Fahrenheit 451: Comparison of
the Book and the Movie
Fahrenheit 451 is a brilliant book of Ray Bradbury
that fully deserved a screen version. No wonder that Francois Truffaut decided
to film one in 1966. However, anyone who has read and liked the novel is going
to raise their eyebrows while watching the movie.
The first difference
one can notice is that the world shown in the movie is different from the world
pictured in the book. Due to technical limitations, most of the sci-fi elements
are gone. Cars do not speed down the highways; Montag’s wife does not have to
read his lips because she has no Seashell radios in her ears, the three screens
of the “parlor walls” are downscaled to just one television set, and there are
no mechanical hounds to chase Montag and amplify suspense. The book also hints
that the time setting of the story is around the twenty-fourth century; however, so
many details in the movie – houses, vehicles, fashion – just scream 1960s.
The book and
the movie significantly differ concerning the general plot development, too. The
most noticeable change regards Clarisse’s fate: while she dies in the book, in
the movie, she lives and shows Montag the way to the book people. She is not
the only one, whose life Truffaut, unlike Bradbury, spared: in the book, Montag
witnesses the city being destroyed by atomic bombs; however, the war is only
mentioned in the movie.
Truffaut has
also modified the original characters. To begin with, one of the key figures of
the book, Faber, does not appear in the movie at all, and, to some extent,
Clarisse McCllellan acts for him. She also has undergone other significant
changes. In the book, she is a seventeen-year-old student, and Montag has some
kind of fatherly feelings towards her. Yet in the movie she is a teacher, and
this makes us assume that she is older. In fact, the same actress plays both
her and Montag’s wife, so they do not just look alike, but also must
be of the same age. This leads to the different kind of relationship between Montag and Clarisse,
turning it into a love story. Speaking of Montag’s wife, she was not changed
much, but her name in the film, Linda, for some reason is different from the
one in the book, which is Mildred.
In conclusion, I
would like to say that, despite Fahrenheit
451 is a decent movie, I cannot help uttering the sacramental words: the book was better. I am not the only
one to see the symbolism of this, am I?
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