of treatment Showtime gave to Henry VIII ("The Tudors") and Alexander VI ("The Borgias"). Three seasons, ten episodes each. And with the three-hour speech available as an optional "director's cut."
Why did Mr. Ruddy mention Jeff Bezos at Amazon, do you think? You don't think maybe he's dropping a hint that Mr. Bezos, if he were to back the project, could sell a lot of Amazon Fire TV devices, do you?
Does anyone here imagine what the equivalents of Taggart Transcontinental and Rearden Steel could possibly be, if you updated it for the future? Did Al drop another hint? Taggart Aerospace (the attempt to send a colony to Mars) and Rearden Composites (a new material for spacecraft hulls)?
Frankly I would expect that we're looking at a who-is-John-Galt world right now. And John Aglialoro had a good idea for the famous motor: a quantum motor. He could have explained it better, but he had a good concept. What could be the equivalent in Al Ruddy's mind?
I'm sorry I missed Mr. Ruddy's appearance in the Gulch. I might have been able to discuss some of these concerns with him. But I had a lot of off-line stuff to contend with.
I would love 3 seasons with 10 episodes each. However it could just be the budget available. Lets hope for 8 episodes.
Could the valley stay hidden with the kind of false-image projector Rand conceived? I am not convinced. But I am open to argument. Most recon satellites do depend on visible light. Anything that can trick the eye of a pilot looking down, could similarly trick a camera in orbit. But that leaves one more thing John Galt must use: a radar jammer. And very likely a sophisticated heat sink to eliminate or mask the thermal footprint. Much harder. But perhaps no more than a John Galt would be capable of, if he is all that Rand sketched him out to be. (We can't put it in orbit. Dagny would never have reason to stumble onto an orbiting space station by accident.)
The one I'm more interested in is Ragnar Danneskjöld. I can well see him as the terror of the high seas. But what kind of ship would be sail? Here's a thought, that I have put somewhere else on this thread: Ragnar Danneskjöld's first battle, the one where he gets his "minor scrape," is to hijack a U.S. Navy aircraft carrier that is slated for the boneyard in "defense budget cuts." I first conceived this idea in 2013. So my candidate then was USS Enterprise CVN-65. It's too late now; that ship is already in the boneyard--what's left of her. But did you know the Navy has tentative plans to build another ship named Enterprise? That would be USS Enterprise CVN-80, third in the new, heavier Ford class of aircraft carriers. Let Ragnar hijack that ship, and everyone who is not blind, will see the irony.
I would also suggest, of course, that D'Anconia Industries S.A. mine more than just one metal. But let's leave that company's headquarters in South America. Corrupt Latin leftists do make good copy.
The electrostatic motor, I am convinced, would work. I think that's what Nikola Tesla had in mind. The trick would be to make a jet engine that uses an electrostatic booster of some kind--and also a jet airliner with an electrostatic Auxiliary Power Unit. (Today's jets use very weak jet engines as APU's. An electrostatic APU would weigh less and deliver enough energy to relieve the main engines of the duty of power generation for the aircraft's electrical systems. That alone would add value.)
Any other questions?
If it "goes off the reservation" and simply turns into another lust fest, I'll turn it off and suggest nobody waste their time with it.
I haven't watched much "prime time" TV, for years, having found nothing of value to spend my time with. If this show can keep my interest, that will be saying something.
Jan
Pity. She played the part well.
Jan
I don't know much about Mr Ruddy's views or politics, but I don't believe a raging Hollywood Liberal would make this film very well... as right out destroying the story, the meaning and direction. I don't have much trust in the agenda and words coming from Hollywood in general.
I'd like to know of more of his intentions... if he ruins this wonderful story to spite Ayn Rand, then I think he does a severe disservice for all of the world and the future.
I thought the ASP1, the casting was quite good. I was rather disappointed they switched Dagnys for the other parts. She was pretty close to how I see her, and how she's described. AJ would NOT fit that at all! I think he will have a very angry mob on his hands if he screws up trying to do AS....
I don't watch enough TV or movies to know who would be a decent replacement for her.