Film Analysis #1 - Fahrenheit 451 / Soylent Green

     As pointed out in the article "On Dystopia", the idea of a dystopian future is not only a proven theme for literature and film, but can also be created as a response to evil in the real world, or as a warning of a dark future to come. These various variables involved allow what it is that actually makes a dystopian future differ greatly. This notion is very much present in the films "Fahrenheit 451" and "Soylent Green". The former creates a future in which ideas and free will are held captive, and much of the imprisonment enforced on the public exists within the mind. The latter, however, shows a future in which earthly conditions such as overpopulation and a runaway greenhouse effect have left people with extremely meager living conditions. Each film successfully captures the essence of a dystopian future, but each does so in a very unique way.

     "Fahrenheit 451" tells the tale of a future with ideas very foreign to those of modern society. Instead of encouraging children to read, and acknowledging the intellectual benefits of reading like is commonly done today, books are actually highly illegal. The idea of a "fireman" is quite different as well, as instead of putting fires out, their job is to start them. Books are seen as being so dangerous to the public that they must actually be destroyed. (This is where the film gets it's name, as 451 degrees Fahrenheit is the temperature required to burn a book.) The idea of total control is a common theme that stretches throughout the entire dystopian genre, and is achieved here through controlling the spread of information. Books allow the ideas of an individual to be brought to the forefront, and to be shared among groups of people. As this would allow conflicting ideas to be heard, books themselves cannot be allowed. Instead of just banning books, or disposing of them behind closed doors, this film chooses to make a powerful spectacle out of the torching of books. Burning the books to ashes in front of a crowd shows the seriousness of their intentions, and strikes fear among the public until the point of compliance. Books, however, seemed to only be the first things to go. It's easy to see how the banning and burning of books has also taken something else away from the people in this film. People seem to lack any sort of depth in their exchanges with one another. The appreciation of things like the beauty of nature seems all but lost. The ban on books has taken much more  from society than merely the ability to read words off of a page. The main character of the film, Montag, becomes numb to the reality of his position as a fireman. He does his duties as requested until he meets a girl named Clarisse.  Her delightful innocence intrigues Montag, and it seems as if her poignant questioning and playful demeanor was the push that he needed to finally take a step back and look at the book burning situation from a new angle. Once this fire is lit within Montag, it's impossible to extinguish, and he even begins to stash books that he secretly takes from burnings. It is at this point you see Montag's satisfaction of his own life start to fade away before his very eyes, surely with assistance from his wife, who besides almost committing suicide with sleeping pills, has become a completely mind-numb puppet of the television. Whilst continuing on this downward spiral, Montag and the firemen respond to an alarm for an old woman with a house full of books. At this point, a very powerful moment takes place. After collecting all of the books, throwing them into a pile in the center of the room, and dousing everything with a flammable liquid, the woman refuses to leave. She claims that she would like to die as she's lived, and she'd lived with the books, claiming the books were "alive" and that they "spoke" to her. The firemen then give her a final countdown of 10 seconds to exit the area, thus saving her own life. While counting down they ready the flamethrower and aim it at the lady. At the last moment, something unexpected happens. She lights a match from a box in her hand, and smiling, drops it to the ground beside her, igniting the entire area. This moment represents the point made in "On Dystopia", that a dystopian future is not merely just a grim outlook, but it exists only is a society of extreme oppression. On this idea, Booker claims "the bleak dystopian world should encourage the reader or viewer to think critically about it, then transfer this critical thinking to his or her own world." This makes me wonder how an oppressive regime such as the one in Fahrenheit 451 would have to operate in a world such as ours, where information is spread freely and instantly, in order to maintain that type of control. 

     Aside from a group of people directly creating the conditions for a dystopian future to exist, there are also outside factors that can set the stage quite nicely by themselves. In the world of Soylent Green, overpopulation has taken a huge toll on society, causing massive shortages of food, and a rise in the amount of people homeless and unemployed. To compound these existing difficulties, climate change due to the Greenhouse Effect has caused 90 degree days to wreak havoc on the 40 million citizens stuffed into New York City. These conditions are an open invitation for the oppressive elite to take a direct stranglehold on society. At this point, there lies much power in controlling the food. This type of dystopian future hits very close to home for many parts of the world, and will only become more and more prevalent as time moves forward. In the article "The Wretched Refuse of Your Teemed Shore", it speaks of humanity's fear of it's own self-destruction. "The nuclear destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki that ended World War II ushered in a new age of anxiety about humanity’s capacity to destroy itself and its environment." Even without weapons, or war, or anything of the sort, could overpopulation alone be enough to cause such a dystopian future? Soylent Green sure makes a valid case, and it's portrayed in only one American city, and also uses an older standard of living. In the modern world, food is not the only issue, and the average family requires more and more resources to maintain their desired lifestyle as time goes on. Up until this point, space has never truly been the issue, as almost everybody on earth could fit into an area the size of California, but other things that seem to cause problems first. As the standard of living increases, and the resources required to sustain it increase proportionally, it is not only likely to cause resources to run out faster, but also make for far more of a radical and jarring change when it must be taken away.