Finally managed to watch this last night, brilliant movie, really enjoyed it in many respects, especially as it is relevant to my dissertation.
So first of all the story (and I havent read the book even though I've been meaning to for years) is interesting because it not only represents the attitude of the time but also romanticizes the architect and his profession. The character Howard Roark is obviously based on Frank Lloyd Wright and whilst the societal attitude conveyed in the movie is one of anti modernity it is clearly pro modernism or at least change and progression as our hero Roark wins in the end despite ridiculously getting away with blowing up a huge development. What is interesting is that the way this romantisization brings the game into the public forum. Hollywood was just getting into full flow at the time and tried and tested narrative constructs were being established.
I would say that The Fountainhead falls into the genre of Film Noir, which interestingly enough was a particularly architecturaly relevant genre. Film Noir was a movement between the early forties and late fifties and was generally hollywood crime dramas, but not specifically and the style drew alot from German Expressionism. Expressionism wasnt solely film based, we all know Munch's The Scream, do I need to mention that this was about distorting reality in order to induce emotional reaction? Anyway the movement gained alot of strength in the film industry with the likes of Lang (Metropolis video in earlier post) whos films used alot of mise on scene and narrative based around the dark fringes of society to create more engaging and moody films as they didnt have the resources of Hollywood. Filmakers like Lang and Siodmak later moved to Hollywood where these techniques and styles went on to form the foundations of Film Noir.
I could go on, but the point is that these movies, Metropolis, The Cabinet of Dr Caligari, numerous others and even Blade Runner(a sort of NeoNoir) are the most architecturally relevant movies around. This is not neccessarily because they are about cities or buildings, but because they are about modernism and the societal shift towards modernity. This is why The Fountainhead is an important film and relevant to this course, because it is a statement on these things, Modernity and The Machine, albeit with a little more Hollywood sheen than its Noir contemporaries.
