Angelina Jolie Discovers Ayn Rand

[The Durande 1]

I think that Michael Paxton (A Sense of Life) mentioned that he thought Madeline Stowe would mke a great Dagny. I agree. But I love Julianne Moore. Nicole Kidman has become a good enough actress to do it as well.

I do think that casting is VERY important. In my opinion, Gary Cooper was actually the weak link in The Fountainhead. **The key is that whoever plays Rearden will get the most onscreen time in the film after Dagny, and maybe even more than Dagny - as I consider some of the scenes of Rearden's home life - and life at his mills to be the most

universal and translatable into film. If they cast Rearden as a character who even APPEARS to have feet of clay, the film will fail.**

[AMERICONORMAN 3]

I hope not. I find chad michael murray to be rather insipid onscreen...

I never saw the show he is on until quite recently but only a quick glimpse. I never saw the whole thing because the acting was not compelling. So has acting in this show may make him insipid. However, Ragnar has to be utterly beautiful, and Murray is pretty darn close. I think make-up would make him quite angelic.

There is something about those two actors' faces that I mentioned that are spectacular. They have a plastic, doll like quality, i.e., as if they have been crafted carefully. They are even better looking than Leonardo Di Caprio or Brad Pitt.

If know of anyone more beautiful please say so, I would be happy to look up their pictures!

Americo.

[Mexigogue 0]

For Ragnar I saw a new actor better than Ryan Phillipe on the Ellen Degeneres show:  Chad Michael Murray.

Americo.

Jolie as Dagney? Why not Nell Carter or Dolly Parton? I always pictures Dagney as being so impassive I'm not sure any famous Hollywood persona comes to mind. Bruce Willis might be able to pull off being Hank Rearden. Edward Norton could be Hank's brother.

[Thoyd Loki 2]

Bruce Willis? Nah, Vincent D'Onofrio would be better. Better stature and a better actor.

[jlew 0]

Angelina Jolie "discovered" Ayn Rand? Good...maybe she'll "discover" acting lessons next.

I picture Cate Blanchett as Dagny. I picture Brad Pitt as John Galt. Emma Thompson as Lillian Rearden. Indian Jones-era Harrison Ford as Hank Rearden.

I don't have a specific Francisco in mind. It wavers amongst a young George Hamilton, Lorenzo Lamas, and Raul, Real Madrid's star Spanish striker...maybe even Francesco Totti from Roma...

[The Durande 1]

Angelina Jolie "discovered" Ayn Rand? Good...maybe she'll "discover" acting lessons next.

I picture Cate Blanchett as Dagny. I picture Brad Pitt as John Galt. Emma Thompson as Lillian Rearden. Indian Jones-era Harrison Ford as Hank Rearden.

I don't have a specific Francisco in mind. It wavers amongst a young George Hamilton, Lorenzo Lamas, and Raul, Real Madrid's star Spanish striker...maybe even Francesco Totti from Roma...

Jolie is getting better. Have you seen Taking Lives? It is now a new release at Blockbuster. (or any other video store) She does an excellent job - in a heroic role in my opinion.

[the tortured one 1]

I picture Brad Pitt as John Galt.

ugh, no way. Not after seeing him play Tyler Durden in "Fight Club", or as I like to call it, the Nihilist manifesto.

[Zoso 0]

Harrison Ford as Rearden? There's a trend with really great movies, in that none of them have superstar actors. Can you name me the last movie that came out that had a superstar actor? All great movies wind up not having any really big name actors. Look at the Lord of the Rings trilogy. Awesome movies, with a bunch of unheard of actors. I'm not saying get all no-names, but there shouldn't be any superstars in there. Anyway, here would be my picks:

Dagny: Jodie Foster

John Galt: Christian Bale (great job in Equilibrium, a very Objectivist-leaning movie)

Rearden: I would say Russel Crowe, but he's too much of a star...I'm gonna go with either Kevin Spacey or Sam Neil

Francisco: Ray Liotta (from Goodfellas)

[Solomon Eagle 0]

I agree that “(e)ven negative publicity is better than no publicity.“ If reading Rand’s novels becomes a fad; I can imagine at least a few people picking up her fiction as a trend, becoming interested in Objectivism, moving on to the non-fiction and finally grasping and excepting the philosophy.

This is extremely wishful thinking. And any-means-to-an-end is the implicit motto of the Left. We must all watch the human tendency to star-struckness, and stick like a death grip to reason. Hollywood has always been, and will always be, a cesspit of self-destuctive fools from which nothing good or real will ever come.

[Thoyd Loki 2]

Look at the Lord of the Rings trilogy.  Awesome movies, with a bunch of unheard of actors.

I don't mean to nit-pick, but Ian McKellen, Christopher Lee, and John Rhys-Davies are hardly what you would call no-names. Not to mention also Liv Tyler and Hugo Weaving.

[EdwhoiscalledEd 0]

Another approach to casting the Atlas movie could be to have talented unknowns play the major roles but give superstars, like Sean Connery, Bruce Willis, Mel Gibson, Morgan Freeman, and Denzel, the role of the strikers. Aren't the strikers supposed to be legends? I think Mel Gibson as Wyatt blowing up his oil fields, or Dagny running into Sean Connery as Hugh Akston, or racing to prevent Harrison Ford from falling into the hands of the "Destroyer" would have a big emotional impact. I can see audience members feeling a sense of loss that is analagous to Dagny's as they watch their own heroes (favorite actors) vanish one by one. Brad Pitt might not make a good John Galt, but seeing him as the brakeman, whistling Halley's Concerto with a knowing gleam in his eye just might knock a few people on their asses, especially when Dagny meets up with them all in Galt's Gulch!

[coirecfox 1]

I agree with EdwhoiscalledEd, here.

[Betsy 4]

I agree that “(e)ven negative publicity is better than no publicity.“ If reading Rand’s novels becomes a fad; I can imagine at least a few people picking up her fiction as a trend, becoming interested in Objectivism, moving on to the non-fiction and finally grasping and excepting the philosophy.

This is extremely wishful thinking. And any-means-to-an-end is the implicit motto of the Left. We must all watch the human tendency to star-struckness, and stick like a death grip to reason. Hollywood has always been, and will always be, a cesspit of self-destuctive fools from which nothing good or real will ever come.

Not always. Ayn Rand worked in Hollywood too, you know. You can be star-struck (as passionate valuers often are), love the movies, and hold onto reason too -- as Ayn Rand herself bears witness.

Also, anything which gets Ayn Rand's own books into the hands of someone able to understand and appreciate them is a very good thing. Ayn Rand told Leonard Peikoff that even a bad movie of Atlas would help sell her books.

[jlew 0]

When I think about Atlas Shrugged or any other Ayn Rand work being brought to the big screen, I immediately think of something Terry Gilliam said when asked about filming Alan Moore's Watchmen. Gilliam said, "Not everything has to be a movie."

Watchmen works because its a great story told very well...and also because of its medium: the graphic novel.

Atlas Shrugged works not only because its a superb novel...but also because it is a novel. Ayn Rand was able to lay everything out to you because her characters were able to use introspection. You won't get that in a movie version of the book. (Its one of the reasons why I don't like The Fountainhead movie.) To do Atlas Shrugged justice (as far as I am concerned) you can't leave anything or anyone out. Its like the king asking Mozart to remove notes from his symphony because there are too many. "Which notes would you like removed, sire?"

Everyone in Atlas Shrugged is there for a reason. To bring it properly to the screen would require a monumental effort on Hollywood's part...and probably every actor in town!

I'd like to hear an excellent radio dramatization of it. Something where you could use actors playing the parts, but also have a narrator moving the action along. Of course, I realize that no one in the culture at large would listen to it...but I'd enjoy it anyway!

[Yes 3]

Yeah, I don't recall Dagny being described as having a set of beef-liver lips on her face.

I can't think of a worse actor for the role of Dagny Taggert than Angelina Jolie.

Dagny Taggert has class, polish, and dignity.

As she said in one point in the novel regarding who runs Taggert Transcontinental (she or brother James), "I'm the man."

[dwwoelfel 0]

I would like to see Jennifer Garner as Dagny.

[JeffreyH 0]

I am hoping that an Atlas Shrugged movie will not be made. It's an incomparable novel and a movie will not do it justice, especially one produced by Hollywood.

[Montesquieu 0]

Here is a recent quote from Angelina Jolie, as in from the last few days,

Just being an actress doesn't help me sleep well at night. When I do something for other people, then I feel my life has value.

from CNN-Jolie CNN article.

This is the person some people want having some sort of role in an Atlas Shrugged movie? I'd rather see no movie made at all than see every leftist in Hollywood get cast into it because it's in vogue and then spit on the ideas in the novel. Besides, the prospect of making such a grandiose novel/treatise into a proper series of movies is not good given the current artistic attitudes in Hollywood and I think the chances of this project being done correctly are not good.

[AwakeAndFree 0]

If someone made Atlas Shrugged into a movie they’d probably cast Ashton Kutcher as Galt and find a way to advocate altruism.

Dude, where's my gultch?

[IDC 0]

Here is a recent quote from Angelina Jolie, as in from the last few days,

from CNN-Jolie CNN article.

This is the person some people want having some sort of role in an Atlas Shrugged movie? I'd rather see no movie made at all than see every leftist in Hollywood get cast into it because it's in vogue and then spit on the ideas in the novel. Besides, the prospect of making such a grandiose novel/treatise into a proper series of movies is not good given the current artistic attitudes in Hollywood and I think the chances of this project being done correctly are not good.

Yes... I just saw a news conference on TV and she was saying we have a "moral obligation" to help people in poor countries. If she was reading AR, she didn't "get" it.

[neverborn 0]

Agreed on Cate Blanchett for Dagny. Dagny needs to be someone who can go from looking 100% professional -- very attractive, but not a sexual being at all.... to being the hottest woman in the room, stealing the spotlight -- with nothing more than a change of clothes.

[neverborn 0]

Orlando Bloom for James Taggart

[Lord Poppycock 0]

Orlando Bloom for James Taggart

I always pictured James Taggart as a little overweight and ugly.

[the tortured one 1]

I always pictured James Taggart as a little overweight and ugly.

believe that was how he was described as looking, with a big blaring bald spot.

[AMERICONORMAN 3]

Agreed on Cate Blanchett for Dagny. Dagny needs to be someone who can go from looking 100% professional -- very attractive, but not a sexual being at all.... to being the hottest woman in the room, stealing the spotlight -- with nothing more than a change of clothes.

This is so untrue. Dagny will and must be "hot". She looks ugly to many because, yes, of her clothes. But the clothes themselves are quite beautiful. It is her sense of life that looks ugly to most as expressed by her body and personality that makes her (astonishing) ugly to most.

I'll say it again: Dagny Taggart is one of the most beautiful women that have ever existed.

Americo.