The Fountainhead
Cabaret Cinema
Friday, December 11, 2015
9:30 PM–11:30 PM
1949, USA, King Vidor, 114 min.
With Gary Cooper, Patricia Neal, and Raymond Massey
Introduced by urban designer and architect Mitchell Joachim
“It leads to consequences which, once started, cannot be controlled.”
On the surface, The Fountainhead is a story of one man, Howard Roark, and his struggles as an architect in the face of a successful rival, Peter Keating, and a newspaper columnist, Ellsworth Toohey. But the film, with a screenplay by Ayn Rand from her own novel, addresses a number of universal themes: the strength of the individual, the tug between good and evil, and the threat of fascism.
“The most bizarre movie in both Vidor’s and Cooper’s filmographies”¦. Cooper plays the up-and-coming architect with unorthodox ideas who dynamites a building that doesn’t conform with his plans, marries wealthy heiress Neal, and winds up building the world’s tallest tombstone as a memorial to a friend who committed suicide. As berserk as it sounds, although handsomely shot by Robert Burks and directed with enthusiasm.” —Time Out