I've been mulling over the whole issue of the Atlas Shrugged film adaptation, which, at the moment at least, seems to be churning ahead to start filming later this year, and I wanted to talk about something several commenters have mentioned: whether it would be better to film Atlas as a miniseries, as opposed to a two-hour-or-longer movie. Of course, attempts have been made to bring Ayn Rand's most famous book to the screen before, and they've never made it past the script stage.
Why? Well, first of all, there are a lot of politics around this book. The Ayn Rand Institute and Leonard Peikoff have been notoriously protective of it for years, and trying to make a film that's going to please both the hardcore Objectivists (those who follow Rand's philosophy) and the average moviegoer who just wants to be entertained is, in my opinion, just an exercise in futility. Then I read this interview over on The Atlasphere with John Aglialoro, producer and CEO of Cybex, International, who paid $1 million for the film rights to Atlas.
This interview, which was conducted in February, had some interesting tidbits in it. Is Angelina Jolie, supposedly playing Dagny Taggart, committed to the project, even if her rumored (but yet unconfirmed) pregnancy turned out to be an issue? She is, according to the interview, and has signed a letter of intent. Okay, fine. Aglialoro also confirms that there have been conversations with Russell Crowe to play Hank Rearden, which would be swell ... I can see Crowe in that role. He also talks about when filming will commence (late 2008 or early 2009) and what the budget is ($70 million), and mentions as an aside that they're trying to get credit for Objectivist David Kelley of The Objectivist Center as a co-producer or writer as well.
While most folks just interested in seeing the film probably couldn't care less about whether Kelley gets credit on the film, I have little doubt that would be a huge issue for those Objectivists who align themselves with Peikoff and the Ayn Rand institute. For reasons that would bore the average person to tears, Kelley fell out of favor with the Peikoff side of the Objectivist Court some years ago, and I can't begin to enumerate the various essays, screeds and forum discussions I've read among various Objectivists endlessly debating Kelley's "evilness" (or lack thereof); I can't imagine the Peikoffians would sit silently on the sidelines with Kelley's name in the film's credits.
More importantly, though, is the issue of whether it's even possible to make a reasonably coherent two-and-a-half-hour film adaptation of this 1,200 page tome. That's, what, roughly 150 pages of script with which to condense a massive work of literature? I just don't see how even the most masterful of screenwriters could possibly accomplish this and make a decent film without losing huge chunks of context in the process. I have to also question how much of what Aglialoro had to say in his interview is based in reality; when I sat down with Atlas director Vadim Perelman at AFI Dallas to talk about his current film, The Life Before Her Eyes, the $70 million Atlas budget was news to him.
Perelman is one of my favorite directors, so I say this as an admirer of both his work and of him as a really nice guy: this is not the movie to tie yourself to. Perelman is at his best taking very poetic works and translating them into lovely films heavy in imagery and metaphor. What I admire about him is his willingness to not sell out, to take on interesting projects that others might cast aside, and bring them to life with his unique vision. And while I think he's certainly very capable of doing an apt job of Atlas Shrugged, and that he could draw out the metaphorical elements of the book very nicely, I hate to see a director of his caliber saddle himself with what is, in my opinion, almost certainly a doomed project
So, as a fan of Rand's work (although I have disagreements with many aspects of her philosophy), and having read everything she's written at least three times, this is what I think: The only reasonable way I see to make a film of Atlas Shrugged is to make it as a mini-series. Do it classy, make it a four (or even five or six) part miniseries, market the hell out of it, and then sell the DVDs as a boxed set. Don't try to take this massive book and shred it into 150 minutes of screen time. Stephen King learned his lesson the hard way from having his lengthy novels compressed into two hours of film. It just doesn't work well, sorry. The miniseries adaptations of The Stand and It were far better for being shot that way, than they would have been as movies.
Admittedly, I say all this having not seen the script, which Perelman is currently working on polishing, so perhaps they've somehow found a way to make it work. But honestly? I doubt it. I'd rather see Atlas canned than done poorly, and there are other projects that Perelman could work on that would make better use of his painterly talents as a director. What say you, fans of Atlas Shrugged? Should the film adaptation of Atlas churn ahead, or should they can it and start from scratch with a miniseries in mind?
1. You have to admit that the marketing possibilities for this film are perfectly in place: "Who is John Galt?" scrawled endlessly across cities. In fact, if they keep this "anonymous" actor playing Galt, who Aglialoro mentions, a secret until the film's release, only to spectacularly reveal his identity at the first screening, it would be a truly beautiful moment. That's all assuming the film works within 2.5 hours. I think it could. But the prospect of modernizing this story to the present day? Blasphemy.
Posted at 7:39PM on Apr 16th 2008 by Ben