Thursday, February 22, 2018
418 - Fahrenheit 451, United Kingdom, 1966. Dir. Francois Truffaut.
Yevgeny Zamyatin's We (1921). Aldous Huxley's Brave New World (1932). George Orwell's Animal Farm (1945). George Orewell's 1984 (1949). Ray Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451 (1953). Kurt Vonnegut's "Harrison Bergeron" (1961).
There was a time when writers warned society about a kind of pending tyranny, where people would be forced into subservience to an overbearing State. The State asserts that it knows best, that it is the purveyor of happiness, and that its citizens need only to obey in order to live in the best of all possible worlds.
Tyrannies have risen throughout human history. They may even be the norm. They certainly reigned throughout the twentieth century, when these works were being written.
Ray Bradbury takes his turn in what he deems his only science fiction work. (He says The Martian Chronicles (1950) is a fantasy myth rather than a work of science fiction.) And thirteen years after its publication it is made into a feature film by our beloved Francois Truffaut.
The director of sensitive relationships is taking on the firemen. And he is the right man for the job.
Francois Truffaut is going through his Alfred Hitchcock period. 1966 is the year his interviews with Hitch are published in the book Hitchcock/Truffaut. He gets Hitch's long-time composer Bernard Herrmann to compose the score. He films for the first time in color, and he uses a strong color palette. He employs the famous Vertigo camera move by dollying out while zooming in.
His cinematographer Nicholas Roeg will go on to be a great director on his own.
Guy Montag is a fireman. His job is not to put out fires--that is no longer necessary now that all houses are built to be fireproof--but to start fires. To start fires to burn books. To burn books because books are banned. Books are banned because they give people ideas. Ideas that make people unhappy. And the State knows best how to make people happy. Watch TV. Redecorate their homes. Read comic books without words in them. Live shallow social lives.
People find ways to hide books in their homes. In the toaster. In the ceiling light fixture. In the hollow table. In the fake television set.
But firemen are highly trained to find the books. So when a neighbor or family member rats out a book owner, the firemen arrive and discover the books every time.
They bring them outside. They place them on a grill. They use flamethrowers to set them ablaze.
Guy Montag is good at his job. His chief, Captain Beatty, tells him he is up for promotion. He teaches the new recruits at the fire academy. If anyone can find a hidden book, he can.
He commutes to work on the suspended monorail built by SAFEGE. In real life a test track at Chateauneuf-sur-Loire. Only 1.4 km (.87 mi.) long. But in the movie, the transportation of the future.
While commuting, he meets a woman named Clarisse McClellan.
Hello, Clarisse.
She challenges him. She sees something in him. They live in the same neighborhood and make the same commute every day, so she has had time to watch him. He does not notice her until she introduces herself, but by then she has had lots of time to size him up.
She believes he is different. That he does his job because that is what he was trained to do. But that he has something deeper inside him. A human capacity. A heart.
She believes he has the heart to be a great reader.
A lover of books.
Francois Truffaut is a reader. Truffaut is a lover of books. And he shows it off with many an insert of book covers throughout the film.
And, sadly, many a close-up of books burning.
Montag's wife Linda is committed to the government's point of view. So is Montag. Unless Clarisse can reach him. Will she?
The film shows the devastating effects of totalitarian control.
And posits a high view of the value of literary texts.
And offers hope. And surprise.
No matter what tyrannies arise over the course of human history, they will never succeed in stamping out the strength of the human spirit.
And its resolve for freedom.
We need this message today.
* * * * *
Oskar Werner plays Guy Montag. We saw him earlier as a Student in Lola Montes (1955) and as Fiedler in The Spy Who Came in from the Cold (1965).
Lola Montes
http://realbillbillions.blogspot.com/2017/04/094-lola-montes-1955-france-dir-max.html
The Spy Who Came In from the Cold
http://realbillbillions.blogspot.com/2017/10/283-spy-that-came-in-from-cold-united.html
Julie Christie plays Clarisse, coming off her success in Doctor Zhivago (1965) and her Oscar win for Darling (1965). We saw her earlier as Mrs. Miller in Robert Altman's McCabe & Mrs. Miller (1971) and again in a cameo in Robert Altman's Nashville (1975).
McCabe & Mrs. Miller
http://realbillbillions.blogspot.com/2017/12/362-mccabe-mrs-miller-united-states.html
Nashville
http://realbillbillions.blogspot.com/2017/12/363-nashville-united-states-1975-dir.html
Now, who plays Linda?
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