Book Burnings and Dystopian Society

 Watching Fahrenheit 451, the first thing I noticed was the affinity of contrast. The movie uses a lot of greys and makes any color stand out. However, the colors themselves have been desaturated and made to appear gloomy and devoid of life. The monorail cars are a dark, drab yellow that seems to take the joy out of anything. The use of the color red is very prominent in the film. Montag's first book has a red cover which could symbolize danger or mischief. The most vibrant color is the red firetruck and firehouse exterior. Montag's wife overdosed on her red pills. Fire can be red or mixtures of red, orange and yellow. The two students wearing blue are constantly seen fighting.
   Knowing that Ray Bradbury authored the novel which the movie is based on, the underlying tones of totalitarian government and Aryan symbolism make sense. A fair number of the characters have the blonde hair and blue eyes that Hitler strived for. The firefighters all wear matching uniforms with the number 451, which is the temperature that book paper burns. I see it as an allusion to Unit 431, an infamous Nazi unit. The whole movie can be seen as a representation of Hitler's Germany. He also enacted book burnings to control the masses and prevent rebellion. One of the books shown in the library is Mein Kampf, Hitler's autobiography from when he was imprisoned.
    One scene that stood out to me was at the end, when everybody is walking in a circle during the winter snowfall. The scene starts out with a close up on Montag's face as he recites the book he is memorizing. The camera slowly zooms out to show Laurie is walking beside him reciting her book. As the camera transitions to a medium shot, it becomes apparent that all of the book readers are walking in a uniform circle. The scene zooms out to a wide shot showing everybody walking and reciting as the screen fades to black.
     I do have a few questions that never seem to be touched upon. How can Montag know how to read in the first place if books are illegal? How does the newspaper even make sense to anybody? How can the schools determine the potential of the students without tests? All of these questions can tie into the theme “that without knowledge, we are all equally ignorant.”