Ayn Rand & the Prophecy of Atlas Shrugged

This documentary does a good job of capturing Rand's ideas and philosophy - missing in the movie that came out last year. It starts out with the idea that the events of the novel are being played out in real life today. Then it drops back in history to show how Ayn Rand escaped from communist Russia and came to America in the 1920's. But when she finally got here and the Depression started, how surprised she was to hear American intellectuals claiming that things were so much better in Russia with communism being the answer for everything. But Rand knew differently. She knew that the 1930's under Stalin saw tens of millions murdered or starving and forced to work in labor camps. Rand spent her career making it crystal clear - especially in Atlas Shrugged - that collectivism in any form is inherently evil and inevitably leads to disaster.

The documentary also focuses on Rand's contention that the so-called virtues of altruism and self-sacrifice are misguided and that this willingness - so ingrained now in progressive western thinking - to subjugate the individual to the collective is not only most responsible for our country's current woes but it is this same twisted sense of morality that ultimately leads to totalitarianism.

This is a film with a lot of information and insight that can easily be viewed more than once.

This film is a must-see for any Rand fan and/or anyone who's ever been affected by her novels. Also recommended for anyone who has not read Rand but wondered what all the fuss was about. In an age where your 'best sellers' are selling 50,000 books, Atlas Shrugged - over half a century old - has been selling nearly ten times that number. Three million sold in last five years alone. This documentary does a good job of explaining why. It includes the genesis of the ideas that permeate Rand's novels and her struggle to complete Atlas. Also shows how the scenario of Atlas is being played out in America today. Highly recommended.

Most reviewers focus on the so-called "battle" between altruism and selfishness as Rand saw it. Methinks, that both Rand and most reviewers tried to hard to stake out a mutually exclusive territory and defend it. For me, I think that the state should not be compelling via taxation or any other means at their disposal, the populace to be their brother's keeper. Where I part ways with Atlas Shrugged, is selfishness is not a virtue. If those who would like to see an end to gov't sponsored socialism, would realise that individuals then become responsible like the Good Samaritan, for helping the less fortunate, in such a way as to not create dependency on hand outs, then possibly the edifice of state sponsored "charity" ie taxes to "aid" the less fortunate, could be eliminated. Even the Bible says we are to help without encouraging dependency and indolence.

The House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) became a permanent (or "standing") committee of the House in January 1945. It had existed on a temporary basis since 1938. HUAC was supposed to investigate "un- American propaganda" in the United States. Although it also investigated pro-fascist or pro-Nazi activity, HUAC is most widely known for its investigations of suspected Communist influence in the late 1940s and early 1950s. Along with the investigation of Alger Hiss, the investigation of Communist influence in the motion picture industry is one of the defining episodes in the committee's history. HUAC would continue to exist into the 1960s, but these memorable hearings are its best-known legacy. The committee's name was changed in 1969, and it was abolished in 1975, when jurisdiction over investigation of foreign influence was transferred to the House Judiciary Committee.2

HUAC and Hollywood

The first HUAC investigations of Communism in Hollywood occurred in 1940, when Representative Martin Dies, a Texas Democrat, was chairman of the committee. Dies convened meetings of the committee in Los Angeles and questioned several actors and writers, including actor Humphrey Bogart and writer John Howard Lawson. All denied either being Communists or knowing with certainty that any of their co-workers were Communists. These early hearings ended with Dies finding no credible evidence of Communist activity in the movie industry. Once the United States entered World War II in 1941, the Soviet Union was an ally, and Congress had little interest in exposing any Communist activities in Hollywood.

My comments here are not on specific content or delivery, like some critics my pose. I simply want to express my fascination with the overall content and that this documentary kept me transfixed on the screen for the entire time. I couldn't look away and my mind raced for hours after watching it. Thinking about what all I had just learned and opened my thoughts in new ways to view society. Ayn Rand's life is discussed so you can understand why she wrote the book and how her early life gave her the philosophy she presented in her books. The discussions about how critics hated her book and called her vile names, including comments that it was an ill-spirited book and gave the impression that she was mean and soulless gave an additional perspective to the way literary elites viewed the world in the 1950s. Definitely worth the time.