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 instead 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.

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.