Fahrenheit 451
Books and movies are booth great kind of entertainment. Many great books have been turned into great movies by adapting every bit of detail from the book to the movie, but as well as good books are being turned into good movies there are also good books being turned into disappointing movies by changing the great meaningful story the original author had written into a shallow script. Fahrenheit 451 is a book written by Ray Bradbury in 1953, which was turned into a movie adapted and directed by François Truffaut in 1966. The story revolves around a fireman named Guy Montag that lives in a society that censors books. Firemen in the book are peopling that burn books and houses with books in them, which is the complete opposite of what firemen really do. During the story, Montag changes from being numb to realizing how empty he really is by reading books. From this book a movie was created, yet some changes were made: the way things are portrayed, Clarisse’s character, and characters that are not shown.
The first difference between Fahrenheit 451 the book and the movie Fahrenheit 451 is how the movie portrays things different from the book. For example, fast cars are in both, book and movie. However, in the book, there is a scene where Clarisse and Montag go to a place where people go to hit animals with their cars and in the movie fast cars are just mentioned, not shown. Also, the parlor walls are in both book and movie, but portrayed differently. For instance, the parlor walls are described in the books as being a wall TV (huge wall and the TV would be the whole wall) and they had three walls in a room and in the movie there is only one wall and it is a plasma TV. An even bigger change than the differences of how the portrayed things is the difference in Clarisse’s character. Another change made from the book Fahrenheit 451 to the movie Fahrenheit 451 is Clarisse’s character. Clarisse is the most influential person in Montag’s life. She is the one who makes him want to read. The first change in Clarisse’s character is her age. In the book Clarisse is seventeen years old and goes to school, at least go to school until she got kicked out for being “antisocial,” which in her society means racing cars
and doing all kinds of crazy things without thinking of all the dangers it might bring. In contrast, in the movie Clarisse is twenty-two, a teacher, and gets fired for the same reason she got kicked out of school in the book which is for being “antisocial.” Also, there is a difference in the scene in the books when Clarisse is waiting (spying) for Montag to get out of his house so she could talk to him and she tells him about the dandelion. The dandelion is a flower, which Clarisse tells Montag to put on his chin and if it turned yellow meant that he was in love. It didn’t turn yellow, which meant that he wasn’t in love with his wife or anyone else.
That scene was changed, because in the movie Montag and Clarisse go to a restaurant and just talked without the dandelion being mentioned. Later that day, Clarisse calls the fire station pretending to be Montag’s wife and says that he is sick and won’t be going to work. However, in the movie Montag’s wife actually calls. In addition, in the book Clarisse dies. Montag’s wife says that she dies in a car accident, but it is never said clear since Mildred isn’t the most reliable source and it is only mentioned once or twice in the book. On the other hand, in the movie Clarisse doesn’t die and she is actually the only person who is since the beginning until the end of the movie. As big as the changes in Clarisse’s character are, there are characters that had even bigger changes. The final difference between Fahrenheit 451 the book and the movie Fahrenheit 451 are characters that are not shown in the movie. Faber is a character in the book, but not in the movie. Faber is an ex-English professor. In the book he Explains books to Montag. In a way, Clarisse replaces him because in the movie Clarisse is the only one in Montag’s life that knows the importance of books and appreciates books. So Clarisse, replaces Faber by being the only one there to help him read and understand, instead of Clarisse and Faber together making Montag a reader. The Mechanical Hound is also a character in the book, but not in the movie. The Mechanical Hound is described as an “eight-legged robotic hound with hypodermic poison fangs.” The Mechanical Hound is the fear of all the readers that live in Montag’s society, because they live with the fear of getting discovered.
The firemen pole replaces the Mechanical Hound, because both know that Montag is reading. The “mailbox” also replaces the Mechanical Hound in the movie. The “mailbox” (where people placed pictures of people that had books) is also a replacement for the mechanical hound, because they are both created to find readers. In conclusion, there are many differences between Fahrenheit 451 the book and the movie. For instance, the way things are portrayed, Clarisse’s character, and characters that get replaced. In my eyes, the book was better than the movie because the mechanical hound was what to me gave the flavor to the story. The mechanical hound it is what killed people just for reading books, which to me sounds absurd. Books are knowledge and without knowledge there is nothing.
