Yesterday, I posted a short clip from the 1949 film version of Ayn Rand’s Fountainhead. The film stars Gary Cooper as Howard Roark, an architect and individualist.
Here’s a bit more. Rand wrote the screenplay for the film, and one can easily hear her voice in Roark’s words. Roark finds himself on trial, and delivers a defense of his conduct, that’s truly Rand’s defense of individual action.
(Quick Note Number 1 — I’m not an Objectivist, and do not share Rand’s full range of views. I see cleary, though, the contribution of her work to a libertarian defense against state collectivism.)
By contemporary standards, it’s an acerbic defense — Roark refers to those opposed to individual action as ‘parasites,’ for example. In our more delicate time, one might say that others were parasitic, but it’s hard to see how a film’s protagonist would be scripted to call opponents parasites. We’re just more delicate now.
One sees, too, Roark’s undeniable love of America, one that all libertarians share: “the noblest country in the history” of humanity, “was based on the principle of individualism…”
(Quick Note Number 2 — for Chief Coan, Lt. Otterbacher, Sgt. Winger, et al. — Roark is defending himself against the destruction of property he designed. Rand wrote the novel, The Fountainhead, a work of fiction. She also wrote the screenplay for the film, a work of fiction. Gary Cooper, an actor, portrayed Howard Roark, a fictional character. No one, at any time, actually destroyed any property. Famous fictional novel, famous fictional screenplay, famous actor, portraying a fictional character — it’s just a movie.)