What else happened this year? England won the soccer world cup, of course. China was also in the midst of the horrors of the Cultural Revolution. Of those two things, one is mentioned constantly in the country it happened, one not at all. Guess which is which.
What is the plot - in one sentence? It’s a dystopian future, and we follow Montag, a ‘fire’man, whose job it is to burn books which have been discovered: they’re all illegal now.
I don't have time, just spoil it for me? He starts reading, which is illegal. This causes a crisis of conscience, amplified when a woman chooses to burn herself to death rather than live without books. Eventually he leaves and finds a community of people who have memorised books, and wander around reciting them endlessly.
What is the meaning of the title? At 451 Fahrenheit, books start to burn, it’s the name of the firemen’s office too.
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| This is their fire engine. It's shown speeding along roads and looks genuinely cool and dangerous as a prop. It's probably in some billionaires private museum now. |
Anything that's not aged well? Does a woman get slapped around? Julie Christie plays two characters, one the girlfriend of the main character, one a more interesting neighbour. Neither of them get slapped around. However, one of them gets ogled by some medics who come and deal with an overdose of mood levellers she takes. Let’s also just ignore that immolation, as self-inflicted. As for ageing well, this movie has aged a lot better than you may think. It’s a ridiculous sci-fi aesthetic which is both retro and very futuristic, but the themes have kept a lot of poignance.
While the original book was a critique of book-burning, this movie puts in a little more criticism of the nascent pharmaceutical drug rage, and these criticisms valid today. It appears that everyone takes various chemical drugs to level their moods, and it has various effects. It's implied that reading leads to emotion, and it needs to be limited, thus the ban. For example, Julie Christie in her girlfriend character forgets that she needed medical assistance the night before.
The glazed expressions and lack of inner thoughts can today be easily compared to the obsession with gawping at phones and reality TV instead of books today. Very interestingly, there’s a bit where all of the travellers on the monorail thing (which looked very cool, by the way) rub themselves in an idle-minded but horny sight, it’s a very clear throughline to people gawping aimlessly at their phones on public transport. Arguments of ‘but some people read books on their mobile phones’ can be met with a raised eyebrow, at least where I am.
Any thoughts? This is the second example here of a movie set in England but with a strange case of ‘inexplicable German Guy’ syndrome, Montag is just German and not commented on, in an era when it would have been. What’s interesting is that his black suit, and all of his firemen colleagues, really show up the dandruff on their shoulders in modern HD transfers. It made me a little queasy.
There’s a bit of camera trickery, and a few things which are just unmentioned which hint at a bit of world-building that I quite enjoy. For example, the firemen can use the fireman’s pole to go up – it’s just footage of people going down, reversed – but if you aren’t having a good day, it won’t let you and you have to use the stairs. I liked that.
Would
you recommend this? It’s on the nose, quite interesting and has aged well. There’s some interesting
thoughts, and with a bit of of-the-time grime to its vision of the future, I’ll give it a
thumbs up. It’s also very clever to spoken credits at the
beginning of a movie where illiteracy is forced on people.
One thing is for sure, I would rather watch this than a remake from 2018.
Final thoughts? The conclusion ends with our heroes arriving at a commune where everyone remembers a book by rote, and it’s then handed down through oral tradition? That won’t work.
This is also the place for this. A few years ago, when I lived in Edinburgh, every Saturday that I could afford to, I'd head to a fancy breakfast place for coffee, fried meats and danishes. At first this was with a then girlfriend, and then with my two housemates (this is really going back!) A few times, Julie Christie was there, usually minding her own business. Very cool. One time though, someone dropped a yoghurt, not-too-near her and she went crazy at the waiter, who was genuine sorry for it. But because it was such an outburst, everyone in the cafe murmured… huh, that’s Julie Christie… they probably wouldn't have noticed had she remained quiet. Anyway, weird time in my life.
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