F) The Fountainhead

THE FOUNTAINHEAD

I don't expect anyone will read this, a commentary on a second rate
1949
black &; white film... well I say second rate, but it has an IMDB
rating of
7.0 which tends to put it in the higher bracket, but then I've never
cared
much for popular opinion. Ironically that's what the film is about,
popular
opinion, a man, an architect, forced out of his job and pretty much his
life
because he wont compromise his designs to popular opinion, and fights
to
build his buildings his way. Sadly the director, King Vidor did not
follow
the story's example and produced something which reeks of
overblown
melodrama - I can't get over how every morsel of dialogue is delivered
with
an utterance of profound portent, every scrap is forced with agony
through
the actors mouths.

The actors, well, Gary Cooper in a mean a brooding mould clashes with
the
tragic Patricia Neal in a classic love hate romance, even down to the
mock
fight then passionate kiss scene (obligatory). Then there is the
unknowing
cuckold, Raymond Massey, that Neal marries to get away from Cooper, a
clear
mark of America's fascist leanings pre 1939 and the megalomaniac
newspaper
columnist, Robert Douglas, that is determined to shape society to his
own
ends - his speeches are delivered with almost as much gusto as Hitler
at
Nuremberg.

For some reason I recognised the name of the writer, Ayn Rand, but
after
looking her up I could not tell you why (after looking HER up I
discovered
what I thought was a man is actually a women, so obviously did not know
much
about her). The film is taken from her novel of the same name, and
really
can't work out if it is a romance thrust up an architectural backdrop
or a
treatise on modern architecture disguised as romance.

There is so much about the film that is unreal it becomes almost
humorous,
the grand offices, surreal apartments, a quarry that Cooper is working
in (a
perfect opportunity to see him as a sweaty labourer who can stir
the
heroines blood) that consists entirely of right angles, and the total
lack
of any ordinary people.

There is much talk in the film about dragging oneself from the
gutter,
Hell's Kitchen to be precise, and yet there is no frame of reference
given,
it is nothing but empty words. For me this marks the fascism that
tints
every frame, the pretence at some level of concern for poverty and yet
all
we see is the hideously rich. Even Cooper's "fall" is romanticised, at
his
lowest he is the rugged labourer with an air of superiority that the
rich
bitch cannot resist.

In many ways a hideous film, professing horrific ideals, everyone
should be
powerful, rich, and white.