If
for no other reason, HBO’s remake of Fahrenheit
451 stakes a claim on history, because it gives Keir Dullea bragging rights
as perhaps the only actor to appear in films based on the work of both Arthur
C. Clarke and Ray Bradbury. Unfortunately, this adaptation is far too concerned
with being “timely” and “relevant,” thereby limiting its long-term
significance. Bradbury’s anti-censorship message is perhaps more needed now
than in 1953 when he wrote his classic novel, but it doesn’t come through in an
urgent, principled way in Ramin Bahrani’s Fahrenheit 451 (trailer
here),
co-adapted with the great expat Iranian filmmaker Amir Naderi, which premieres
this Saturday on HBO.
Guy
Montag is a fireman, just like mentor, Captain Beatty. As you should know, that
means they set fire to banned books (pretty much all of them), rather than
extinguishing accidental fires (come to think of it, wouldn’t they still need
old-fashioned firemen in a dystopian world?). Montag has never really thought about
the implications of his work, except maybe when a repressed incident from his
childhood resurfaces in his memory. However, an encounter with Clarisse
McClellan, one of Beatty’s reluctant sources, starts churning up vague doubts.
Not long after, he secretly takes home a contraband book, Dostoyevsky’s Notes from Underground. With McClellan’s
help, the book spurs Montag to start thinking for himself, perhaps for the
first time.
Montag
is further haunted by the horrifying sight of an old fashioned “Eel,” who opts
to self-immolate rather than abandon her books. In a significant departure from
Bradbury (and Truffaut), she also happens to utter a word she really shouldn’t
have, because it gives the Firemen a clue as to a game-changing book-preservation
initiative the dissident underground has concocted. (As an aside, Montag’s media-anaesthetized
wife Millie was cast, but later cut from the final film, which seems like a
rather Orwellian act to make such a major character disappear without a trace.)
Without
question, the greatest misstep of this Fahrenheit
is the attempt to update the near dystopia with elements of internet
culture and reality TV that will be familiar to contemporary viewers. However,
this just distracts more than it enhances the films credibility. It’s a constant
source of business undercutting the starkness of Bradbury’s original vision.
Bahrani and Naderi also ash-can the background drumbeat of impending war, which
explained why all these thought police regulations were implemented in the first
place.
Still,
the ever-reliable Michael Shannon is quite intriguing and compulsively
watchable, playing the hard-nosed Beatty, who has his own secret print vices.
In contrast, Michael B. Jordan is rather inert and inexpressive as Montag, the
Fireman supposedly wrestling with his conscience and doubts. Nor is there much
chemistry between him and Sofia Boutella’s McClellan. However, Dullea adds a
note of integrity as the learned “Historian,” who is also involved in the
book-preserving underground. That really was perfect casting.
