AS - Let's talk about sex.
[On review, I suppose this post should come with a SPOILER ALERT. Though it IS in the "Books" category. You've been warned.]
Yes, you read that right. Specifically, I would like to start a conversation about the significance of Dagny's physical relationships with Francisco, Rearden, and Galt, and why they were altered/ left out of the movies entirely.
First off, these relationships are not fluff or filler for the novel. Rand includes them because they reveal important aspects of the characters and help illustrate the values of Objectivism. The question is whether removing them from the movies actually detracts from Rand's message or is there enough content already in the movies to get the story and philosophy of Objectivism across. I'd like to hear your thoughts, Gulch members.
Here's what I think:
Yes, the relationships are necessary. And in their full "violence" (Rand's word, but you know what I'm talking about). The film scene at Ellis Wyatt's house between Dagny and Rearden was so... polite. Let's not forget that, in the book, Dagny wakes up from her first night with Rearden to find "a bruise above her elbow, with dark beads that had been blood." And she SMILES. This is a woman who knows what she wants, and sets out to earn it. She celebrates sex as "an effect and an expression of man's sense of his own value" (ASII ch IV). Rearden does not understand that a man's physical desire is a response to his mind, so the reader is led on a journey of discovery with him.
And then there is Galt. I guess we'll have to wait for part III to see what happens there, but I'm not getting my hopes up.
It could be argued that films have time constraints. Fair enough. But at a time when "Fifty Shades" is still going strong on the NY Times bestseller list, it seems the general public would be quite receptive to the type of Dagny-Rearden action presented in the book. It could even broaden the film's audience. Some people might not understand it at first, but I've mentioned this before--I find people are a lot more receptive to discussing or reading Atlas Shrugged when they have some initial interest of their own.
Here's something from Francisco to think on:
"Tell me what a man finds sexually attractive and I'll tell you his entire philosophy on life."
Yes, you read that right. Specifically, I would like to start a conversation about the significance of Dagny's physical relationships with Francisco, Rearden, and Galt, and why they were altered/ left out of the movies entirely.
First off, these relationships are not fluff or filler for the novel. Rand includes them because they reveal important aspects of the characters and help illustrate the values of Objectivism. The question is whether removing them from the movies actually detracts from Rand's message or is there enough content already in the movies to get the story and philosophy of Objectivism across. I'd like to hear your thoughts, Gulch members.
Here's what I think:
Yes, the relationships are necessary. And in their full "violence" (Rand's word, but you know what I'm talking about). The film scene at Ellis Wyatt's house between Dagny and Rearden was so... polite. Let's not forget that, in the book, Dagny wakes up from her first night with Rearden to find "a bruise above her elbow, with dark beads that had been blood." And she SMILES. This is a woman who knows what she wants, and sets out to earn it. She celebrates sex as "an effect and an expression of man's sense of his own value" (ASII ch IV). Rearden does not understand that a man's physical desire is a response to his mind, so the reader is led on a journey of discovery with him.
And then there is Galt. I guess we'll have to wait for part III to see what happens there, but I'm not getting my hopes up.
It could be argued that films have time constraints. Fair enough. But at a time when "Fifty Shades" is still going strong on the NY Times bestseller list, it seems the general public would be quite receptive to the type of Dagny-Rearden action presented in the book. It could even broaden the film's audience. Some people might not understand it at first, but I've mentioned this before--I find people are a lot more receptive to discussing or reading Atlas Shrugged when they have some initial interest of their own.
Here's something from Francisco to think on:
"Tell me what a man finds sexually attractive and I'll tell you his entire philosophy on life."
I wanted moments like that between Hank and Dagny, the suggestions of "other things done", of another aspect of their life and missed them.
I await the tunnel scene with Dagny and John but fear it will disappoint me. *hmph* OK, I give in. Cross out "disappoint" and insert "satisfy".
Also the back story of Isabel Patterson and their break. We had already discussed the the Jesuit priest, as DS was thinking of including the scene in the ASIII script. It was a lively discussion.
And no, I missed the Q and A by just a couple days. :( I read through it though. Drafting email to Mr. Scott now...
He enters her house, at night, uninvited, silently. He goes to her bedroom and rips off her night gown. She is struggling. And, in the classic erotic fantasy, properly rejected by feminists and all of us, Dominique becomes ravenously aroused and accepting. Yes, rape me, rape me. Which of course cannot be rape. We gather this is the first time she ever has climaxed; and it is not even clear if this may not be the first time she has had sex.
Roark comes directly from the granite quarry, covered with the dust and grime of the day. She is clean and sweet smelling. The powerful man in command of nature, down in the hellish quarry breaking stone with the roaring (penetrating, thrusting) drill, comes to the safe, sheltered home and drills her frigid reserve--takes his reward without asking. His is command of the earth and all that is in it.
There is no way that Ayn Rand's principles, or she, in person, would sanction this behavior. This is fiction. It is expressing Ayn Rand's feelings about the nature of the sex act: dominance and submission. Symbolic taking or rape based upon the woman being overwhelmed by hero worship for the man.
By the way, in this scene it seems quite evident that Howard Roark is a virgin along with Dominique. That may have troubled Ayn Rand, initially. Her notebooks for The Fountainhead indicate that one draft had Howard Roark with an earlier girlfriend, but, like much else, that was cut. Just as in Atlas Shrugged, there was a heroic Jesuit priest in earlier drafts, since Ayn Rand felt that Thomas Aquinas was the great advocate of reason in the founding of the Western tradition beginning with the Renaissance. This may well have been a tribute to Isabel Patterson, Ayn Rand's closest intellectual friend and her mentor, who was a Deist.
That she eliminated these aspects, to which her sense of life initially said, "yes," suggests a high disciplined writer and thinker determined to be understood (by the honest) and to create a work unmistakably integrated. Also, though, she cut this character after she had a painful break with Isabel Patterson.
Life, as well as philosophy, has its role.
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