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Farhenheit 451

Rating : 5/5
Reviewed by Ed

Comments: Ray Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451, 1966, directed by Francois Truffaut.

In a futuristic totalitarian society all books are banned and their possession is illegal because it is believed that they bring unhappiness to humans by opening up a reality other than their squeaky clean middle class fantasy world. The firemen of their society do not put out fires, but have rather become Gestapo-like troops that search and destroy books by fire, which start burning at 451 degrees fahrenheit.

Montag (Oskar Werner), the main character, starts as a loyal book burning fireman and becomes aware of the mistake of his beliefs as he discovers reading. As he is betrayed by his superficial wife Linda (Julie Christie) and his world falls apart he enters the world of reading that Clarisse (also played by Julie Christie), a book reading insurgent, offers him. He then joins the "book people" who live in the outskirts of the city. They memorize entire books and burn them, recite them throughout their lives and pass them on to the next young generation in order to preserve them for when they are called to write them down again.

There are very enjoyable parallels to the characters, situations and the principles of Objectivism in Ayn Rand's body of work. Montag reminds me of Commandant Kareyev in Red Pawn (The Early Ayn Rand). He experiences a transformation and realizes how things should be from his own experience. He is transformed from a man of faith to the state, a mystic of muscle, to a man of reason. His discovery of the old knowledge in the books is almost identical to Equality 7-2521's discovery of the forbidden word and the lost technology of the past in Anthem.

Linda is a superficial parasite of Montag who gets all her knoledge from an equally fickle female TV host. She reminds me of Lillian Rearden. It wouldn't be too hard to imagine them having tea and waiting for Hank to return from the steel mill to verbally tear him to pieces.

Clarisse, the heroine, is a little bit of a Kira. She lives in a totalitarian state but her ideals remain untouched by the pervading fear of the state. She has also a little bit of Liberty 5-3000/"The Golden One" in reverse. She inspires Montag and he follows her to the secluded camp where the book people live. The camp itself reminds me of Galt's Gulch, where the last free minds of Earth have escaped to preserve knoledge. I see the overall message of the movie as that knowledge of good and evil is necessary to make choices. Where there is no choice values can not be achieved. It is kind of hilarious to know that Truffaut was a Marxist and yet directed a film such as this one.

Nowadays the ban on books is not imposed by the state as in Fahrenheit 451, but self imposed by those who accept false premises, cliches and contradictions from uninformed bystanders, celebrities and self-appointed "experts". After watching this film I can't help recalling Ayn Rand's speech to the West Point graduates (Philosophy: Who Needs It) where she says she doesn't want to sell them her philosophy, but philosophy as such and if they examine it critically it is Objectivism that they will come to accept. Seems like today a lot of people must rediscover reading altogether, before they can get a glimpse of philosophy.

I highly recommend this film to all fellow students of Objectivism as a rare intellectual masterpiece.

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