See the First FAHRENHEIT 451 Trailer

It may seem like HBO’s Fahrenheit 451 trailer and adaptation is particularly relevant these days, driven by the current political climate, but it’s a film that has been in the making since before the 2016 presidential election. Fahrenheit 451 is a story that was relevant long before Ray Bradbury wrote it, and it will likely be relevant far into the future.

During the 2018 Television Critics’ Association Winter Press Tour, the film’s director, Ramin Bahrani was careful to distance the film from Trump’s presidency and the events that have occurred since he took office (remember Fire & Fury ?):  “Politically things are going in a very strange direction in terms of what is real and what is not real…I don’t want to focus so much on [Trump] because I don’t want to excuse the 30, 40 years prior to that. He’s just an exaggeration of it now…”

From the little sneak peaks we’ve been given of HBO’s Fahrenheit 451 so far, it looks like Bahrani has done a good job of addressing Bradbury’s concerns that we are steadily, and with increasing speed, eroding our culture in favor of advancements in technology. In an age in which technology rules, books will logically be seen, at best, as relics or, at worst, as threats.