If you scroll all the way to the bottom of the Ayn Rand Institute’s long home page, you will see a link to a staged video interview with Yaron Brook, with a portion talking about the movie. http://arc-tv.com/atlas-shrugged-movie-and-the-ayn-rand-institute/
Essentially, he is distancing ARI from the production and discouraging more than encouraging potential viewers. This is simply an obligatory nod that a movie has been made, allowing ARI to claim that it has not ignored the fact – though it is trying hard.
Strangely, having seen the movie, Brook acknowledges its faithfulness to Ayn Rand’s novel and ideas, objecting only that the passion of the novel’s characters for their work is not fully captured. He even admits that no movie version is likely to fully satisfy him, and that Peikoff sold the rights so that a movie would be made to draw more readers to the novel.
So, we have perhaps the most exciting event in the history of the novel taking place, and ARI’s near silence is sending a message of disapproval. What is ARI’s motivation?
I think ARI's motive is transparent. This is about a turf war.
ReplyDeleteARI is not affiliated with the film production; the film's producer, John Aglialoro, is affiliated with a competing Objectivist group, The Atlas Society (TAS). The more attention that is focused on the film alone, the more that TAS benefits; the more that is focused on the novel alone, the more that ARI benefits (since it has all sorts of advertising connections via the novel).
So, this is about marginalizing the film production, so that attention continues to focus on ARI, not any other group. Because of their higher profile, they are still positioned to reap the lion's share of long-term benefit from the film production; but the movie has given TAS a new lease on life which will probably extend through the subsequent two installments of the movie, as well.