Contrast-comparison essay: Totalitarian societies as viewed in 1966 and 2012. O.Belopolskaya

“Cogito ergo sum.” The quotation by Rene Descartes expresses the human nature to think and to analyze. The issue under analysis very often is connected with the thinker: it is his or her life, health, social status, personal relations, nature, and other aspects of present life and their future development. The thinker can be presented by the author themselves or by protagonists of their masterpieces.

Among usually analyzed things one can easily distinguish society, law, political system, evolution of views, and their impact on future generations. Authors strive to predict and speculate on the items that they are concerned about. Thus, the result of their work can be found in literature and lately in cinematography.

This essay is designed to compare two different cinema masterpieces; both are based on written novels, both aiming to analyze the society and political system in future. The first film is 451 Fahrenheit by Ray Bradbury, produced by François Truffaut in 1966. The second film, Cloud Atlas, based on the book by David Mitchell and produced by Tom Tykwer in 2012, is divided into six stories, and only one of them, An Orison of Sonmi~451 is going to be analyzed.

The main thing that infuence people’s way of life is political and social system. The author of 451 Fahrenheit considers future systems mentioned above totalitarian. It is government who decides what people should do. Those citizens who watch television stay in favor of the state, but those who differ and read book are persecuted. In An Orison of Sonmi~ 451 societies are also divided into two opposed camps – common people and genetically-engineered fabricants, who usually serve the first groups in restaurants and have no social rights.

No doubt, the both totalitarian societies have some things that are strongly prohibited because they can destroy the system. In 451 Fahrenheit such prohibited things are books. These books can be written by any author, any time, and the plot doesn’t matter. These books keep experience and wisdom of previous generation for descendants. But television is legal. On the contrary, in An Orison of Sonmi~451 literature and television are rather legal, except certain authors that raise the issue of individual liberty. It should not depend on social status, age, color of skin, origin and background, lifestyle and activity.

The political systems of both societies under comparison take special measures to suppress dissent. Thus, in 451 Fahrenheit the audience can see that this mission is carried out by firemen, who seek for hidden books and then burn them. The book owners who fail to escape are arrested or even burnt in the same fire with their libraries. Due to the fact that the masterpiece was written by R.Bradbury in the middle of XX century when no high technologies were spread, all books are not virtual, but printed on paper and material, thus, it is difficult to hide, but easy to find them.

Practically the same situation with persecution of dissidents can be seen in An Orison of Sonmi~451. Those who read forbidden literature or watch prohibited films are also arrested and put to death by special governmental units. But in this variant of future people use high technologies and all information is virtual, stored on virtual disks. Virtual information more available, persecution becomes more difficult.

And of couse any totalitarian system should evoke a counterforce to keep the values that are non grata at the moment. In 451 Fahrenheit the counterforce is presented by those people who once had libraries but in order not to be arrested left their towns. Every person remembers one single book by heart and transmits it if he or she dies. Such people live in abandoned railway stations and make no active attempts to change the system; they just wait till the time to revive literature comes.  But rebels from An Orison of Sonmi~451 chose another more dangerous, active, position. They have arms, the chief, and a shelter. They make some plans and carry them out. They know that this is their time for action and nobody but they can destroy the illusion the society lives in, even at the expense of their lives. Most of them died but fabricant Sonmi-451 managed to deliver her speech about personal rights on central television.

Both analyzed variants of our future seem rather sad: people go through brainwashing; it is prohibited for them to manifest their ideas and feelings. They are put into some bounds of behavior; leaving them leads to death. And although the main idea of both films is shown by different means, the audience should remember that their age gap is nearly fifty years. It makes the main idea stronger, more precise and significant: if it stays the same point for such a long period, society does not understand anything and should change the way of life, otherwise it is going to face the described totalitarian future real, not filmed.