What have you been up to?
Watching, listening to, reading, translating
With Rafa Lombardino
Hi everybody!
Yesterday I watched
the new version of "Fahrenheit 451"
that premiered on HBO on May 19.
I had been waiting for this version
for quite some time.
I was looking forward to it and
re-watched the 1966 classic.
I reviewed the original movie,
so you can watch it here on my channel.
I had been eagerly waiting for this new version
to check out what they did with it.
I must confess it didn't surprise me
as much as I thought it would.
Maybe I had too high expectations about it.
Still, it was a good movie
―very different from the original.
I gotta re-read the book, 'cause
I can't remember if some elements on this version,
but were absent from the 1966 movie,
were actually taken from the book
written by Ray Bradbury in the 1950s.
The main difference I noticed
between the two movies
is that we see more of the consequences
of breaking the rules and reading books.
In the 1966 version, we see that
having books burned is punishment enough.
You do get stigmatized,
"Look, there goes the one who broke the rules!"
"They read a book! They had a book at home!"
They were looked down upon,
but in this version you get to see
what goes on beyond that: the social,
political and economic punishment
that comes from being found out
as a subversive element who read books,
who somehow dealt with the arts.
On that subject, this new version
goes beyond physical, printed books.
It also talks about works of art, music, ebooks...
They have a more current
technological concept than in 1966, of course.
There's this little joke about how
you're free to read what you want on the cloud.
Your options are: "The Bible," "Moby Dick,"
and "To The Lighthouse" by Virginia Woolf.
It's kind of easy to understand
why "The Bible" is there.
It's the book with the most copies printed,
most translated and read in the world.
As for "Moby Dick,"
I'm not sure if it's for the story,
if they're trying to create a dialog
with the story on the book,
or if it's the coincidence that Ray Bradbury
wrote the script for the movie version.
I never read Virginia Woolf's "To the Lighthouse."
I'm not familiar with the story
and the content of the book,
but that was the third option they give.
They were talking to children,
indoctrinating them about books being bad,
and the kids go, "Boo!"
They want to burn books
So the firefighters
were showing them how books are bad.
At the same time, they said,
"You do have a choice among these three options."
But they wouldn't read it like we do―
an entire book, not even
a screen adaptation on a movie.
They really summarize it
with some characters,
some emoticons,
and different kinds of signs.
Basically, they show
how most of the alphabet looks
and how written communication
would take place in this dystopian future.
There's also the fact that,
when Montag reads a book in 1966,
he finds it hard and you can see
that he never learned,
he's not used to reading.
Even the comics he "reads"
had no dialog, only images.
There's nothing written on the screens,
and people only talk.
Society in the 1966 movie didn't practice reading.
In this version, there is writing on the screen.
They read commands when they interact
with the communications system at home.
So we can assume
they learned how to read and write.
After all, they're motivated to read
those three books
that are made available by the government.
Talking about the government, they give us
a glimpse of who's behind rules and laws.
The Captain of the brigade communicates with―
I'm not sure what job
the actor was portraying,
but he was representing
a government institution.
But they were dressed as military.
We could assume that
the political organization at the time
is a military dictatorship.
A connection is also established with "1984."
There's a "Big Brother."
Unlike 1966, it isn't the TV set,
when they pretended
to talk directly to you through the TV.
In this case, they're comparing it to AI systems,
the kind that we already have home,
such as Siri, Alexa, and Cortana.
We talk to these devices and
ask it to play music or to look something up.
So, there's is this device
with a very pleasant female voice.
You can talk to it, but it is watching your every move.
One more thing I can't remember
whether it came from the book or not―
Society is divided into two groups:
there are "natives"
who do everything right and observe the law,
and the others are called "eels"
Not sure why eels are considered subversive,
the type of people who
had access to entertainment,
who searched for
the kind of happiness and freedom
that was different from
what had been sanctioned by the government.
The type of people who
go beyond what should be done,
and what should be acceptable by society.
For some reason, they're known as "eels."
There's also the image of the salamander,
which is some sort of a
logo for the Fire Brigade.
This animal-related imagery
is pretty strong,
maybe to establish a dialog
with another George Orwell book,
in which animals characterize human beings.
So, there are eels,
a salamander, and a bird.
Funny thing I'm outdoors
and there are many flying above me.
The bird is an important character
in this version of the movie.
One of the things I liked the most
about the 1966 movie
was that they had the same actress
playing two completely different roles:
Montag's wife and the young woman
who incites him to read books.
They don't do it in this movie.
There's no Linda, the wife character,
who has a tunnel vision and follows all the rules.
We only get to see Clarice,
the woman who
who shows us that
there's this underground world
where people read books
and memorize them.
This part of the story was left untouched.
They also show other motivations
Montag would have
to become curious about reading,
to rebel against everything he ever knew in life,
that books are bad, and he wanted
to be a firefighter to burn books.
There are some flashbacks and
we take a peek at his past.
It justifies his motivations as far as
reading books and going beyond.
There's also a scene
of a library being burned down.
Too bad they didn't cast Julie Christie
to play that old lady who says,
"I won't leave the house.
I'll stay here with my books.
You can burn the library down, but I'll stay here."
It's the same kind of scene,
but it goes a step further.
I won't go into what happens in that scene,
so you can compare the differences.
NO SPOILERS, PLEASE!
There's a "Rosebud" moment,
when she says a word―
"What does she mean by that?"
They have to look it up
and resort to the government
to see if someone knows anything about it.
It's an important word she utters as
she goes up in flames with the library.
That's something
we didn't get to see in the original―
The original actually has horrible visual effects.
We can see she's not burning in the 1966 movie.
Still, it's a compelling image
―someone who has strong convictions
and will die for them,
whether they kill her or burn her alive.
In a nutshell, I wasn't overwhelmed
by the new version, but I enjoyed it.
A friend of ours, watching it with us,
took a nap in the middle of it.
But I liked it―It was interesting.
The context of not only having printed books,
but any kind of intellectual creation.
It also involves social media: Not only
do they burn books in public,
but they also broadcast it live
and people can react to it―
just like a Facebook Live video.
They can add hearts, wow faces, thumbs up...
This interaction with other media
was definitely present.
Some parts seemed to...
drag a bit too much.
"Hurry up! Move on!"
I was a little impatient to see the outcome.
Overall, the ending is less depressive than in 1966.
Back then, that was it.
What's going to happen now?
With this one, there's hope
things can get better later on,
after the movie wraps up.
I do recommend it.
They tied things up well.
Maybe you should read the book
to understand some concepts better―
What comes from
Ray Bradbury's original idea
and what was created for this movie.
Well, it still is pretty good social criticism.
Nowadays, it's an alert to what happens
within an authoritarian government,
setting things that can or cannot be done,
and the type of punishment you get
when you break the rules.
That's today's recommendation:
"Fahrenheit 451."
A new HBO movie starring
Michael B. Jordan and Michael Shannon.
Leave a comment here
to tell me how you liked it.
Which books have you read
among those they show pretty fast?
Let's keep the conversation going, okay? Bye!
What have you been up to?
Watching, listening to, reading, translating
With Rafa Lombardino
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