On ‘The Fountainhead’ by Ayn Rand

This week portion of theoretical reading was substituted with the portion of theoretical watching. I will analyse ‘The Fountainhead’, a 1949 American movie based on the bestselling novel by Ayn Rand.

Well, it certainly is a very 40s American drama. Saying American I mean inevitable clash of the ‘good and bad’ with absolutely necessary spine love story line and ‘happy ending’ for the ‘good’ characters. Saying very 40s, I mean a high level of the moral propaganda and clear separation of all roles into ‘good’ and ‘bad’ without any gradation in-between. Only good and bad, plus and minus, black and white. Actually in Rand’s case ‘the black (bad/minus/negative)’ is interpreted as greyness, similarity and conformity. ‘The good’, on the other side, is represented by selfish, individualistic non-conformist principles. Two antagonist characters are Howard Roark, a talented architect, rejected by the society for his believes that individual must be a ‘prime mover’, and Eliswroth Toohey, an architectural critic with collectivist visions, who runs a newspaper column. Both are extremely one-sided, supporting only their ‘good’ or ‘bad’ side of the argument throughout the film.

I found Elisworth Toohey character is fitting extremely well in our 21^st century context, in spite of all his one-sided flatness. His great in their evilness believes that a society that must be ‘an average drawn upon zeroes’, and that it is easy to rule if everyone is like one another (Don’t set out to raze all shrines—you’ll frighten men. Enshrine mediocrity, and the shrines are razed) are pretty much the credo of today’s power holding individuals. To re-phrase the well known strategy, divide et impera (divide and rule), - conform and rule. To me this is an absolute summary of today’s politics. The planet is dying (oi, there is no room for hesitation, if it is really true, how can someone possible be hesitant in this dreadful situation (!?), so don’t think and just accept: the planet is dying and it is partially your fault!) all of us have to unite (hmm, more like conform to me) and fight collectively the global warming. Well, ok, I must recycle, otherwise my rubbish will not be collected, and this issue is not even the question of personal believes any more – you and I will recycle or die from pest infestation. The ‘collective mould’ is also defined by: ‘5 a day’, paranoia of cleanliness and disinfection (how, again, people used to live without Dettol and all this 99.9% still alive bacteria around them??!), personal opinion on X-factor, strive for organic produce (and what is the definition of ‘organic’, hash! – no questions, just know that if something is organic it is definitely good for you). I think I will stop here, otherwise the blog will become boring and moody :).