The Passion of Ayn Rand
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Movie Reviews of The Passion of Ayn Rand
Movie Review: Surprisingly effective
Summary: 5 Stars
The film claims to be based on Barbara Branden's book but from what I've seen of it, it also draws heavily on Nathaniel Branden's "memoir" of his symbiotic relationship with Ayn Rand. A previous reviewer complains of words put in Rand's mouth that were not in Barbara's book. They all seem to appear in Nathaniel's. Ayn Rand worshippers probably will hate the film because it does seem to emphasize her hypocrisies. But hey, nobody is perfect and Rand still comes off as a very vital woman and an uncompromising intellect. Well, uncompromising until she starts rationalizing her increasingly emotionally dependent relationship with Nathaniel.
I find the story to be mostly balanced and of course the talent in the film is unsurpassed. Put that together with the compelling story and I have to give it 5 stars.
The only disquiet I may have is that viewers who may not have read the 2 books will not have an appreciation for the charm that her 2 foremost disciples claim Ayn Rand to have had, despite her often icy exterior.
Movie Review: Don't view this with pre-concieved notions.
Summary: 5 Stars
It seems the reviews here are either Ayn Rand freaks or Helen Mirren freaks. I'm neither, but I'm an Eric Stolz fan, and he's great in this. He and Helen Mirren have some great sex scenes, it's true, and this woman was messed up, that's true too- but the story fascinates and it's made in a really cool way. I liked it a lot. Peter Fonda was so great he almost wasn't there (you'll know what I mean when you see it) and Julie Delphy was beautiful. Worth watching.Movie Review: Important document
Summary: 5 Stars
This is a great look at just how destructive Ayn Rand was toward those around her. Too bad our nation wasn't aware of how many important political movers and shakers still followed her selfishly greedy mindset, we could have avoided the fall of western civilization.Movie Review: Effective rendition of Barbara Branden's bio of Rand
Summary: 4 Stars
This Showtime film takes up the life of Ayn Rand from chapter 20 in Barbara Branden's biography of the same title. The director and screen writers have effectively transmitted the turn from naive hero worship of Rand that Barbara and her boyfriend Nathaniel experienced in the late 1940s to the subsequent stormy love affair between Rand and Nathaniel with its consequences in the lives of Frank O'Connor (Rand's husband) and Barbara, who had married Nathaniel. When the affair started, Rand was in the middle of writing her magnum opus, Atlas Shrugged, a philosophical novel about unstinting individualists who love whom they will on the way to creating the world they want.
Julie Delpy fairly portrays Barbara's "descent into hell" (to borrow from a Doris Lessing title) of psychological intimidation and manipulation and its breeding of guilt, but Helen Mirren appropriately dominates the screen, mastering Rand's intensity down to detailed mannerisms that conform not only to Barbara's account but to filmed interviews. (For excerpts from these interviews and more, see Michael Paxton's "Ayn Rand: A Sense of Life," DVD, 2004, available on Amazon.) Whereas Delpy gives us a woman in tune with social dynamics (including jealousy) as well as ideas, Mirren shows a single-minded pursuit of personal goals that easily ignores the existence of others, a kind of "blanking out" of social reality (to borrow an epithet that Rand frequently used). In the scene where Rand negotiates her affair with Nathaniel in the presence of Frank and Barbara, Mirren's voice, face, and body move inexorably from her assumption that everyone will accept her simple moral calculus--what's best for her must be good for all--to mild indignation that the others cannot see with her clarity what is in her/their best interest. Mirren, like Rand, is in control.
Peter Fonda's Frank O'Connor is subdued, sometimes stiff, sometimes baffled, the repressed husband described in the bio. In a scene showing all four walking on a sidewalk, director Menaul has Frank slightly behind the group, ceding the right of way to another pedestrian heading in the opposite direction. Frank seems to take a fatherly interest in Barbara, distantly reminiscent of Jean Val Jean and Cosette. Fonda carries the sense of repression well, showing Barbara kindness and Rand forbearance. Eric Stoltz does an effective job of creating the mixed emotions of a man more in love with ideas than with people, until he finds someone younger, not quite so bright, that he can control without effort.
The supporting cast of easily intimidated businessmen (men only) and easily awed young intellectuals (mostly men but some women) accurately conveyed how hangers on can become sycophants or be driven to despair by the presence of charismatic people. When reason is a weapon to inculcate agreement rather than a tool for building understanding, second-hand parroting can often substitute for real thought. One of these characters works as a screenwriter and must compromise to keep his job, and Mirren's contempt for him is vivid and excruciating. ("Contempt" is an attitude high in the Randian social repertoire, and Mirren picked up on it well.)
The opening and closing New York skyline scenes recall Rand's fascination with the distinctive tall buildings of American modern architecture, but the nightscape hints at the darkness of the story, which is more sad than poignant. The jazz score adds to this feeling, underscoring the Bohemian mood of New York in the 50s and early 60s. This film has little room for what Rand called the "tiddly-wink" music that she relaxed to, though the Blue Danube Waltz gives some of the exhilaration that she must have felt when she was in control. (Rachmaninov, one of her favorites for "serious" music, may have been either too subtle or too bombastic for this film.)
And now for a small quibble...
Although Showtime should be commended for making this film, they also undercut the story on the back of the DVD by saying Rand had a "bizarre love life." Though the Victorians were scandalized by Dickens's and Hugo's affairs with much younger women, few today would care; apparently an older woman writer needing a younger man to stay inspired still seems "bizarre" to our Victorian holdovers.
Movie Review: Mirren mesmerizes
Summary: 4 Stars
Ayn Rand appears to have made a mark of sorts on 20th century America. I read The Fountainhead in about 1959. It made a strong impression on me at the time, but I can hardly remember anything about it now. The Gary Cooper film I only recall as being pretty poor. I have since tried to get through Atlas Shrugged, but it was so badly written I couldn't complete it; and I still don't know what it is about. However, I've met one or two Rand fanatics, and therefore bought this dvd. This review is only concerned with the film as a work of interest and entertainment, not with the pros and cons of Rand's Weltanschauung. It seems to me an absorbing movie, with an incredible performance by Helen Mirren. On this evidence she impresses me as one of the greatest of living actresses. The story, however, seems extremely unedifying. Three wishy-washy personalities are presented as falling under the total dominance of an extraordinarily self-centred woman, with the hint that she is driven by a demonic need to exorcise the memory of her childhood traumas in Soviet Russia. She is only two-dimensional, however, and appears to lack a stabilizing emotional third leg. The characters she controls are very typical of those that fall victim to the various strange cults which seem to spring up with disconcerting frequency in the USA. In very many films and books this society appears over-intense, empty and humourless, with a fatal inability to laugh at itself. At the end of the film the Fonda character mutters that he never knew what it was all about, which just about sums it up.