ANTHEM...could make a great film

Maxwell Singler Jan 23, 2008 Core 2, Assignment 1 Michie Pagulayan




This past summer I was on a train from Paris to Spain, and I asked my friend if he had any good books for me to read. He handed me a small book titled Anthem, by Ayn Rand. With in 4 hours I read the book twice. Although it is a short piece of literature I have always felt it would make a great film, for its message is a great one.
It is a story about civilization in the future. This was not a technologically advanced era. They didn’t have electricity, what they did have is organization and a set strict law system. Any people who disagreed would be killed. There was no individuality. Every person was given a number and put into school from a young age. Each number represented a group. One group in particular was very smart and wanted to become thinkers or scientists when they were of right age. But the choice was not theirs to make. When the time came they were to be given a job, which they would be required to perform until the end of their days. There was no freedom, no marriage and no other option. This group was given the job of a street sweeper.
Most groups never questioned their fate for it was not even a notion. But this group hated the fact that they could not fulfill their potential. It wasn’t until one day that they were outside the town working on the roads when they saw another group. This group was different. They couldn’t break eye contact and they knew this was bad but they could not help it. Something attracted them to this other group. They were of different sex. One day out in the streets the sweepers found underground treasures, but they didn’t know what the treasures did exactly. They would sneak out at night risking their lives to go experiment and learn from these objects. Eventually they discovered the light bulb and produced electricity, they presented it to the philosophers but the philosophers didn’t know what to think, so they were to be hanged. The group escaped and took the female group with them. They survived out in the wilderness by hunting and building houses, surviving through their instinct. They took names for them selves and became individuals. Finding mates and fulfilling the life they were entitled to. They were free.
If I were to film this I would start with the end of this era in which we live in and fast forward to a dark and scratchy time of the era in which there was no individuality. No one character would be more important than the other until they reached the point of their freedom. Then there would be space and color and nature.
The message this film would send out is a great one…The power of the individual!