Kylie Graham
EEE-2083
Per Bylund
11/2
The 1949 film “The Fountainhead”, is about a stubborn architect fighting all traditional architectural norms. Howard Roark, the main character, was kicked out of college due to his unusual visions of architecture. Roark received disapproval throughout the beginning of his career, but he refused to conform to society's preference of old traditional architecture. Roark was given the opportunity to commission a large project which would lead him to ultimate success in his career. The ones who commissioned Roark to design the building wanted Roark to conform his design to older traditional designs because they believed that a modern structure with no traditional aspects would shock and disturb the public.
“The Banner” is an extremely influential and successful newspaper owned by Gail Wyndand. Wyndand asks for thoughts on this matter from two different writers, Ellsworth Toohey and Dominique Francon, who work for his newspaper and both write on architecture. Toohey has a firm belief that architecture is no place to express individuality and that it should be kept traditional, so he saw fit that a traditional architect with no originality, such as Mr. Keating, to be the designer, rather than Roark.
Roark was later commissioned to design luxury apartments to his liking and got overwhelming amounts of backlash from the public. Architects in the area were also disgusted with his designs, but also felt greatly threatened by his originality. Architects started realizing how large of a threat Roark is to them due to his creative and innovative way of design, so they do not want him to win. Toohey slams Roark in “The Banner” newspaper, which continuously happens throughout the movie.
Many people start to see the value of Roarks vision, so Wyndand wants Roark to sign a contract that states he will be the sole architect of all future commercial buildings, but he must conform to traditional architecture, and Roark declines. Keating later seeks out Roarks help to design a low rent housing complex, because no other architect can do it. Roark decides to side with Keating, as long as non changes are to be made to his designs. Keating and Roark make a deal; Roark designs it for him, because his joy comes from his designs, not money or society. The deal was unable to be kept on Keatings end, so Roark blows up the structure and faces potential serious consequences. Roark managed to escape all charges and later became the architect to create “The Last Skyscraper in the City”, which was commissioned by Wyndand. This completely changed Roarks career. Roark never gave up, expressing true creativity and individuality throughout the movie, which led to him having great success in his career.
To me, the most interesting part of this movie was all of the drama and scandal that goes alongside the plot. The Fountainhead is a rather old film and I did not expect many of the plot twists, I honestly expected it to be boring. The ongoing affairs with Dominique, Keating, Wyndand, and Roark proved that wrong. First Dominique is engaged to Keating, and Wyndand offers him a deal on a commission, but he must call off the engagement to receive it, and he has no issue with doing so. Wyndand, for whatever reason, is in love with Dominique, but she cannot stand him and claims she has no capability of loving someone. Dominique then immediately falls in love with Roark. Roark disappears, leaving Dominique distraught even though she didn't even know his name. The moment that Roark resurfaces, Dominique immediately professes her love for Roark and discusses getting married in that same conversation; then she asks him to give up architecture all in the same conversation. Then they break up after being “in love” for like 10 minutes! Dominique's character definitely is what interested me the most in the whole movie even though it wasn't entrepreneurial, she's just insane and the whole love triangle was such a weird dynamic. Another thing that I find interesting is how much new ideas were hated in the fifties, yet everyone still wanted to steal Roarks ideas. Roark had a brilliant mind and everyone saw it, but they wanted to bury him.
In the terms of this movie, Roark's aspect of entrepreneurship is not liked or accepted by society. Society wants old architecture that they are comfortable with because change of originality was not common for architects at the time. Society favored traditional architecture over modern, because that is basically all they knew. Not even Roark was capable of showing them that a new way is good. Society listened to media outlets and the mainstream to determine that Roark's designs were untasteful. In the grand scheme of time, “Roark” would have been the first to start a new type of architecture and society probably would admire him in the future but not in the present tense of the movie. Society affects Roark so much, society is the reason why he is so rejected. Society didn't want new and different things. Roark had to seek approval by people willing to accept those who would commission him. He had so many struggles getting any success, because no one wants to commission a man who will create something that is only going to upset the public. The relationship between Roark and society is awful. Society hates Roark’s ideas, and Roark does not care about what society thinks of his work; Roark only cares about his designs and his work, which in the end, is what brings him true success.