… and why other property professionals get lumped with the bad guy roles.
This article was originally published in April 2019.
“I don’t build in order to have clients, I have clients in order to build!” raves Howard Roark, the architect hero of the 1949 film, The Fountainhead, based on the Ayn Rand novel of the same name.
The client’s representatives, facing him across the boardroom table, have just asked him to make “a small compromise” to his austerely Modernist proposals for their new office building. He refuses to budge – and when they remind him that they’re the ones who will be paying for both the building and his professional services, he tells them that (though they may not realise it) they are actually there to serve him.
Not surprisingly, he doesn’t get the job.
Although seldom as untamed as Roark (he later blows up one of his own schemes when it is not built to his exacting specifications), in movieland the architect has often been portrayed as the Good Guy – a principled, creative, sensitive type, rarely motivated by money.
Other property professionals have been the Bad Boys – greedy and ruthless (real estate investors, property developers, fund managers and owners) or sad and somewhat desperate (property agents). Even though there is so much more to being an agent than just selling or letting square footage, the clichéd ABC (Always Be Closing) salesman has been a fixture in fiction and therefore in the public consciousness.
Consider the pitiable lives of the real estate agents in Glengarry Glen Ross(1992) or the uncaring property developers turned vandalisers of architectural heritage played by Hugh Grant and David Haig in Two Weeks’ Notice(2002). In TheDevil’s Advocate (1997), a New-York-based real estate tycoon-developer is actually in league with Satan himself.
Does it actually matter how movie makers see those in the property industry? I would say so
Now compare these with the heroic knight errant Roark, or the virtuous liberal architect played by Henry Fonda in Twelve Angry Men(1957). Even in Towering Inferno (1974), although the architect (played by Paul Newman) gets some flak for poor design, it is the developer who is blamed for the high-rise catastrophe (he has encouraged the electrical engineer to put in low-cost systems in order to save money).
There are, of course, more nuanced versions of these rather one-dimensional characterisations. In the critically acclaimed The Big Short(2015), we admire the intelligence of the insightful but eccentric hedge fund manager played by Christian Bale, but have more mixed feelings at the way in which his prophetic understanding of the unstable US subprime housing market is used for financial gain by Ryan Gosling’s asset trader character and others in the run-up to the 2007–08 economic crisis. The thoughtful, talented, ‘creative’ Bale character is more sympathetically portrayed than those around him, who are solely interested in money.
In that seasonal favourite It’s a Wonderful Life, made in 1946, both the protagonist and antagonist are property owner-developers – but while the community-minded family man hero, George Bailey (played by James Stewart), runs his business helping others, the villainous Mr Potter (played by Lionel Barrymore) is only interested in his own gain.
We also learn that (surprise, surprise) George Bailey wanted to be an architect or engineer growing up. He’s a creative, the film seems to say – a maker not a taker. His would-be profession marks him out as a dreamer. Such people, Hollywood suggests, are most likely to do good in the world. (Coincidentally, Stewart studied architecture at Princeton before becoming an actor.)
To an extent, heroic architects and villainous developers have become a lazy shorthand. But there’s also a degree to which this stereotyping reflects reality. I am not saying that I know of any property developers in league with Satan – but there is a tension within most of us between our creative and acquisitive selves. Like the architect with his grand plans and big dreams, we strive to do creative things – leaving the world better than we found it – but at the same time, like the money-conscious developers, we also have to make money and manage our careers.
This sometimes difficult negotiation is what we see being played out every time these archetypes appear on screen. It’s no wonder the conflict absorbs audiences. We watch these films because we want to see who triumphs – but also because we hope the insights the stories provide can help us get the balance right in our own lives and organisations.
Does it actually matter how movie makers see those in the property industry? I would say so. After all, the best films (and literature) help us understand the past, our world and ourselves better. In that regard, the shorthand of angelic architects and devilish developers is an outmoded one. But the way in which the property professions are portrayed in fiction has changed over time and could well change again.
Many recent development projects boast notable design quality and levels of social responsibility, and are the of work increasingly diverse teams. Just look at the growing interest in placemaking among students inspired by the LEED-ND schemes in the US, or the wonderful regeneration and town centre projects masterplanned by firms such as Stanhope, Urban Splash and Argent.
The big bad developer thwarting the maverick architect has become a Hollywood cliché – but there’s no reason to assume screenwriters will be able to reach for it quite so readily in future.
