Great Barrington — The Triplex and the Great Barrington Public Library system will co-present a series of films from over the decades based banned books.
The first film in the series is “Fahrenheit 451” based on the 1953 novel by Ray Bradberry. The film adaptation, directed by François Truffaut and starring Julie Christie, Oskar Werner, and Cyril Cusak, was released in 1966. The novel, which was inspired by various book burnings and repression in Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union, is set in a dystopian American society where books are outlawed and “firemen” are allowed to burn any book they find.
“Fahrenheit 451” will screen at The Triplex at 4 p.m. on Sunday, May 4.
Great Barrington Public Libraries Assistant Director Jamie Nicholson told The Berkshire Edge that the other films in the series are yet to be determined.
“[Representatives from The Triplex and the Great Barrington Public Libraries] had talked about different ways where we could partner up, and adaptations of banned books seemed to be a perfect marriage between books and film,” Nicholson said. “When we started putting the pieces together, we realized that banned books are still in the news and are very upfront right now when it comes to current events.”
“We wanted to find a way to have conversations about a banned book title and use our audiences to discuss it,” said Triplex Creative Director Ben Elliott. “As we’re going into this year, the ideas behind what makes people scared of banned books, and what makes people want to ban them in the first place, seemed like a natural fit to do. It’s something that we are dealing with nationally and locally. Using this series to discuss this seems like a good idea.”
Elliott explained that Bradbury predicted the era of social media several decades before Instagram and Facebook came on the scene. “The social media era has lent itself to censorship,” Elliott said. “The character of Mildred Montag, the wife of main character Guy Montag, has technology that allows her to be part of shows. The technology allows you to be part of a media narrative that closes you off to ideas you don’t want to hear or upset you. This is a major part of the book, and it is something that we are living through now.”
“The conversation about access to information is on the forefront of libraries,” Nicholson said. “This movie shows you what it means to limit someone’s access to information. We live in an age where people want to remove people’s ability to learn about and understand certain subjects and topics. They want to find ways to remove ways of learning and having discourse on these topics.”
Both Nicholson and Elliott pointed to the federal government cutting funding to library programs nationwide as an example of censorship. “This funding is crucial for libraries to operate,” Nicholson said. “If these libraries use certain terminology [when it comes to their programs] in their grant applications that the federal government finds objectionable, then their grants are already rejected. There are certain groups [in the United States] that cannot function without the certain terms that they use in the language in their grant applications.”
“When it comes to a book that predicts a dystopian future, in the last few weeks, so many things are all coming true,” Elliott said. “One of the things I am hoping for in this series is that it will allow people to engage in our current reality. We need to see where we have been before and where we can go from there.”
Visit The Triplex’s website for more information about the film series.
