Yet another movie blog. This time the movie is Fahrenheit 451[^]. Nope, not the Michael Moore movie of similar and deliberately resonant title (I haven't seen that one yet but I will soon). This movie dates from 1966 and it has a wonderful soundtrack by Bernard Herrman.
I've read many reviews of the movie that pan it; the problem is that it was then, and is still now, billed as a Science Fiction movie. Somewhere along the line people came up with the idea that if a movie is set in a parallel universe or at some indeterminate time in the near/far future, it has to be Sci Fi. Well that's a simpler classification than that of 'possible outcomes from current trends'. Which is actually a pretty good description of good Sci Fi but unfortunately Sci Fi has been cast as 'flying saucers', 'ray guns' and all the other crap one finds in Star Wars. Thus, if a movie lacks those staples of Sci Fi it is, if it is set in the future, a bad Sci Fi movie.
Well I happen to think it's a very good movie. The first time I saw it was about 1977, which is to say that I saw it before reading much of George Orwells work. The fact that I watched it tonight is a direct outcome of my current focus on the work of repression. When I watched 1984 a week or so ago I was immediately reminded of F451 so I checked online if the Phoenix Public Library had a copy. To my delight they did and the reservation system brought it to my screen tonight . First time I've seen it in 20 years.
Anyway I'm watching it and during the scene where the old lady burns herself with her books rather than fall into the hands of the instruments of state repression they show many many pages from many novels, each page burning. What intrigued me was that there was a page from a Raffles novel followed by a page from a 1939 novel by James Hadley Chase called No Orchids for Miss Blandish. I haven't read the novel but I've read George Orwells comparison of the literature of the early 1900's and the literature from the Age of Fascism. In his essay, published in August 1944, Orwell chose the Raffles novels of E. F. Hornung and the aforesaid James Hadley Chase novel.
It seems highly unlikely to me that this is coincidence. In the pre-Solzhenitsyn age (that is to say before 1973) Orwells 1984 would have been the best known essay into the totalitarian mindset. On the other hand, a direct reference to Winston Smith might have been seen as gratuitous.
It's a beautiful and ultimately uplifting film. The final 10 minutes or so concentrates on the 'book people' - literally people who've memorised an entire book in order to preserve it against the forces of repression.
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