La pasión de Ayn Rand

I agree with Wayne Tolmachoff's review, published here, and with director Christopher Menaul's statement that Ayn Rand probably would have been horrified by the intimate nature of Barbara Branden's fascinating biography of this highly individual and talented novelist/philosopher. I enjoyed and suffered along with Peter Fonda as Rand's pleasant but invisible husband Frank O'Connor and thought that the entire cast was commendable. Unfortunately, the captivating and powerful performance delivered by Helen Mirren in the title role hasn't been mentioned. Critic Geoffrey Gilmore wrote "...it's impossible to conceive of another actress playing Rand" and indeed, who but Mirren is capable of conveying Ayn Rand's sensual intensity and penetrating intelligence, not to mention heavy Russian accent? Helen Mirren shows, through the subtlest of gestures and expressions, Rand's extreme emotional repression and tyrannical control of the people around her. At the same time, Mirren's performance hints at the vulnerability, isolation and loneliness that Rand must have experienced as she destroyed or abandoned one important personal relationship after another. Whether you love Ayn Rand or hate her, this film makes a powerful impression.

I read Atlas Shrugged in 1964 and thought I'd discovered Atlantis or something. I learned that a friend had seen Ayn Rand speak at Ford Hall Forum was also excited by her ideas. It was a couple years before we learned that there had been a split between Ayn Rand, Nathaniel and Barbara Branden -and many more years before we learned the split had occurred years before we were told about it. (And it was clear that information was covered up, repressed for years.)

So when Barbara Branden came out with, The Passion Of Ayn Rand, and it later was made into the movie - I paid attention and compared what was presented with my memories. Most of what is in the movie corresponds to what I remember. I like the movie's frankness for it shows how damaging Rand was to other people's relationships and how disappointed she was with the men in her circle who consistently fell short of her fictional male characters.

It is notable that every biography of Rand starts with her terrible experience under the Soviets - but none make much of that experience's role in forming Rand's later attitudes and philosophical stance. Her resultant "anti-collectivism" is completely valid on its face but in practice it becomes an excuse for rank selfishness and coldness toward "inferior people."

Rand's fascination with men as fantasy heroes and sexual controllers of women has always been evident and was acknowledged by Rand herself. It is never mentioned how this contradicts Rand's forcefully promoted "principles." She punished all who violated her rules but never thought her own transgressions affected how she should be regarded as one promoting a moral system.

The movie should be seen by all those who have read Rand's works and know at least something of her actual history. It provides the balance of her human flaws to offset the alleged purity of her ideals. A balance she as a writer never accomplished.

Having read almost all of Rand's works and considering her a brilliant philosopher and writer, I was apprehensive about seeing her personal side in a movie. I was not disappointed. I understand her work very well and was able to completely separate her personal conduct from her philosophy. Was her personal conduct in conflict or harmony with her philosophy? An esoteric question, and I don't care.

She was once quoted as saying that the character Kira, in her book 'We The Living', was the closest thing to an autobiography that she would ever write. Kira was a pure character with heroic characteristics. Ayn Rand in real life was probably not. Again, I don't care. None of this detracts from her philosophy. By the way, don't miss Rand's book-turned-into-film 'We The Living' starring Rossano Brazzi and Alida Valli filmed in Italy during WWII without Rand's knowledge or blessing. It is a cinematic feast. Italian actors, Russian setting, English subtitles and well adapted. Reportedly, Hitler had it canned after one showing because it criticized totalitarian dictatorships.

Back to this movie. It is reasonably well done and very interesting. Hoving subscribed to her newsletter, 'The Objectivist', I will never forget the short column she wrote therein, something to the effect "Nathaniel Branden is no longer associated with me, etc" (after she had dedicated Atlas Shrugged to him).

There is a human side to every hero.

Above all, read 'The Fountainhead', her greatest work. Forget the film, it was poorly adapted (by Rand?) and Cooper/Neal did not do the book's characters justice.

I saw this film three times (but then, I see many films more than once), and if I were to rate it, I'd give it 7-8 (out of 10), for its artistic merits. I knew nothing about Ayn Rand before seeing this film, and it piqued my curiosity. (I then discovered that "The Fountainhead", a very good piece of cinematic work, was based on her book.) But I am basically writing this only to correct what a reviewer said (back in September 2001), quite emphatically and with considerable reasoning behind the statement: that Ayn Rand shouldn't have been portrayed by an "American actress". She wasn't. The role of Ayn Rand was played by Helen Mirren, a truly great British actress. Moreover, Ms. Mirren herself is of Russian extraction, just as Ayn Rand was.

As an Ayn Rand fan who is interested in anything about the author, I couldn't be sure that this movie was as good a drama as I thought it was, so I showed it to intelligent friends who don't know her work. They all loved it. Complaints that it doesn't project the whole huge structure of Ayn Rand's philosophy are beside the point. This film is about the mesmerizing personality of Ayn Rand and the effect it had on the life of a disciple, Barbara Branden, and that of her husband, Nathaniel Branden, and, perhaps most pitiably, on the life of Rand's husband, Frank O'Connor. Rand was a superior person whom success convinced she was even more superior than she was. Power corrupts, and she became intoxicated by the attention of her devotees, and wound up going against her own principles (enlightened egoism and independence of mind) to demanding that her followers obey her unthinkingly and serve her ends self-sacrificially. None of this validates or invalidates her philosophy. It just teaches us again the ages-old lesson that idols are only human, and pride goes before a fall.,