“451 Pharenheit”. Beautiful anti -utopia and careless film adaptation

Roman Ray Bradbury "451 Pharenheit" He went out in 1953, received many awards and was adapted for the theater, film screen and radio feeds. The 1966 film adaptation director, Francois Trufffo, cost quite freely with the original source, but Bradbury himself was satisfied. Perhaps this was prompted by Ramin Bahrani, who set the film 2018, move away from the book even further.

What happened as a result is difficult to judge. If you forget about the original (and it’s better not to know it at all), we have an atmospheric and dramatic story before us. However, if you, like book dissidents, memorized "451" by heart, then when viewing a new adaptation, sometimes you will learn an accurate quote or catch a certain similarity of plot turns. No more.

Symphony of fire

In the near future, books are banned. Humanity, delivered from the need to think, is blissful surrounded by television screens, neon lights and artificial intelligence, introduced into each house. And with great interest he looks at the reality show about the difficult work of firefighters: they are looking for malicious wrestlers with a regime and burn the books hidden by those. Together with the houses and personalities of the unfortunate dissidents who are erased by fingerprints.

The main character, Montag (Michael B. Jordan), – a fan of his work and the favorite of the public. How she sang “Aria”, “The number 451 on the helmet looks beautiful”, and Montag knows about it very well. But once he has doubts: whether he acts for the good of people? Is it true that he was told since childhood?

As a result, Montag, like many classical heroes of anti -utopias, turns on a curve path of searching for truth and himself. Which, of course, cannot lead to anything good.

In his interpretation of Roman Bamverney allows himself countless liberties. The mechanical dog disappears. Montag's wife disappears – he is now married to his work. The poetry girl Clarissa, who in the book was the New Vegas sister sites main catalyst for the change of the hero, performed by Sofia Butella, becomes an unfriendly double agent. The ending is completely rewritten. But the idea and the main plot canvas of the novel are not touched.

Now Bradbury's warnings sound like more than ever. Social networks teach to perceive the information with small blocks, and the users are lazy to master the large volume of the text (“twist the human mind in a frantic whirlwind, faster, faster … so that the centrifugal force throws out all unnecessary, unnecessary, useless thoughts!"). The food for the mind of mass prefers the “universal chewing gum”: whether it is a mediocre blockbuster where it is not required to strain the brain, or the letter filler (the book does not rotate this book) about the difficulties of ringing a rich lover of film and gags. And in the era, when the struggle for universal equality smoothly goes into witch hunt, monologues of the firewall Bitty are topical to mockery.

"Huck Finn and his black man's friend. The whites knew that this offends blacks, and what we did? We burned it ".

Gather them all

The most curious feature of the film is that Bahrai seemed to have sought not so much to film Bradbury, but to speak out on a viva -trapping topic, paying tribute to the great anti -utopias of the 20th century. The ubiquitous artificial intelligence "Juxi", woking for citizens in homes and on the streets, clearly waves a handle of Orwell with his big brother. The scene of moral pumping of schoolchildren, maliciously getting into the sight of books, walks hello to two -minute hatred. Loud slogans “Happiness is truth” and “ego is power” also clearly give "1984" , but already in a mixture with "Wonderful New World". The mentioned cocktails and drops that are cleaning the memory seem to the glimpse of the allusion to Haxli (“Soma grams – and there is no dram”). Aesthetics "Running blade" Almost every second is now inspired for the visual embodiment of a joyless cyberpanus, and Bahrai did not become an exception.

Visually "451" is impressive. Skillful setting of the frame and lighting game, lovingly painted decorations of the metropolis, where the walls in apartments are replaced by screens – many scenes ask for a screenshot. True, all this beauty would look much better in the format of the series: leisurely meditativeness would be to her face.

Alas, Bahrai did not dare to follow in the footsteps of Scott and Villenev. The saturated pace of the picture does not allow to get bored, but there are too many interesting chips of the world because of this remained either unsolved or revealed superficially.

The joyless endings with the victory of the system, so beloved by science fiction writers of the 20th century, are now not in fashion, and a bitter ending of the book, where the survival of an individual does not cancel the collapse of the whole world, Bamarina preferred the final to encouraging, pathos-tragic … and much more banal. That does not moderate the strength of his emotional influence.

The old people here are the place

With emotions, the film is generally played skillfully. For example, Brandmaster Bitti (Michael Shannon played brilliantly) from the head of Montag turned into his mentor, a man who replaced his father. The rebellion riot becomes a personal betrayal, and this leads the conflict of two heroes to a new level.

Bradbury Bitti plays the same role that O’Brien at Orwell or Mustafa at Haxley. The role of the one who explains the hero and the reader, as the system actually works. He is smart – unlike the herd that controls. He uses access to forbidden knowledge with might and main. He is ambiguous, he sees the system through, but consciously chooses it. Because Bitty and in the original was an interesting character. In the film adaptation, he simply steals every scene where it appears.

Michael Jordan, who shone in the role of Killmonger in "Black Panther" , He tries to realize the image of a charismatic fighter with the system, but against the background of Shannon it looks faded. He seemed to be born to walk in the form of a fireman, flaunt a military bearing and drill a piercing look of the unreasonable youth Montag. However, Jordan, whatever you say, and the role was more fresh. Book Montag, with all its ardor, was not at least a young man.

If the relationship between the two firefighters has deepened and developed, then the love line did not fasten. You don't believe too much in the feelings of Montag and the impudent Clarissa. A feeling is created that the hero was tritely pecking at the pretty face of Sofia Butella, but not on the rich inner world of the heroine.

It would be unforgivable, if Clarissa, as in the book, the main catalyst for the changes of the hero. Since in the film adaptation on the moral screening of Montag, another event influenced much more, the heroine of Butella can be accepted. The main thing is to remember that this is not so much a film adaptation as a variation on the topic.

What the film was definitely not enough is a convincing scene of the emotional shock from the first clash with the great power of art. Montag, of course, reads Dostoevsky and is amazed at the sight of a home library, but in the course of viewing you involuntarily nostalgic for "Equilibrium". The scene where Krurik Preston sobs, hearing the ninth symphony of Beethoven is echoing with an episode of "451", where Montag reads poetry to his wife and her friends. It is very ironic that many elements of Bradbury’s novel ultimately embodied a film more convincingly, which never claimed for the title of his film adaptation.

To someone brought by the bustrai, the drama may seem cheap. Of course, in something during adaptation, the film approached the same “universal chewing gum”, which Bradbury wrote bitterly about. On the other hand, Bradbury is a poet in prose, far from the easiest writer for film adaptation. Given that the younger generation is much more likely to watch a new film from HBO , What will go to the book, it is better if they get acquainted with the ideas of the great science fiction writer at least in a simplified presentation.

If you want to see the film adaptation of your favorite childhood book, do not go to the new "451 Pharenheit". If you want to enjoy a beautiful cyberpunk, look at a well -registered conflict and plunge into the gloomy atmosphere of the world of the future – you should give him a chance.

If someone is the new HBO film prompts to get acquainted with the original source or just refresh the novel in memory, then we will push away a little more the moment when the books replaces their brief presentation in the form of three lines of Emoji.

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