FILM

Alamo Drafthouse Mason (Katy) presents Only At The Alamo:  AYN RAND & THE PROPHECY OF ATLAS SHRUGGED.

Director Chris Mortensen
Year 2012
Run Time 87min

AYN RAND AND THE PROPHECY OF ATLAS SHRUGGED is a feature length documentary film that examines the resurging interest in Ayn Rand’s epic and controversial 1957 novel and the validity of its dire prediction for America.

Set in what novelist and philosopher Rand called ‘the day after tomorrow,’ Atlas depicts an America in crisis, brought to her knees by a corrupt establishment of government regulators and businessmen with political pull – the ‘looters’ and the ‘moochers’ – who prey on individual achievement.

Less a conventional work of fiction than a philosophical manifesto in the form of a romantic novel, over the course of a thousand-plus pages, ATLAS tackles no less an essential argument than the one debated by philosophers and theologians since time immemorial: altruism vs. self-interest. Am I my brother’s keeper – or not? For Ayn Rand, the answer is an emphatic no. To Rand and the disciples of her Objectivist philosophy, self-sacrifice is as heinous an act as murder…murder of the soul.

AYN RAND AND THE PROPHECY OF ATLAS SHRUGGED looks into Rand’s background for the ideas and philosophy that inspired and shaped her novel and seeks to determine whether America is indeed headed for the disastrous outcome she predicted.