Book Burning - Film and Television

Film and Television

• In one episode of The Simpsons, Lisa Simpson sees a bookmobile being driven by Reverend Lovejoy, however the letters behind a tree reveal that it actually reads Book-Burning-Mobile.
• In one episode of Fullmetal Alchemist, in order to prevent Edward from getting information on the Philosopher's Stone, the homunculi burn down one section of the library.
• In the Myst series of computer games and books, the only way to destroy the link to an Age is to destroy its Descriptive Book, usually by burning it.
• In the film Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, Indiana Jones journeys to Berlin in order to retrieve his father's journal, which gives information about finding the Holy Grail. He retrieves it during a Nazi book burning rally (although it was not targeted for burning itself), where it is inadvertently signed by Hitler himself.
• In the Red Dwarf episode "Marooned", Lister burns Rimmer's collection of books to heat Starbug. Rimmer initially protests, saying "A book is a thing of beauty. The voice of freedom, the essence of civilisation." Lister counters, "Biggles Learns To Fly?"
• In the film Pleasantville, the people who are still black-and-white burn all the books in the library to keep people from becoming colored.
• The Crusade episode "The Needs of Earth" depicts a world that has burned its entire cultural heritage — all art, music, and literature — and hunts the person who has the last remaining copies.
• The 2002 film Equilibrium depicts a dystopian society which has eliminated human emotion, and burned all cultural influences that can cause emotion.
• In the 2004 disaster film The Day after Tomorrow, New York City is engulfed by a new Ice Age and characters seek shelter in the New York Public Library. To avoid freezing to death, the main character suggests burning books, much to the horror of two librarians.
• In the Family Guy episode "Not All Dogs Go to Heaven", Meg takes Brian to the church to burn books on science and evolution, citing them as "harmful to God". Among the burnt books are "On the Origin of Species" by Charles Darwin, "A Brief History of Time", by Stephen Hawking, and a fictional book entitled "Logic for First Graders".
• In a key scene of the film "Der alte und der junge König"(The Old and the Young King), a German Historical film made under Nazi rule in 1935, King Friedrich Wilhelm I of Prussia is shown throwing into an open fire the beloved French-language books of his son, Crown Prince Friedrich (the future Friedrich II), as well as the Prince's flute. The film - banned after the fall of the Nazis as a piece of propaganda making manipulative use of history - presents this book burning as a positive and necessary act, which was needed in order to "educate" and "toughen up" the young prince, so as to "prepare him for becoming a great ruler".