channinglylethomson

While not without its pleasure, it is a terrible movie but involving nonetheless. It will rise and fall on its own merits as the Ayn Rand Estate has given its stamp of approval and Hollywood cannot be blamed for its failure. That said, the movie manages to capture the strange mirror of sexuality and individual achievement so ripely mined by King Vidor in the film version of THE FOUNTAINHEAD. This movie is like that one on steroids in that the story takes the same philosophical theme and promotes it several levels to a point of absurdity. The main character of Dagny Taggert is nicely played by Taylor Schilling. The rest of the cast is relatively unknown. Some of the actors are good and well-cast. Others mediocre. What's interesting about this film is that it promotes a crackpot philosophy that probably ran out of steam during the Cold War and doesn't really require a re-examination. Ayn Rand was obviously a disgruntled former Soviet who felt her opportunities to be a completely functioning human being were thwarted by the Russian system in which mediocrity and the people trumped the individual at every turn. In this film, with its weird form of feminism (something I'm sure Rand would never admit to), the premise is almost laughable and the characters spout words that are more emblematic of a philosophical position than anything people would really say. One thing Hollywood brought to this theme in THE FOUNTAINHEAD was the crackling sexuality of Gary Cooper and Patricia Neal. Director Vidor knew quite well what he was doing and exploited this to the max, bringing a kind of orgasmic energy to the two leads as they united in a common passion for the individual and his achievements. This mediocre production can only hint at what a real talent could have done with the material but the story and its themes are so creaky as to make the point moot. In other words, watch it on video unless you're really strange (like me) and desire to see the culmination of this bizarre project on the big screen. I'm somewhat ashamed to admit that I will be there for parts 2 and 3. . .

I found this film to be undeniably compelling and suspenseful, even well-directed. However, I just have a problem with the concept of torture as entertainment. I think that anyone who has ever given thought to the reality of torture in the modern world would find it repellent that the filmmakers would exploit it for a horror film. That goes for Mr. Tarantino as well. My assumption is that there is an ongoing effort to find material to exploit in the horror genre and this is the latest example. The film deals with elements of xenophobia, homophobia, phobia, phobia and more phobia! What makes this film especially disturbing is that, like the video game GRAND THEFT AUTO, the public seems to have little or no reaction on a moral or values level to this kind of material being put forth as entertainment from companies like Sony. Yet, when a film like BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN is released, the public freaks out. Strange world we live in!

I finished watching the film last night. It's REALLY interesting. The original novel by Oliver LaFarge won the Pulitzer Prize in 1929. He was a Harvard anthropologist who made several trips to Arizona to study the Navajos and actually learned their language and was one of the ones who created a system of writing it. The film is very interesting -- taking place in the 1910s, it's about a young girl (Slim Girl) who has left the tribe and become the kept woman of a white rancher in town. She fall is in love with Laughing Boy -- a traditional Navajo cattle herder who marries her. She doesn't fit in with Indian tradition and the "white man" treats her like a prostitute -- she's been raised in White-run Indian schools so she's torn between two culture and demeaned by both. The film definitely has a pre-Hays code sensibility because there's some premarital sex, adultery, alcohol abuse, miscegenation, a kept woman -- the film is more a study of Slim Girl than of Laughing Boy. It's really quite amazing that MGM ever made this film! The unfortunate aspect of it is the acting and casting of Ramon Novarro and Lupe Velez. The two Latin spitfires are just all wrong for the characters although Novarro is very sweet in the role.