Movie: The Fountainhead (Brutal spoilers)

Alternate title: "Gary Cooper, noooo!"

I know, I know.  Those of you who know me saw the title, spit out your beverage and said "you watched what?!"  Here's the deal.  I know just enough of Ayn Rand's work that I wanted a little more information in order to be able to better criticize it, but at the same time I'm not willing to spend any significant part of my life reading it.  So I figured I'd watch the movie (she even wrote the screen play) and only waste 2 hours instead of 20 or more.  And I was even able to knit while doing so.

Let me tell you, this is a MST3K-worthy movie.  It's basically stretches of diatribe with the occasional break in which absolutely no one talks and characters make completely uncommunicative expressions at each other.  (Grant, are you in love?  Angry?  Sick?  A turtle? I'm not gettin' it.) 

Before I get into that, though, I will say that my opinion of Ayn Rand did increase a little bit after watching this.  That doesn't say much, because my opinion was extremely low before.  Nonetheless, instead of thinking "So, Ayn Rand: narcissist or sociopath?", I came out thinking "Let me guess; preacher's daughter?"  Then I wiki'd her.  Oh.  Russian Jew, daughter of a business owner, revolution in her teens; that explains a LOT.  Actually, I'd say that basically explains it all.

In any event, the Fountainhead doesn't come across as utterly sociopathic, so much as that it grabbed some good ideas and took them to the point where they became twisted and evil.  I'm all for individualism, and critical thought, and creating for the sake of creating without worrying about whether others will like your work.  (Actually trying to cultivate that last one myself.)  But I do not at all want to live in a world where the pinnacle of human existence is a rapist who blows up a building because he doesn't like the changes made to his design and then walks out of the room when he knows his best friend is about to kill himself.  That's one fucked up fantasy world Rand's built there.

(Ayn actually wrote this movie on the condition that her script not be edited in any way, much like her character designed the apartment complex he blew up on the condition that the plans not be changed in anyway.  She had a hissy when the makers wanted to trim the longest speech in a movie to date.  I'm trying to decide if the makers were brave, or stupid.  They did back down and show it in its rambling entirety.  Probably afraid she was going to blow up the lot if they didn't.)

(I doubt SHE would have gotten an acquittal for it.)

So, the movie.  It's not a good sign when the first line makes you snert.  "There's no room for originality in architecture."  SNERT.
"There's no room for mathematics in engineering!"
"There's no room for woodwork in carpentry!"
>Snort<   Yeah, that Frank Lloyd Wright guy, he's never going to amount to anything.  I mean, who's ever heard of him?

You know what they call an architect with no originality?  Unemployed.  But then again, the first five minutes of the movie are people spouting things that no one in professional architecture has ever actually said without being fired on the spot.  The next 20 minutes are solid diatribe, followed by some mooney eyes that end in about as blatant a rape scene as I can imagine someone making in 1949.  When a woman attempts to flee out two different exits, is crying, and scratches the hell out of the guy, that is a rape.  Pretty hard to deny, actually. 

[Supposedly Rand said "if it was rape, it was rape by engraved invitation."  Further proof that Ayn Rand was really messed up in the head.  Personally, just because I wanted to boink a guy a few days ago when I invited him over once doesn't mean I still want to boink him when he breaks into my house later in the week after I've slapped him and stormed off when he called me a slut.  The invitation was pretty clearly rescinded.)

Then back to more diatribe.  The rest of the movie is basically diatribe and disturbing fantasy world.  It just kind of beats you about the ears.  Really, it couldn't be more heavy handed if it were wearing lead gloves.

So, actors/characters:

Gary Cooper: I'm trying to decide if he was really off, or if this was an example of his acting range.  See, I'm pretty sure that the character of Howard Roark was supposed to be played as an ambulatory block of wood, and that's exactly what Gary does.
(I look at Cooper in his role, I remember that he's the man who turned down the role of Rhett Butler because he was sure Gone with the Wind would be career poison, and I just shake my head.)

Patricia Neal: I think she's trying really hard to be Katharine Hepburn, and I can't fault her taste there, but it's kind of a Katharine Hepburn with brain damage.  Not the kind that makes you stupid, the kind that makes you crazy and irrational.  There was a scene where I thought for sure she was going to stab Roark -- and I was rooting for it.  Loudly.  Seriously, killing the main character could only have helped.  I wanted to shut off the player and go write the fan fiction where she stabbed him right then and there.

And our villain.  He's evil for the sake of being evil.  You've all heard the advice for writers that (outside of parody and certain comedic styles) a villain never sees himself as a villain, that somewhere in there he's the hero of his own story?  Rand hadn't.  Nah, Ellsworth just woke up one morning and decided "you know, I think I'll go be evil.  That sounds like fun.  I'll just go out and start destroying people.  I mean, gotta fill your day somehow, right?"  Oh, and never name your kid Ellsworth.  You name your son Ellsworth, he's basically guaranteed to grow up as a petty evil bastard with a funny accent.

So, final conclusion: Fountainhead, worth your time? 
If you are a hardcore MSTy -- and I mean hard core -- go for it.  Great fodder if you can stand the beating. 
As an alternative to reading the novel, watch the first 20 minutes and then stop when the mooney eyes start, because it basically just goes on like that with a break for a rape scene. 
As a movie in its own right, well...  Let's put it this way.  The Fountainhead is often used as an example of what a screenplay should NOT be.

Oh, BTW, if you need a name for a sci fi character, may I suggest "King Vidor"?  God, the MST jokes you can pull from the director's name alone.