The Fountainhead
by King Vidor
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DVD Cover Information
Actor: Gary Cooper, Kent Smith, Patricia Neal, Raymond Massey, Robert DouglasDirector: King Vidor
Brand: Warner Brothers
Cinematographer: Robert Burks
Editor: David Weisbart
Producer: Henry Blanke
Writer: Ayn Rand
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Unknown), Dolby Digital 1.0; English (Subtitled); Spanish (Subtitled); French (Subtitled); English (Original Language), Dolby Digital 1.0; French (Dubbed), Dolby Digital 1.0
Format: Black & White, Closed-captioned, Dubbed, DVD, NTSC, Original recording remastered
Picture Format: 1.33:1
Running Time: 114 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2006-11-07
Audience Rating: NR (Not Rated)
Model: 65716
Studio: Warner Home Video
Product features:
- Based on the novel by philosopher Ayn Rand, this is the story of architect Howard Roark. An idealist, Roark believes he can balance his values with the needs of society. His mentor disagrees - encouraging him to compromise his integrity rather than suffer for his artistic goals.Running Time: 112 min. Format: DVD MOVIE Genre: DRAMA Rating: NR Age: 012569571624 UPC: 01
Movie Reviews of The Fountainhead
Movie Review: Fountainhead the movie, a compromise of the individual with the collective
Summary: 5 Stars
Fountainhead, the 1949 movie, is based on the 1943 novel by Ayn Rand. The theme of individualism as the key to man's progress is made in the historical setting of the twenties and thirties when collectivism (what we may now call socialism) appeared to be threatening individualism.
Though the setting is now a bit dated, the theme of individualism and the right to express it versus compromise of principle to please an unappreciative public and reap more immediate financial reward will still resonate with many today.
The book itself was an example of the theme of uncompromising individualism. It had difficulties being published and when it was, it was not well advertised. It did not appeal to the masses. It became popular by word of mouth through networks of people who were able to appreciate its themes. The book's manner of success mirrors the success of the work of the book's hero, Howard Roarke, an architect, whose work was also recognized by those with the intellectual understanding to appreciate it.
But the film is a compromise of these principles. A quick glimpse of the cover demonstrates that the movie was marketed as a romance. Many of the more graphical sexual encounters in the book are toned down. A rape becomes a kiss. A marriage that ends in a divorce becomes an engagement that is broken. Discussions of atheism are deleted. Reference to a 'temple to humanity' is eliminated and its role in the plot is combined into another building.
For the absolute individualist, as was the hero of the book, such compromises by the author, who also wrote the screenplay, seems out of character. The book's hero speaks of the integrity of a building and describes how building facades designed to appeal to the public are a compromise to a buiding's integrity. One can make the same case with respect to a book and this film. We might ask if the book's integrity was compromised in the facades that were incorporated into the movie that allowed it to become more acceptable to the viewing public.
Yet, for those who haven't read the book, who are not aware of these compromises of integrity, the themes of individualism, work for the sake of work with uncompromising quality and integrity, and the mediocrity that results from collectivism, will still be communicated.
In the movie, Patricia Neal does an excellent job as Dominique, the heroine, who understands the themes of quality and individualism. Dominique is so pained by the inability of the masses to see these qualilties that she purposefully puts herself into situations to avoid contact with the people who exhibit these admirable qualities. She does so because she does not want to see the persons and their work hurt by the unseeing and inappreciative masses.
The quality people she tries to avoid also include the hero, an architect, Howard Roarke, played by Gary Cooper in the movie. A complicated love triangle ensues between Roarke, Dominique, and Wynand, a newspaper editor who can see the truth but makes his living by marketing Enquirer type journalism to the masses. Though romance is involved, it is a subordinate theme of the individual (uncompromising quality and integrity) versus the collective (mediocrity and mass misery).
Gary Cooper plays the brilliant and uncompromising individualist and artistic architect, Howard Roarke. Cooper is less convincing in his role than is Patricia Neal as Dominique. But Cooper, like Patricia Neal, was a big name star at the time and certainly helped ticket sales for the movie.
Overall the movie is an example of what the book appears to declare to be wrong with the world. It is a product of the collective. In this case that collective includes the movie producers in addition to the individual author and screenwriter. The movie compromises the integrity of the original book so that the movie can be more markettable to the masses. This is evident in its marketting, skipping over more controversial social topics, and using a condensed plot to maintain the focus of an audience expected to have a limited attention span.
If Ayn Rand had the integrity of her character, Howard Roarke, she would have planted explosives in the movie studio production lab and destroyed the original master film.
For those who are a fan of the book, I still suggest viewing the movie, but with caution. One must be willing to compromise the individual efforts of Ayn Rand with the collective influence of the movie industry in order to view this movie.
For those who have not read the book, the movie is still a good watch and still engages the questions of individualism and collectivism. I suspect that those who find personal resonance with the themes in the movie will also want to read the book. If the movie viewer does read the book, then the movie did some good, and may have redeemed itself.
Summary of The Fountainhead
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