Modern Film and Classic Literature

The 1953 novel Fahrenheit 451by Ray Bradbury is about a dystopian society where books are illegal. The book follows Guy Montag a fireman. What we know as firemen isn’t what Montag is. Instead of putting out fires his team set books on fire to get rid of books. Montag meets a teenage girl with seemingly innocent but thought-provoking questions like “Are you happy?”, and it makes Montag reconsider his life choices. Soon he meets with a retired English professor, Faber, who tells him that the value of books is the answer to why their society is so miserable. Faber says that Montag not only needs to read books but also have the time and freedom to act on the ideas. Eventually he sees the world that he thought was perfect being what it actually a gloomy, miserable and brain washed society. We see themes of technology, wisdom, and power. Such a powerful book comes with many interpretations and admirers. In 2018, the film “Fahrenheit 451” was released directed by Ramin Bahrani starring Michael B. Jordan as Guy Montag. Many fans of both the book and the cast were excited to see this new HBO film. HBO is known to have epic shows and movies that are well received. The recreation of the book to modern film has been done before in 1966 by François Truffaut. Such a powerful book comes with many interpretations and admirers, the 2018 remake is at most a mediocre retelling of the novel that’s focus is more towards action and having a popular mainstream cast then actually portraying the true meaning of the novel.

It is common that novels become films. The Harry Potter movie series is based off the book series by J.K. Rowling. The series was extremely successful. Soon after many books were adapted to movies such as Hunger Games, The Maze Runner, Divergent, and Fahrenheit 451. Hunger Games was successful because it was one of the first dystopian film with a good cast, great editing, and the film interpreted the book well. After the success of The Hunger Games movie a lot of dystopian films were released, creating a bandwagon many creators were jumping on, the market soon became over saturated. Because of this not many remakes of good novels became popular or was in the hands of the wrong director. Ramin Bahrani’s remake of Fahrenheit 451 isn’t the first. The first Fahrenheit 451 film was in 1966 directed by François Truffaut. It had the support of Bradbury himself and was highly successful with good critiques and movie ratings. Rotten Tomatoes, an American review-aggregation website for film and television, gives it an 82% rate which is tough for many movies to acquire. Penelope Houston from the entertainment company Sight and Sound says “It is as though Truffaut has drawn on everything he knows about cinema to express unshakable loyalty to the written word” about the 1966 film. The 2018 remake on the other hand didn’t receive a high film rating and had many critiques. On Rotten Tomatoes it receives a low score od 33%. Lorraine Ali from the Los Angeles Times says “Fahrenheit 451’s main problem stems from the fact that it jams a series’ worth of story into 100 minutes.” The 2018 film fails to capture the way literature impacts humanity and life like Bradbury established in the novel and really focuses on action. On the other hand, the film not being as popular as the 1966 one can be because Bahrani has a different interpretation of the film from Truffaut. But tackling such a classic like Fahrenheit 451comes with many years of interpretations and a broad range of fans. Having focus on action and getting the lead to be played by popular actor Michael B. Jordan can definitely attract fans who haven’t read the book and are interested in Jordan and the action. The point of the movie, literature being so impactful and how we should tread carefully with modern technology, flies over some heads.

Between 2012 and 2015 books such as Hunger Games, Divergent, The Maze Runnerand the sequels to those books have been extremely popular. One thing in common about those books is that its all dystopian literature. A dystopia is described as a community or society that is undesirable or frightening. Similarities between all dystopian literature is advanced technology. Usually the linkage between society and advanced technology in these novels are strong. Both technology and society reap benefits. According to Guston et al., who is a professor of Political Science and Co-Director of the Consortium for Science, “In a wider sense, it refers directly to the construction of rules and the recognition of the constraints that directly and indirectly interfere in technological development.” Society influences technology and vice versa. In both the novel and film Fahrenheit 451technology is extremely advanced. For example, in the novel there are doctors that are cyborgs. When Montag’s wife has alcohol poisoning a square robot comes and flushes her stomach on the spot. A main difference between book and movie is that Montag isn’t married in the movie, Bahrani excluded Mildred’s character. Mildred is supposed to represent society, emotionless and brainwashed. All she wants to do is watch television. Excluding her takes away that representation. Also, this civilization has hounds that are used to track suspects. The hound is described as a robot with eight legs and a keen sense of smell, “The mechanical hound slept but did not sleep, lived but did not live in its gently humming, gently vibrating, softly illuminated kennel back in a dark corner of the firehouse (24). The hound is something that’s been left out of the movie despite it being a part of the action side of the novel. The government uses elite skills to brainwash civilians through the use of television and propaganda. This society is so advanced the robot has a conscious of its own. Another example of a sophisticated society is in The Hunger Gamesthe geography of certain places move and have forcefields.

What Bahrani couldn’t establish in his film is the complexity of Fahrenheit 451’s society and how it correlates with ours today and Bradbury’s society in 1953. Ioam Fazey Chair of Social Dimensions of Environmental Change at the University of Dundee states “to appreciate, understand and tackle chronic global social and environmental problems, greater appreciation of the importance of higher thinking is required.” Applying this to the novel, the society in Fahrenheit 451is, of course, no perfect society. They also have problems such as extreme government censorship, no interaction between human beings because of how easy it is to get everything such as food and entertainment. Because of lack of interaction comes the lack of compassion which is why violent crimes occur frequently. There is also a scene where Guy Montag’s wife, Mildred, overdosed on pills. “Maybe you took two pills and forgot and took two more and forgot again and took two more” (Bradbury 17) This shows how careless of her surroundings she is and how engrossed she is into her futuristic television and she isn’t the only one. To help lessen these problems the people need a higher level of thinking and apply it to their lives. Literature can help with that. It can give people different viewpoints on things they’ve never encountered, it can make people think about what is right and wrong. When Bradbury wrote this book, television has just become a staple household item. Everyone had one. Through television came concerns of brainwashing and how people are wasting their times watching shows and not appreciating what is around them. It can also be applied today if with the new age of social media and better television/film. We have even more sources of entertainment that sometimes we may refrain from human interaction to watch the entertainment.

Something notable to mention is how socially and politically forward Bahrani made the film. Bradbury never stated the race of a majority of his characters in the novel including main character Guy Montag. Bahrani mentions in Variety magazine that he “cast it the way I see the world, so it’s a mix of all kinds of people.” We live in a much more diverse world today where borders don’t stop the fact that people from all parts of the work can meet through the use of social media and technological advancements such as planes.

In conclusion, Fahrenheit 451by Ray Bradbury tells us about a future that is wary of technology. It shows us becoming less compassionate and prone to violence. The 2018 film adaptation is not fan fiction but an interpretation. A fan fiction is any work which alters or rewrites the work of another with new storylines, characters, alternative endings and so on. Bahrani was attempting to take on the book and explore the relationship between technology and society. The 2018 remake is definitely socially modern compared to the 1966 remake since Bahrani included a cast that matches what he sees today while Truffaut included a cast that would be considered as acceptable of 60s society. Bahrani’s adaptation has been heavily criticized for not portraying what Bradbury wanted to bring to light through the novel.

Sources

• Bradbury, R., & Gaiman, N. (2018). Fahrenheit 451. New York: Simon & Schuster Paperbacks, an imprint of Simon & Schuster.
• Guston, David H., and Daniel Sarewitz. Shaping Science and Technology Policy: the next Generation of Research. Vol. 2, University of Wisconsin-Madison, 2006.
• Fazey, Ioan. “Resilience and Higher Order Thinking.” Ecology and Society, vol. 15, no. 3, 2010
• Flock, Elizabeth. “’Fahrenheit 451,’ 50 Years Later, Still Sharply Divides Readers over Ray Bradbury.” The Washington Post, WP Company, 26 Aug. 2011
• Debruge, Peter. “Ramin Bahrani Brings Indie Cred to HBO With ‘Fahrenheit 451’.” Variety, Variety, 16 May 2018, variety.com/2018/tv/features/director-ramin-bahrani-hbo-fahrenheit-451-1202811629/.
• https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/1007003_fahrenheit_451
• https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/fahrenheit_451/

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