The Fountainhead

A wealthy and intelligent woman struggles to believe that there is really any man worth submitting to, but then meets an architect whose prioritisation of work above all else makes him a perpetual victim of what, in Australia, is commonly referred to as “tall poppy syndrome”. The film totally falls apart by the time it gets to the courtroom scene, and yes, it is indeed and undeniably a strange mix of “philosophical” dialogue and sexual melodrama and symbolism, which all too easily invites bemused derision from those who (1) want to make clear their opposition to Ayn Rand’s politics, and (2) delight in demonstrating their ability to carry out a very superficial form of pseudo-psychoanalytic interpretation.

Prior to entering the courtroom, however, what, despite everything, truly makes it unusual, and kind of fascinating, is the way the participants in the triangle, or the threesome, all speak to one another with care about the meaning of their words and their implications for what will and should happen, rather than, as is mostly the case in cinema and very often in real life, treating language as essentially a tool for concocting an emotional display in order to consciously or unconsciously manipulate those with whom one is involved. In that sense, the film can be understood as a call to “another way” of relating, and not just as a paean to and blueprint for entrepreneurial libertarian individualism. In relation to the latter, it remains, three quarters of a century later (writing in 2024), a significant document for those wanting to understand the ideology of twenty-first century “disruptors”.