Ramin Bahrani
Fahrenheit 451

I realize that my opinion might meet with the opposition of many, but honestly, the cinematic rendition of "Fahrenheit 451" by Francois Truffaut has always left me quite indifferent. It's certainly not a bad film, nor do I intend to get bogged down in technical matters. In the end, its fault, I believe, is simply the fact that the comparison with Ray Bradbury's original work is untenable: the perfection of the novel (practically a classic of all time literature) overshadows the cinematic work, rendering it, after so many years, a simple science fiction film from the fifties (pleasant as such) or a work to be considered within the universe of Truffaut's cinema, with all the related considerations that I would leave to his admirers and professional film critics.

Honestly, I don't care much about Francois Truffaut, while I am interested in science fiction cinema, and even without great expectations, I watched with interest this new film adaptation of Ray Bradbury's novel, which is clearly reinterpreted in light of contemporary technology and considerations that refer to the events of Julian Assange and WikiLeaks and, in general, the circulation of information on the web. The plot, naturally, is practically the same, only alongside books (which remain symbolically the main object of reference), there is other forbidden material: practically everything concerning the arts and, specifically, every multimedia content that the rebels (the so-called "Eels") try to disseminate and preserve from the fire by transposing the material into a format encoded in DNA (clearly, there are no particular technical specifications on this type of operation; the thing is certainly not rendered optimally, but perhaps it does not constitute a discriminating element for the content of the story) and then circulating it on the Internet, which is clearly illegal and replaced by a community-shared social network system called "nine".

The film was released only on the small screen last May. Directed and written by Ramin Bahrani, it boasts a couple of heavyweights in the roles of the two main actors, the legendary Michael Shannon (undoubtedly one of the best actors out there) and the young Michael B. Jordan in the role of Guy Montag: in fact, it's the dichotomy in the evolution and behavior of the two characters that the entire film is based on. The production is not subpar, and the introduced "contemporary" elements are probably interesting and worthy of further investigation (I mainly refer to the debated theme of the free circulation of all kinds of news without consequences, even in the face of evident falsehoods), which are missing here. Just as, in the end, perhaps the difference between a classic and immortal style and a respectful attempt to renew the debate, yet lacking a certain necessary density, is felt. It's light, you can watch it without giving or asking much of the viewer.