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- [00:10]
A
Hello and welcome to the Fountainhead episode of Slate, Money Goes to the Movies. I'm Felix Salmon of Axios. I'm here with Emily Peck. Hello, and oh, my God, do we have a doozy for you this week. We have Michael Beirut. Michael, welcome. Who are you?
- [00:32]
B
Hello, my name is Michael Beirut. I'm a graphic designer, a partner in the firm Pentagram, and a recovering Ayn Rand fan.
- [00:41]
A
Ayn Rand being one of the great bugaboos of 20th century America. She has huge influence in the Republican Party to this day. And she wrote this book called the Fountainhead that she then turned into a script, which she insisted on being filmed without changing a single word. This script actually got made into a surprisingly watchable movie starring Gary Cooper. It's the fountainhead from 1948. 49, something like that. That's all coming up on a very fun episode, I have to say, of Slate, Money Goes to the Movies. So, Michael Beirut, where were you, if you remember, when was it that you first saw the Fountainhead?
- [01:26]
B
The Fountainhead. I can't say where I was when I first saw the movie, which probably would have been on some late night TV on a UHF channel in Ohio, or maybe even when I first moved to New York in 1980. But the movie is very much, very much a product of the book upon which it's based. And that's made clear from the opening frames. It's basically the opening shot shows like the COVID of a book. The pages turn and that introduces the credits. And I read the book in the ninth grade in suburban Cleveland, and I just was thunderstruck by it. And I believe I read it, God forgive me, seven more times before I turned 20. Yep.
- [02:07]
A
Wow.
- [02:07]
B
So I. So ask me anything.
- [02:11]
A
So, I mean, the first thing I have to say is in terms of, like, visually inventive opening titles, I don't even know if they existed before this. But in this movie, you have a skyscraper, which is a beautiful, modernist, sleek skyscraper with vertical lines quite similar to the World Trade center, the original one, but long before it was built. And then the sort of the camera moves and it turns out to be the spine of a book, and the book is the Fountainhead. And it's a glorious visual pun. And I was like, okay, there's some inventiveness. People are having fun with this movie. Even though I'm gonna go out on a limb here and say that it is the clunkiest script of any movie ever made in the history of Hollywood. There are other aspects to the movie. If you get away from the script that are kind of cool.
- [03:06]
B
Yeah. The other unprecedented. It's the clunkiest script, perhaps. And Ayn Rand claimed it was the first time in Hollywood history that the screenwriter got absolute final approval of what was put on film, and not a word was changed. And those two things may have been interrelated, actually.
- [03:23]
A
Yeah. Please, God, make it the last time. Because, I mean, there's a formative scene at the beginning of the movie where our hero, Howard Rourke, wins a commission to build a skyscraper. And they're like, but we want to make some changes. And he's like, never. I must be pure. And it's the same thing, right? He is to his architecture as Ayn Rand was to her script. And quite obviously, in the case of the script, the desire for purity was a terrible idea. And I've seen reports that the studio heads and the director and the actors were all begging her, like, no one talks like this. This is the worst screenwriting that we have ever seen in our lives. Please let us make it better. And she was like, no, I shall not. I am pure. I am Howard Rourke.
- [04:12]
C
The worst part was when Howard Rourke gets up and makes his speech to the jury, the insane, long, impenetrable argument that really does not make any sense. And you're just like, oh, my God. And then I did read that Ayn Rand, they cut the speech. That. That was shorter than she wanted it to be, and she was mad about it.
- [04:33]
A
I think I went off and took, like, four transatlantic trips and came back and made a cup of tea and, like, wrote a novel. And he was still talking, right? And I was like, does this thing.
- [04:43]
B
Ever end well, Emily, that. That speech was the case of a notorious showdown where the producer indeed just looked at the. Probably just started flipping through the pages and thinking, this is preposterous. No one will sit still for this. And started doing what any sensible filmmaker would do and just shortened it. And Ayn Rand found out about this and had a deal with Jack Warner and. And said we had an agreement that nothing would be cut. So Jack Warner from Warner Brothers called up the producer and said, do whatever Ms. Rand says. And I think there was always this vague threat that the book had a cult following and that the passionate readers of the book, which much later would include the likes of me, would rise up in protest and burn theaters down if a word was cut. I think she somehow kind of. She believed that certainly, and probably was able to convince the other people at the studio that was a going threat. That's a very. Ayn. Randy Trope. Eventually the protagonist will get up and deliver a very long speech that in painstaking detail, reiterates every bit of subtext, if there is any subtext at all, to reiterate in the course of the thing. If you're a very committed Ayn Rand person, which I was in my teens, you also have to read Atlas Shrugged at least once. And I did, more than once. And there's a famous speech in that that runs literally unbroken for hundreds of pages. Like I think for something like 200 pages or so. John Galt's speech, he's an architect as well, right? No, he's a physicist, mechanical engineer or something, but a man of action, a man of science, a man of the mind. And Emily, you criticized that speech, but it did get him acquitted. So checkmate, Emily.
- [06:22]
C
No, it worked. Obviously it worked.
- [06:25]
A
The jury was hanging on every word. They weren't falling asleep at all.
- [06:29]
B
If you haven't seen the movie, the crime that he is being charged with is actually dynamiting and leveling a multi block housing development that was changed against his will and he just felt that no one changes my work and I will therefore blow it up. Explained that clearly to the jury who said, you know, guy's got a point.
- [06:52]
C
Makes sense.
- [06:52]
A
Not guilty, you know, and in terms of the mob rising up in defense of the singular vision of Ayn Rand, whether or not that would have ever happened with regard to this movie, it certainly happens in the movie. Like the degree to which the normal man on the street New Yorker cares about the finer points of like, architectural decoration is absolutely stunning.
- [07:20]
B
Yes. I was thinking, I was imagining as I was watching you, two media types marveling at the idea that a tabloid newspaper and sort of a fairly tawdry New York Post style newspaper, the New York Banner, which is owned by one of the several protagonists in the movie, publishing titan, Gail Winan. That paper actually has not one, but two architectural critics, Dominique Francon and Ellsworth Toohy. And excitingly, I think further for you media types, the unequivocal evil villain in the entire movie is the lead architectural critic of the paper, who is using his, his influence to affect world events and eventually to dominate the world through some quasi fascistic.
- [08:05]
A
Yeah, exactly. Like global domination through architecture criticism. I mean, it is clearly the profession you choose. If you want world beating, domination and control over the planet, you become an architecture critic. Because the one thing I know about architecture critics is they always get regular placement on the front page of the biggest mass market newspapers in the world.
- [08:26]
B
Exactly. And they connive with the editor in chief to sort of concoct some scandals that'll sell a lot of papers. You've seen it happen over and over again. We say facetiously, we have to talk.
- [08:37]
A
A little bit about the production design here. His amazing triplex apartment at the top of his amazing modernist building with these swooping staircases and these beautiful glass everywhere and terraces. I mean, the idea is that he is the lone architectural genius, but that was a beautiful set. I mean, the one thing which was weird to me, and I need to ask you about this because you have a much better idea than I do, is was there ever a time like that first building? Later on in his career he becomes a bit more of a kind of Frank Lloyd Wright character and does weird stuff. But like early on in his career, he's this full on, like Miesian International style modernist. And that is the style that people are objecting to. Was there ever a time when popular sentiment just hated Miesian International style modernism? Was it always considered to be like this glorious vision of the future?
- [09:30]
B
There's a. To a degree. Well, very overtly, Ayn Rand was basing Rourke's story on the biography of Frank Lloyd Wright, who did indeed work originally for Louis Sullivan. Louis Sullivan's career in the late 19th century sort of got derailed by the mania for neoclassicism that arose after the Columbian Exposition in Chicago at the end of the 19th century. So most civic buildings then were thought to have to be built in the form of temples, columns, grand staircases, et cetera. A lot of the buildings we admire in New York from that era are surprisingly modern. They look like they were built in the 19th century, but actually they're from the 20s and 30s. You know, all those Stanford White buildings, Those are all 20th century yet. What's weird is that I think in the movies one would often see through the 30s, these glamorous art deco rooms for Fred Astaire, Ginger Rogers concoctions, seldom happening in Georgian mansions, much more likely happening in penthouse apartments. And so, you know, I suspect that both the readers of the book and the viewers of the movie didn't have much of a clue about where. Where does this stuff come from or what's the history of it. The part that rang true to me was that part that you referred to before Felix, where he has a client and they've accepted his design with a few small changes and they actually have gone to the trouble of making models to demonstrate how they will take his mesian box and festoon it with a couple of neoclassical kind of Roman pediments and strings of columns and stuff. And the things they say leading up to that are things that clients say all the time. This is good, but it's like, you know, the public won't accept something quite this crazy. We need to do something a little bit more acceptable to popular taste. And in the Rand formulation, only the heroic figure who stands athwart all this is the person who is responsible for all human progress.
- [11:23]
A
Michael, you are the perfect person to ask this, right, as someone who gets commissioned to create works of genius for multinational corporations. And then they come back to you and they do this and they say, well, we love what you did, but we want a few changes. And there's actually a scene in the movie where they're based on. I can't remember who it was who says this. It's like they're the client. The client is the client. You have to do what they want. And the romantic idea is always that the genius has created the genius, the client is dumb. And if the genius winds up doing what the client wants, that's just, like, ultimately bad for everyone. That's clearly the message of the movie. As a, you know, fully fledged creative genius yourself, is this true?
- [12:10]
B
I'd like to say that it's all hogwash, but there's a reason why some of these ideas have endured. There's a reason why if you meet an architect and ask him or her their opinion of the Fountainhead, a lot of times they'll make a face that kind of admits their own sort of ambivalence about it. They know they have to roll their eyes a little bit, but in their hearts, they know there are parts that really resonate. Roark has a single line which is probably like the real climax of the movie for architects, where he says, I don't build in order to have clients. I have clients in order to build.
- [12:42]
D
A building has integrity, just like a man. And just as seldom, it must be true to its own idea, have its own form and serve its own purpose. But we can't depart from the popular forms of architecture. Why not? Because everybody's accepted them. I haven't. You wish to defy our common standards? I set my own standards. You intend to fight against the whole world? If necessary. But after all, we are your clients and it's your job to serve us. I don't build in order to have clients. I have clients in order to build.
- [13:12]
B
And he also says, interestingly enough, he says something to the effect of, I've never worked with. I don't work with committees or with foundations or with groups. I only work with a single man who knows what he wants and can trust me to respond to that vision. And I mean, I've been in lots of late night war story sessions with other designers. And working with committees is not easy. If you have a single patron who miraculously decides that you are a genius. That's what every person who does creative work secretly wants. I think. I think most of us, though, kind of end up going into the world having Howard Roark on the inside and putting a little Peter Keating on the outside and just trying to split the difference between them. God help me, I say that only knowing that Ayn Rand is dead and spinning in her grave to hear someone saying that in her name.
- [14:02]
C
I feel like in journalism, I know some Howard Rourke types. Like, I've worked with the Howard Rourke type who submits his piece and better not mess with it. And they'll fight you on every word change and just committed to the vision. But like, nine times out of ten, they're wrong. They need the editing help and there's things to be fixed. Although, of course, Howard Rourke's buildings didn't need, like, the extra curly cues or whatever these people want to put on them. But I don't know, it just. There are quibbles here.
- [14:30]
A
I'm a great believer in design by committee when it's done well. So, like, the wizard of Oz is a great movie and no one can name the director because they didn't really have a director. There is no, like, directorial vision of the wizard of Oz. It was directed by like, five different people, all, like, you know, doing different bits, and it just kind of gets thrown together and it doesn't matter. It's a great movie or even in the world of architecture, look at my favorite building in New York, possibly the world, is the UN Building on the east river, which again, was like a whole bunch of architects, including Oscar Niemeyer and Corbusier and Le Corbusier. And they all kind of work together quite well. Like, you can do work by committee and it can be glorious when it works.
- [15:12]
B
There's something about architecture where the stakes are higher in a way. And a mistake can kill people. Certainly a more mild mistake can just be an eyesore that a whole city will have to live with for decades. Whereas my worst logo or the most inept bit of copy turned in by a journalist is going to make it as far as it makes it right. And I think that's why, I mean, I've Met a lot of architects through the years. And all of them have to channel a little bit of that Howard Roark arrogance because they're trying to talk people into taking this gargantuan imaginary leap with them. When, Emily, if you hand in a finished piece or a piece for editing, or I kind of am showing a client a logo, I sort of want them to trust me. But on the other hand, they can just look at the thing. And the way it looks is the way it's going to look. The way your piece reads is the way it's going to read. Architects, they just show people models and they say, picture this, except really big and millions of dollars later and months and months later, it's going to be there. And trust me, it's going to work. And every bad building you've ever seen was the result of someone saying that. And every brewing building you've ever seen is the result of someone saying that. And to make that claim just demands so much trust and confidence to be placed in you as a professional that I just think all of them kind of, in their own way, most architects learn a way to kind of be bigger than life when the occasion calls for it. Some of them are more wheedling and charming. Some of them are just more like godlike in their presentation. Some of them are cerebral. Some of them are kind of just a blunt force of personality. But they're all. They all sort of are. So many of them are larger than life. It's not just a coincidence, I suspect. And they also make great subjects for movies. You already had an architect as a protagonist earlier. And Slate money goes to the movies.
- [17:02]
A
In the Indecent Proposal.
- [17:04]
B
Indecent Proposal, yeah. And I actually looked it up, the list of actors who have played architects on film. There's a website where they round up. Some of them include Paul Newman, Towering Inferno, Steve Martin in Housesitter, Woody Harrelson in Decent Proposal, which you covered. Adam Sandler in Click. Liam Neeson in Love, actually, Wesley Snipes in Jungle Fever, Tom Hanks in Sleepless in Seattle, Michelle Pfeiffer in One Fine Day, Henry Fonda in Twelve Angry Men. @ the very end, they say none of them have names. It's just juror number one or whatever they say. By the way, what do you do, Fell? He says, I'm an architect. And that's so gratuitous. But it's just meant to cement in the public mind, oh, he must be great. He's an architect. It's just amazing. That was. That's why George Costanza wants to talk people into being an architect. I've always wanted to pretend I was an architect.
- [17:52]
C
Yeah. I was going to say there are some famous TV architects, but the only two I can think of right now would be Greg Brady of the Brady Bunch. Mike Brady. Sorry, Mike Brady. Greg's dad was an architect, and he was very trustworthy and patriarchal. And so that makes sense. And, of course, George Costanza's alter ego when he wanted to impress people was Art Vandelay. It's like the fallback. Like, trust.
- [18:17]
B
Me. What was so funny about Mr. Brady is that his house was crap. He lived in this raised ranch that really looked like my house in Parma, Ohio, in the 70s. And I was like, wow, Is that what architects build for themselves? So they can do anything they want? I guess. Okay, so. But it's. You know. But there's something about the idea that it's both artistic and a business. You know, you can. You can signal to your audience this guy or this woman kind of has an artistic screen. But they're not, like, crazy like a painter. They actually can show up and earn a paycheck because they're doing something that requires them to sit at a desk and use math. And so I think that sort of seems like, let's make that profession an architect for that.
- [18:57]
A
Role. So can we talk about the architecture in this movie, since it, on some level, is a movie about architecture? The billionaire Gail Winans, who claims that he has never built a work of genius, and he's been sort of cowardly in his commissioning of the Peter Keating types his entire career. And then, like, the last thing he does before he dies is commission the genius Howard Rourke to build the greatest skyscraper in the history of skyscrapers. But his office is, like, the most amazing architectural marvel. It's like he got something.
- [19:29]
B
Right. Yeah, yeah. No, it's got that great little moment where all his newspapers are kind of arrayed around in kind of a semicircle. You've done Hudsucker Proxy. That's sort. I mean, the production designers for that must have looked at movies like the Fountainhead where you sort of get that view of the impossible. You know, the senselessly vast expanse of carpet that has to be traversed to reach the CEO's desk, which is backed by these impossibly tall windows which open out onto the cityscape. No, I thought. I mean, it's just. I think the production design in this movie is great. Again, Ayn Rand was not impressed. She really wanted them to hire Frank Lloyd Wright to be the production designer and Frank Lloyd Wright's conditions were not acceptable to the folks at Warner Brothers. And so he didn't get the job. And she actually wanted it to feel much more like Frank Lloyd Wright and much less like this sort of stripped down, modern look. But I actually think it's ravishing. There's a sequence that happened. They do a little montage where they're kind of like showing him crawling back to success, building by building. And he has this. He actually has this thing that actually I think is very touching, where no one's hiring him. Then a guy with a guy who's building a gas station calls him up and says, you know, Mr. Roarke, I just like the way you. You make buildings, and I'm not sure you take on a little job like mine. It's just a gas station. And he says, there's no such thing as small buildings. Every building deserves to have great design. You know, he says this thing that I think is actually kind of.
- [20:56]
D
Admirable. It's great, Mr. Roark. It's wonderful. Ever since I saw the Enright House, I knew you were the man I wanted, but I was afraid you wouldn't do an unimportant gas station for me after doing skyscrapers. No building is unimportant. I'll build for any man who wants me anywhere, so long as I build my.
- [21:14]
B
Way. And then that leads to this little montage where it keeps showing a sketch by Howard Roark, then the built thing, a sketch and the built thing. I think those one after another, are staggering and beautiful. They're just amazing how cool they look. And considering that it was just sort of concoctions by the Warner Brothers production design department, I think they really sort of nailed that thing, particularly as it would be presented to an audience back in the late 40s when this movie came out. That would have seemed like plausible modern architecture to them, I would.
- [21:48]
A
Say. And then the final big commission that he gets, like the culmination of that sequence of commissions comes from Gail Winan to build a house in Connecticut. And he winds up building this, like, clunking great yacht that just kind of plunks down in the middle of a field. And you're like, he's done all of these great buildings in the sequence, as you say, he's done this wonderful, beautiful museum, skyscraper. And then what the hell does he give Winans? It's.
- [22:17]
B
Terrible. You know what's funny, Felix? I had the same reaction. And my guess is, I think the production design department sort of overthought it they thought, okay, this billionaire, it's already established that he has a yacht. He's been shown on a yacht, he's actually been shown on a yacht wearing kind of Thurston Howell III, kind of like a captain's hat and a double breasted jacket. And so like maybe Roark would make his house look like a yacht. So I think that earlier sequence, I think they just were knocking that stuff out and thinking, okay, we need building number four now, we need it by four o'. Clock. And I think that when they think, oh, this is going to really be the big one, we've got to spend a few extra days getting this right. And I think they ended up just, it's overly complicated. They never really show it too much, just looming in the background and not as I agree, not particularly nicely. And of course that commission leads to the other kind of delicious romantic dramedy sort of mix up where he hires Rourke for this thing as a temple to his new wife, who is again, the Dominique Francone, who sort of is. I have to admit, as a teenager I didn't understand girls much at all. And trying to kind of figure out what women wanted by reading this book was really baffling to me because.
- [23:34]
A
The expression on Emily's face, she's like.
- [23:36]
B
No, no, this is a very bad thought about this a little bit. So Emily, what did you make of sort of the sexual dynamics in this? Did they ring true to.
- [23:46]
C
You? Well, yes. I often begin my relationships by slapping a man in the face with a riding crop and then hovering menacingly over him at the quar I liked. I mean, the movie was made in 1948 and I feel like Dominique Francone comes across as, you know, a self assured woman who kind of knows what she wants, even though it seems bananas. Like the first scene when we see her, she's throwing a statuette out a window because I don't know.
- [24:14]
B
Why. Something about her, it's too beautiful for this horrible.
- [24:17]
C
Moment. Too beautiful for this. Sure. But she is still kind of like a pawn in the movie. I mean, she's just the only woman in the movie. And her fiance is Peter Keating, the schlubby architect and he likes busy love life, doesn't she? Yeah, yeah, everybody wants this lady. I mean, she's the only one in the movie, so it makes sense. And you know, he kind of, he ditches her to build a building. And just making clear to me, like, okay, she's a self confident, self assured woman and everything, but she's still just like someone's possession to be bought and sold, basically. So that was disheartening. And also it was disheartening to me that, like Ayn Rand, it's all about men for her. There's no project around women for this woman. I don't know that much about her. And Michael, maybe you can enlighten me. But, like, it's all about genius men for this woman. That was kind of depressing to.
- [25:07]
A
Me. My wife did a whole art project about conservative women in the 20th century, and Ayn Rand was one of the women that she picked out and did a portrait of really, as a prime example of a woman who spent her entire career trying to prop up the patriarchy and being sort of anti.
- [25:29]
C
Feminist. Yes, that's exactly the message you get. Like, the men are the geniuses and you're supposed to act selfishly. That's her big message. Like, it's okay to be selfish. You have to act in your self interest always. It doesn't matter. Yet the woman in the movie does not really act in her own self interest. She's all about Howard Rourke. She's all about supporting him no matter what. So that's kind of like. There's kind of a flaw in the machinery there for Ayn Rand, in my.
- [25:55]
B
Opinion. She does this weird thing. I mean, Dominique's motivation, Like, I think that's actually. I Mean, I have two main quibbles. Well, I have two main quIbbles with the movie, neither of which is the one that Felix mentioned. I actually like the dialogue. It sort of has that film noir. No one talks like this kind of thing where it's a 40s movie in black and white. Of course, no one's gonna talk naturalistically. And it's the kind of thing that the boy brothers actually take off.
- [26:23]
A
On. Sure. I mean, granted, like, you watch a great Billy Wilder movie and no one talks like that, but that's because the way people talk in Billy Wilder movies is just so much smarter and faster and cooler than anyone could talk in reality. The way people Talk in the 9 Rand movie is by, like, delivering, like, completely deathless chunks of concrete prose and dropping them on their foot and going, wow, what am I meant to do.
- [26:50]
B
With. Is like, sat. Short essay answers every. Every little line. And. But. But, you know, it's funny is, you know, she was born in Russia. English is her second language. Learned to speak English through the movies, Fell in love with America through the movies. Moved originally to LA and kind of her first jobs were working as a script girl on film. Lots of. And so she really knew her. Yeah. Knew her way around.
- [27:16]
A
Hollywood. She worked on Hollywood.
- [27:18]
B
Scripts. Yeah, yeah, yeah. She was.
- [27:20]
A
Like. Like, I'm not surprised about the English as a second language thing. Like, you know, Vladimir Nabokov and indeed, Billy Wilder had English as a second language. Like, that's not. But if she's actually worked on scripts, you're like, surely she should have learned something about how to write.
- [27:38]
C
Dialogue. The movie is good, though. Yes, there is a lot. I mean, the jury scene alone, I didn't. I denounce it. But there are some, like, fun lines and little things. Like, Ellsworth Toohey's column is called One Small Voice. That, to me, is just delicious. Like, he just. He's just one small voice, but he's, you know, destroying people's lives or whatever. And they. People say kind of fun things. I wrote a few down. Like, one guy says, I play the stock market of the spirit, and I sell short. Like, I enjoyed.
- [28:08]
A
That. Wait, who said that? I don't remember.
- [28:10]
B
That. Ellsworth Toohey says that. Ellsworth.
- [28:12]
C
Toohey. Ellsworth.
- [28:13]
A
Toohey. Okay, that's a good line. I will give you.
- [28:15]
C
That. And when they're trying to come up with something to cover at the newspaper, I think it's the editor in chief who says, like, I've racked my brain. I can't think of anything to denounce. And I just. I enjoyed that a lot. And despite the wooden dialogue, this is a very watchable movie. Not only does it look good, but the acting is really compelling. Like, I was comparing it to Hudsucker a lot because it's kind of, like, similar themes and similar setting and all this. And I was trying to figure out, like, what the difference is. And I think the acting is just a lot better. Like, Patricia Neal and Gary Cooper are really good. And even though they have the weird wooden things that they're saying, I believe it all. I believe Patricia Neal's character is the unique person that she is. You know what I mean? Like, I believe that they are really into each other. I read that Ayn Rand thinks that sexual attraction comes from, like, a meeting of the minds or something. But obviously, these two are just, like, super hot for each other. And I believe that, you know.
- [29:08]
B
It'S a very horny.
- [29:09]
A
Movie. Oh, my God. The final scene where she, like, rides the elevator up to the. Oh, my God. Like, Emily, what were you doing? Like, describe the final.
- [29:20]
C
Scene. Well, the final scene is so Wynand shoots himself in the head, but.
- [29:27]
B
This is almost like Emily Excuse me. Act. Excuse me for a second. He. That wasn't in the original script. Originally, he simply gets divorced from Dominique, but the standards board said we can't show divorce in a movie. Have him blow his brains out. So divorce. We don't want to get into that. Suicide. Yeah, sure. Makes.
- [29:46]
C
Sense. That's crazy, because obviously if you show people suicide, that leads to more suicide. So anyway, so he shoots himself in the head because he's so upset that he turned on his friend Howard Rourke. Sort of. Yay. That means that Dominique Francone can marry Howard Rourke and it's a happy ending. I've never seen a suicide as part of a happy ending before, typically, but there you go. And then in the last scene, Howard Rourke is building this, like, monument to himself, a giant skyscraper. It's super phallic. And Dominique Francone gets into the elevator on site. It's like an open elevator. Looks kind of.
- [30:23]
B
Scary. And she's alone on it.
- [30:25]
C
Too? Oddly enough.
- [30:26]
B
Yes. Terrible. No hard hat. Completely.
- [30:27]
A
Alone. My wife has a fear of heights and was watching this movie with me, and she was like, she couldn't watch. It was like the scariest scene in the.
- [30:35]
C
Movie. It was pretty scary. Yeah. And then she's, like, looking up, and he's at the top of the phallic symbol looking down on her, and she's riding up the skyscraper. And it's the happiest ending in Hollywood right there. And it is kind of.
- [30:49]
B
Happy. You're right. It is like a really watchable movie. And I would say, Felix, almost all the bad dialogue, I believe is given to Gary Cooper as Howard Rourke is. He's the one who has to kind of keep making the speeches about the ideology. I actually think that, like, Ellsworth Toohey and I think everyone else gets, like, great kind of, like, snide, cynical things to.
- [31:11]
A
Say. Oh, who's that Louis Sullivan guy? At the beginning, he just does not speak like a human. Also, like, what was that crazy speech about self sacrifice or something that Gail Winans winds up dictating as a front page out editorial? I mean, makes no sense whatsoever. Also, can I also say, like, this was made in 1948, long before postmodernism was a gleam in, you know, the eye of anyone. But the thing that they wind up creating the kind of hodgepodge of neoclassical stuff and balconies and crescences, the version of the housing estate that ends up being built and that Howard Rourke hates and wants to dynamite is this incredible postmodern.
- [32:02]
B
Vision. Beautiful. It's so amazing. It's Michael Graves meets Quinlan Terry. It is so good. Yeah, it's great. And the thing is, that's the only moment where I wish that movie was in color because you can tell that would have really driven home the.
- [32:16]
A
Improvements. Yeah, it would have been like Terry Farrell, like lime green and.
- [32:20]
B
Pink. Yeah, exactly. Terry Farrell, like. Yeah, exactly like that. And so then Howard Roark then exercises his undocumented but gentleman's agreement that the contract has been breached by blowing up a vast multi block housing development. For a reason that I never quite figured out, and I don't remember in the book what the reason is, he causes Dominique to be on the scene and be.
- [32:44]
A
Injured. I forget she needs to send the guard away so that he can sneak in with his.
- [32:50]
C
Dynamite. Oh, I thought it was so he didn't die, but it's just so he can sneak in with the.
- [32:55]
A
Dynamite. One of my favorite bits is that there are demonstrations against the newspaper when it takes the pro Rourke position. And people are like walking around with signs on sticks saying, like, down with Howard Rock because they care so much about modernism versus.
- [33:13]
B
Pastiche. And signs that say, reinstate Ellsworth Toohy, who's been fired from the paper while he's so. I mean, it really. I think it's just kind of remarkable in so many ways. But I agree with Emily. I actually. I hadn't seen it in about 15 years, I'm guessing, and have grown more measured in my opinions about things. Certainly got over Ayn Rand before I turned 20. And I was actually thinking, oh my goodness, what did I get us into with this thing? And I was actually surprised at how compelling it is. It also has another great line which is, you know, all the characters have to meet each other and have these confrontations. And at one point, when he's at his low point in the movie, Rourke is walking around in New York and comes upon a big commission for the New York Lyric Opera that he had interviewed for, been rejected from, and had been given to his quasi rival, Peter Keating. And he's standing at the construction barricades gazing at the work being done. And it says, on this site shall rise the New York Lyric Opera, Keating and Frank Hahn architects. And. And he's looking at it expressionlessly. And then a figure next to him says, we've never met, have we? And it turns out to be the evil Elsworth Toohey. And then he says, this should have been yours. There's buildings all over this city that are rising that should have been yours and they never will be. Do you know why? It's because you must be destroyed. And he. You know, I love his performance. I just think it is so delicious. He just kind of like, really digs.
- [34:39]
A
In. He's a good mustache twirler, isn't.
- [34:42]
B
He? Yeah, he totally is. He sort of is, if you know All About Eve. He really is sort of of like the prototype for Addison DeWitt, the Evil Theater critic who shows up in that one. He's failing to get a rise out of Howard Rourke. And finally he says, we're all alone here. Why don't you tell me exactly what you think of me? And then Gary Cooper, in what I think is his best line reading in the whole movie, says, but I don't think of you. And that scene ends. And what's interesting is I'm doing a Mad Men rewatch right now, and there's an elevator scene where one of the junior copywriters says to Don Draper, you know, why don't you just tell me exactly what you think of me? And he just looks straight ahead and says, you know, I don't think of you. And you can tell that Matt Weiner is actually consciously doing a little bit of homage. And in fact, Don Draper is very much a latter day Howard Roark in Put Me in the Room and I'll get my idea over. No one changes my copy, et cetera, et cetera. So more titanic creative geniuses in the business world for us to model ourselves on with some degree of futility, I.
- [35:40]
D
Guess. Hello, Mr. Rourke. I hoped I'd meet you someday like this. Alone. You shouldn't mind talking to.
- [35:49]
A
Me. What.
- [35:50]
D
About? There's a building that should have been yours. There are buildings going up all over the city which your great chance is refused to you and given to incompetent fools. You're walking the streets while they're doing the work which you love but cannot obtain. This city is closed to you. It is I who have done it. Don't you want to know my motive? No. I'm fighting you. And I shall fight you in every way I can. You're free to do what you please. Mr. Rourke. We're alone here. Why don't you tell me what you think of me and any words you wish. But I don't think of.
- [36:21]
C
You. Okay, so two things about the way the public acts in this movie. There are times when a building goes up in Manhattan and people freak out about how they don't like how it looks. Like, for example, I believe the World Trade center people really hated everything about it when it went.
- [36:37]
B
Up. The Twin.
- [36:38]
C
Towers. The Twin Towers. Yes, the Twin Towers. People hated the Twin.
- [36:41]
B
Towers. They weren't.
- [36:42]
C
Beloved. It took a while. And people get worked up about architecture in New York City. I would say one and two, if someone blew up a housing project because of their integrity in New York City and got caught, and then a newspaper, like every day, Drumbeat was defending this person, I feel like people would get upset about it, and rightly.
- [37:05]
A
So. This is a good point.
- [37:08]
B
Emma. That's.
- [37:09]
A
Crazy. Yeah, this is actually true because these days, I mean, and the housing project is very like Corbusian X shaped tower in a field kind of housing project that like nowadays we look at with a degree of, oh, my God, what were we thinking? But back then in the 1940s, really was considered to be the utopian future of working people's housing. And I think the working people, you know, who are being upgraded from literally slum conditions into strongly well built projects with elevators and solid walls and indoor plumbing and all of that kind of stuff, and heating and even sometimes air conditioning were like, this is such a great step up from what we're used.
- [37:58]
C
To. Yeah. Actually, I can interject and say that my mother and her family were one of the first to move into a housing project in Williamsburg when it was brand new. And my aunt, who's still alive, still talks about how amazing it was and how they had, like, washing machines and the rent was really good and it was super clean and they were so proud to live there. And she just was on and on about how awesome the housing project.
- [38:20]
A
Was. And people liked the housing project. They might not have liked the slum clearances, but they did like the building they were moving into. And, yeah, they didn't want to see them being blown up by some ubermensch who was convinced that he was more important than any of.
- [38:32]
C
Them.
- [38:33]
B
Yeah. And in the movie, some of the best kind of expository dialogue, there's a couple passages where on two occasions, first Twohy and then Roark himself sort of describe the challenges of building really good public housing. And this really beautifully written passages that are quite accurate and kind of illuminating. And I sort of, in a way, you have to admire Ayn Rand's chutzpah of kind of making this calculation. Okay, so I think the climax should be they change his design and he blows up the building. What kind of building could it be? What if it was a housing project for poor people? Why don't we just take the most extreme thing that kind of sets him up to be the most Ostensibly the most villainous sort of character in the world. And then his ultimate triumph will be even more of a vindication of my philosophical position. And it's also quite weird, Emily, that the same sort of regular people who were protesting in the street presumably serve on the jury, and like we said before, they just sort of needed to explain to them what he was all about, and they. Oh, yeah, okay. Yeah. So nothing against poor people. I guess it just was. You didn't like them adding those multicolored balconies to the building. Okay, got it. Not.
- [39:50]
C
Guilty. I don't understand what Howard Roarker's supposed to be. A man of integrity. But what is so commendable about agreeing to design a building for some other architect secretly and making this weird deal behind the scenes? That seems to me to be unethical. But, of course, my moral compass is different from Ayn Rand's. But I don't understand that as, like, a man of integrity would do that. Explain that to me.
- [40:17]
B
Emily. You were meant to attend to an earlier soliloquy that Roarke delivers, I believe, to Peter Keating, in which he says something. I forget who. No, he might have been talking, actually, at one point, he's interviewed by a reporter. At the end of that montage, what are you all about, Mr. Roark? And this guy's taking notes, and he says something like, I don't build for the poor. I don't build for my clients. I'm not thinking of the users. I'm not thinking of the press or acclaim. I'm just doing it because I want to do the work. And I want to do the work right. That's all I care about, is doing the work. And the reason I have clients is they let me do the work. And the work is what I love, and the work is what I'm dedicated to. And so I really do think that sort of is, you know, like, if agreeing to do something, not be credited for it, not be paid for, but simply see your vision rise and have the private satisfaction of knowing that was my work. That's. I believe, what you're meant to. That's meant to kind of dispel your confusion about that. And I think that speech, coming after so many other similar speeches, they all sort of start to run together in your mind. And I think it's hard to kind of, like, keep the worldview kind of perfectly on track the whole.
- [41:26]
A
Time. If you've read the Fountainhead seven times, then at that point, you kind of understand.
- [41:31]
B
It. Yeah. At a certain point, you sort of Internalize the whole thing. And you're not actually. You're sort of just more absorbing it than reading it in a conventional.
- [41:38]
A
Sense. So, Michael, thank you first of all for having done the work to just absorb it over the years in your formative adolescent years and for rewatching this for us. So, like. Yeah. What is your verdict? How would you rate this.
- [41:52]
B
Movie? I would say surprisingly watchable. It's compelling. The performances are all over the top. And if you want to see an architect in a movie, really being an architect, this is the movie for you. Tom Hanks and Woody Harrelson are not delivering the.
- [42:08]
A
Gifts. Yeah, Woody Harrelson was not a believable architect. He did terrible postmodern, like, 80s terrible things. You get much better buildings in this one from Gary Cooper, who is a much more believable architect. I will give you that. Oh, my God. You know who we forgot was Jeremy Irons in High.
- [42:25]
B
Rise. Oh, that's right. Yeah, yeah. No, it is the classic role. It's a classic.
- [42:30]
C
Role. It's always Men, though, except you mentioned Michelle Pfeiffer. Except for Always.
- [42:34]
B
Men. And by the way, you know that this movie, and it's very telling, actually. This movie is constantly being buzzed about as someone's going to do a reboot of it and update it. And it's always like actually seen as being. Yeah. What's funny is that the first time I heard that was Michael Cimino while he was doing Heaven's Gate. There's a fantastic book called Final Cut, which is one of the best business books ever written, if you ask me about the disastrous making of this movie, Heaven's Gate by Michael Cimino. And they find out that his dream project is to do the Fountainhead. And they realize, oh, damn, that explains everything. Why are we working with this guy? And then Oliver Stone was in talks about doing it, and then most recently, Zack.
- [43:13]
A
Snyder. The only profession that has greater percentage of completely insane egoists is film.
- [43:20]
B
Directors. They see their reflection in Howard Rourke and they want to inhabit it and make a movie all over.
- [43:27]
A
Again. How about you, Emily? What's your verdict on the.
- [43:30]
C
Fountainhead? I like this movie. It's not for me. This movie is not for me. This is a celebration of male power and patriarchy, maybe, I guess. And as discussed, the dialogue was ridiculous and wooden at times, almost. You couldn't listen to it and yet it was so watchable. I just. I loved Gary Cooper. I loved Patricia Neal. They're great at act. They're really good at acting. And it was so compelling to watch. I really. The contrast to Hudsucker Proxy was intense in my mind. It was just so well done and so much better and smarter in.
- [44:09]
A
So many ways, as we know. I enjoyed the Hudsucker Proxy more than you did. And I loved the production design of the Hudsucker Proxy possibly even more than of the Fountainhead. They had, like, more technology to work with and color, which is very helpful. I also probably just found it harder to get over the clonking great political aspect of the whole thing. And the politics of it are so hard to swallow that it makes the whole movie, to me, kind of unpleasant. Not to mention the fact that, like, the steaming clunks of dialogue can be, like, also very hard to swallow. That said, I will agree that the actors are good at acting. The production design is excellent. The director did a very. King Vidor did a very good job of directing this script. I don't think anyone could have done a better job with this script than he did. And. And if someone asked me, like, should I watch this movie? I wouldn't say.
- [45:07]
B
No. And do you think, Felix, because you mentioned sort of the political kind of implications of that it's propaganda.
- [45:14]
A
Right? It is. It's got that, like, Leni Riefenstahl thing going on. And, like, you know, are we going around saying, oh, yeah, we should all be watching the Triumph of the Will because the production design is.
- [45:24]
B
Awesome? The one thing that I that strikes me just about this movie, that book and Ayn Rand's oeuvre is that. But it just seems to, decades and decades later, despite everyone's sort of acknowledgment that these are all deeply flawed works of art, it just seems to really have such a hold on the imagination of politicians, business people. Certainly there's no shortage of Silicon Valley types who have built businesses who obviously had some sort of fateful encounter with one of these books or movies at an impressionable age, and somehow that shaped their imagination. It's sort of really seems like, as a template for kind of a lot of attitudes about how business is conducted, that Howard Rourke actually is exerts some sort of influence today. Right. Don't you think? Am I overstating? No.
- [46:16]
A
No. He absolutely does. Ayn Rand will never die, even though she's dead. On which note, Michael, thank you for suggesting this movie. It was an absolute genius suggestion. Thank you for making me watch it, which I honestly think I probably would never have watched this movie were it not for your suggestion. And thank you for being, like, the expert on all things Ayn Rand. Because it's hard to find a smart expert on all things Ayn Rand who doesn't just drive you up the.
- [46:43]
B
Wall. Thank you. Or we'll admit it. Yeah, it's an honor to be on the show and real blast talking about this or anything else with you and Emily. So thank you for inviting.
- [46:53]
A
Me. So that's it for the Fountainhead. Next week we have a real treat. Dodai Stewart talking about.