Just saw Paxton's "Ayn Rand: a sense of life" documentary on Rand.
Liked it a lot. I learned a heck of a whole lot about Rand, too. I didn't know she had sisters. It was neat to see how Rand had a children's book with an uncompromising hero in it -- and that it inspired her so much.
It was real neat to see Rand in photo's with Cecille B. DeMille, let alone playing an "extra" in some of his motion pictures! I didn't know that she was a movie star!
Having never read it, I never knew that "Woman on Trial/Night of January 16" was a play where audience members interacted to affect the outcome! What a brilliant idea!
I didn't know that Rand thought that the HUAC trials were a superfluous waste of time, either.
I thought that the way Nathaniel Branden was portrayed was possible unjust. Basically, it said that Branden was so highly-intelligent that he could fake being a "true Objectivist." What Peikoff said was that Branden lost his way, having lots of correct knowledge but not enough moral backbone. Basically not having enough character/integrity.
It's a personal slam to say that of another. I can't be sure that it's true.
It seems to me that Rand shouldn't have expected much from an extra-marital affair in the first place (because it was based on a contradiction). If she expected less, she wouldn't be so let down by Branden "cheating" on her. If she wasn't so let down, perhaps the portrayal of Branden's "betrayal" would have been more positive (and perhaps more accurate?).
I wonder ... if Rand had divorced Frank and married Branden ...
I really like how Rand stuck to her guns on the Fountainhead film with Roark's speech in the courtroom. The director tried to shorten it and she threatened to walk. That's so cool. That's so Rand. I remember watching Fountainhead and thinking that this 'Cooper' guy sure has a long monologue. Thinking back, however, I don't know of anything that could have been omitted.
I also like what she said -- on The Tom Sullivan Show? -- about death (harking back to what an ancient Greek philosopher once said):
I will not die, but the whole world will end. She hasn't died yet (in my opinion) and, if folks keep appreciating her ideas, she will not die -- not until the very world ends.
Thank you, Michael Paxton. You did a wonderful job.
Ed
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