‘Fahrenheit 451’ Film Review: Michael B. Jordan Remakes Ray Bradbury for the Age of Fake News
Cannes 2018: Ramin Bahrani directed a new adaptation starring Michael Shannon
Steve Pond | May 19, 2018 @ 7:00 PM
Last Updated: May 19, 2018 @ 7:13 PM
AWARDS BEAT
Cannes Film Festival
Most people who see Ramin Bahrani’s “Fahrenheit 451,” which had a midnight screening at the Cannes Film Festival on Saturday and comes to HBO on May 19, will probably think of it as a new adaptation of the classic science-fiction novel by Ray Bradbury, who posited a future in which books were outlawed and the job of a fireman was to burn them.
But in Cannes, there’s another strong association, because an earlier film based on Bradbury’s book was directed by legendary French director Francois Truffaut, whose only English-language film was a 1966 version starring Oskar Werner and Julie Christie.
So Bahrani, the director of “99 Homes” and “Chop Shop,” comes to the Croisette having to measure up to two formidable artists — a task he approaches by doing his best to ignore Truffaut and give glancing service to Bradbury.
Bahrani’s “Fahrenheit 451” is more high-tech than Truffaut’s, of course, and far more violent. It jettisons big portions of Bradbury’s story to zero in on one relationship, and adds a shoot-‘em-out finale miles away in tone from the novelist’s more contemplative coda. (To be fair, that coda followed the nuking of a city, so the author hardly eschewed violence.)
It works, to a degree, though largely as a showcase for a battle between Michael B. Jordan and Michael Shannon. The former plays Guy Montag, a gung-ho fireman primed for a promotion and seemingly eager to be the brash hero of every book-burning for the mindless masses who watch his exploits on 24-hour-a-day reality TV (or is it fake news?) projected on the side of the skyscrapers in the unnamed future metropolis.
Shannon is Captain Beatty, Montag’s boss, whose quintessential Shannonesque villainy is slightly undercut by the fact that he seems to have read a lot of the books he burns, and can eloquently explain that they contradict each other and would just confuse regular people.
Those people are kept in a state of perpetual vacuity by state news and by “The 9,” this film’s version of the internet, albeit an internet designed to dumb down everybody who uses it — which is to say, everybody.
In Bradbury’s book and Truffaut’s film, the misguided masses were epitomized by Montag’s wife, Millie, who’s been so techno-lobotomized that she can’t even remember her suicide attempt the morning after. Bahrani filmed Millie’s scenes, with actress Laura Harrier in the role, but they wound up on the cutting-room floor; in this “Fahrenheit 451,” the mindless masses are barely seen and Montag is a bachelor, all the better to hasten his showdown with Captain Beatty.
That showdown comes when Montag, spurred by a few conversations with a mysterious young woman who informs for Beatty but also has ties to the resistance, and shaken by an old woman who incinerates herself rather than watch her illicit library burn, begins to think that books just might be better for, you know, reading instead of burning.
He swipes a copy of Dostoyevsky’s “Notes From the Underground” (in Bradbury’s telling, it was the Bible) and starts having the kind of doubts we knew were inevitable from the moment Jordan strutted and grinned like the world’s most enthusiastic fireman in his early scenes.
Bahrani’s “Fahrenheit” has its topical touches, with clear nods to today’s anti-immigrant crusades in the way people are separated into “natives” and “eels” — i.e., good citizens who do what the government tells them and outsiders who don’t. But despite the timeliness, and the spectacle of all those gleaming high-rise towers serving as giant TV screens, the film sometimes seems as besotted with the shiny images as Montag initially is with the flames he unleashes.
Bradbury and Truffaut both had more humane, more human takes on the material, and maybe more love for the power of the words that Montag ends up trying to save rather than burn.
This version of the story turns into a chase of sorts, and places the real key to humanity’s future not in the memories of a colony of people who’ve memorized entire books, but the DNA of a bird who’s been programmed with all human knowledge. (The book people are here, but they’re expendable; it’s the bird who’s got to be saved at all costs.)
Jordan and Shannon, though, make suitably fierce competitors. And in an era where inconvenient truths are branded as fake, any take on Bradbury’s cautionary tale can’t help but be resonant, and worth seeing.
16 Cannes Winners That Went on to Take Oscar Gold (Photos)
Despite being two of the longest running institutions in cinema, the Oscars and Cannes have not always been the best bedfellows. Only one film has won both the Palme d'Or and Best Picture. But many more films that have played on the Croisette at Cannes have been nominated or won other big prizes from the Academy. These are the 16 films that both won the Palme d'Or and won an additional Oscar:
"Marty" (1955)
In the first year that Cannes started calling their top prize the Palme d'Or, the Delbert Mann drama and romance based on a Paddy Chayefsky teleplay won the film festival's highest honor -- and went on to earn four Oscars, including Best Picture, Best Director, Best Writing and Best Actor for Ernest Borgnine. But since then, not one film has gone on to win both the Best Picture Oscar and Palme d'Or.
United Artists
"The Silent World" (1956)
Jacques-Yves Cousteau's pioneering, underwater nature documentary beat out films from Satyajit Ray, Alfred Hitchcock, Ingmar Bergman, Akira Kurosawa and more to win the Palme d'Or, and it also took home the Best Documentary Oscar.
Columbia Pictures
"Black Orpheus" (1959)
Marcel Camus's dreamy, contemporary take on the Orpheus and Eurydice Greek myth won the Palme d'Or and the Best Foreign Language Oscar.
Lopert Films
"La Dolce Vita" (1960)
Federico Fellini's sensuous reverie of a film "La Dolce Vita" managed Oscar nods for Best Director and Screenplay, but only won for Best Costume Design.
Astor Pictures Corporation
"A Man and a Woman" (1966)
The Academy rewarded this French New Wave romance starring Anouk Aimee and Jean-Louis Trintignant with two Oscars, one for its screenplay and another for Best Foreign Language Film.
Allied Artists Pictures
"MASH" (1970)
It's surprising to see Cannes anoint a film as irreverent as Robert Altman's screwball war satire "MASH," but though the Oscars nominated it for Best Picture, the award went to another war film, "Patton." "MASH" did pick up a win for Altman's ingenious ensemble screenplay.
Twentieth Century Fox
"Apocalypse Now" (1979)
Francis Ford Coppola's Vietnam war masterpiece was still a work-in-progress when it screened at Cannes, and it would split the Palme d'Or with "The Tin Drum" that same year. It was nominated for eight Oscars and won two, but lost Best Picture to "Kramer vs. Kramer."
United Artists
"The Tin Drum" (1979)
After splitting the Palme d'Or with "Apocalypse Now," "The Tin Drum" won the Best Foreign Language Film Oscar with ease.
The Criterion Collection
"All That Jazz" (1980)
Weirdly, Bob Fosse's musical was nominated alongside "Apocalypse Now" at the 1979 Oscars, opening in December of that year, but it won the 1980 Cannes after cleaning up four Oscars just a month earlier.
Columbia Pictures Corporation/20th Century Fox
"Missing" (1982)
Jack Lemmon won Cannes' Best Actor prize for Costa-Gavras's political thriller in addition to "Missing" winning the Palme d'Or. And Lemmon and co-star Sissy Spacek each scored acting nominations in addition to the film being nominated for Best Picture, but it only won an Oscar for Best Adapted Screenplay.
Universal Pictures
"The Mission" (1986)
Starring Robert de Niro and Jeremy Irons as Spanish Jesuits trying to save a native American tribe, Roland Joffe's "The Mission" won the Palme d'Or and earned seven nominations but only one Oscar win for Best Cinematography.
Warner Bros.
"Pelle the Conqueror" (1987)
The legendary Max von Sydow plays a Swedish immigrant in Denmark in this Danish film that won the Palme d'Or, the Best Foreign Language Oscar and netted Sydow his first acting nomination.
Miramax
"The Piano" (1993)
Holly Hunter won the Best Actress prize at both Cannes and the Oscars for Jane Campion's drama that won the Palme d'Or and was nominated for eight Oscars in all.
Miramax
"Pulp Fiction" (1994)
Much has been written about the bombshell Quentin Tarantino set off when "Pulp Fiction" debuted at Cannes and polarized audiences by winning the Palme d'Or, not to mention the cultural rift it created when it went head-to-head with "Forrest Gump" at the Oscars and lost.
Miramax
"The Pianist" (2002)
Winning Best Director for Roman Polanski and Best Actor for Adrien Brody, "The Pianist" was a strong favorite to win Best Picture after winning the Palme d'Or, but it lost to the musical "Chicago." Just don't expect a repeat from Polanski anytime soon.
Focus Features
"Amour" (2012)
Michael Haneke had just won his second Palme d'Or for his sobering romance about old age "Amour," and rightfully so. The film paired French New Wave legends Jean-Louis Trintignant and Emmanuelle Riva and scored five Oscar nominations in all, including Best Picture, but only came away with a win for Best Foreign Language Film.
Sony Pictures Classics
1 of 17
But only one film has ever won both the Palme d’Or and Best Picture
Despite being two of the longest running institutions in cinema, the Oscars and Cannes have not always been the best bedfellows. Only one film has won both the Palme d'Or and Best Picture. But many more films that have played on the Croisette at Cannes have been nominated or won other big prizes from the Academy. These are the 16 films that both won the Palme d'Or and won an additional Oscar: