Fahrenheit 451
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Movie Reviews of Fahrenheit 451
Movie Review: The Future Is Now?
Summary: 5 Stars
With "Fahrenheit 451" the brilliant French director Francois Truffaut made his first film in color and his only on in English. Based on the science fiction classic by Ray Bradbury, it takes place in the future where a totalitarian government is in place. People are forbidden to read. Houses have huge television screens installed in the walls; the inhabitants of this negative utopia take pills to stay on an even keel. Firemen no longer put out fires but rather burn books because they make people think, make them unhappy and, as one character says, "we above all have got to be alike." The film stars Oskar Werner as Montag, a fireman who hides books in his home and secretly reads among other novels Charles Dickens' DAVID COPPERFIELD, and Julie Christie who plays two characters, Montag's wife Linda and another secret reader Clarisse.
The cinematography is beautiful, particularly the opening scenes with frame after frame shot in different colors of the roofs of houses with huge television antennas. There are no written credits at the beginning of the movie; a man's voice tells the viewer the stars of the movie, the producer, the director et al. The characters read comic strips with no captions. The title of course comes from the temperature that supposedly book paper burns.
According to the commentary that accompanies the DVD version of this film about the making of "Fahrenheit 451" Truffaut used some of his favorite books for the burning scenes: MOBY DICK, Bradbury's THE MARTIAN CHRONICLES, ROBINSON CRUSOE, MADAM BOVARY, VANITY FAIR, OTHELLO, LOLITA, THE CATCHER IN THE RYE, works by Jean Genet, Frank Harris, Kafka, Henry Miller and many others-- and a cook of crossword puzzles in Spanish!
It hardly bears saying that this film is as timely as both local and world news, past and present. Everyone knows that both the Soviets and Hitler burned books. Churches and other institutions, the so-called keepers of morals, along with private citizens in these United States, have led fights to ban books from schools and libraries over the years. Right now a citizen of Gwinnett County, Georgia is trying to get the Harry Potter novels removed from that county's schools. Furthermore, a recent study showed that one out of five Americans-- I believe-- had not read a single book in the past year. The average family, on the other hand, watches dozens of hours of TV drivel each week while many Americans take tranquilizers and other mood-altering prescription drugs on a daily basis.
This fine movie deserves a much-needed revival in these times.
Movie Review: 451 the temperature that book paper burns at
Summary: 5 Stars
Guy Montag (Oskar Werner) is an ideal fireman. He knows his job is to burn books. He does this well until one day he runs across an old woman who decides books are important enough for her to burn with them. Now he is intrigued as to what hold books had on her and decides to take a peak. So he pilfers a few books. Even his boss (Cryil Cusack) knows that it is irresistible to want to peak at the forbidden as long as you do not get carried away. Montag gets carried away. He even forces his wife, Linda Montag (Julie Christie) and her friends to listen to him reading out loud. It looks like time for someone to turn him in. mean time Montage strikes up a friendship with an outcast school teacher. The whole reason for burning books was to clamp down on people like her that bring up subjects that make people sad.
What will become of these misfits?
Will society collapse? Or is this our future?
Yes, the book is more intricate; however, the movie captures the essence of the story. One major deviation from the book that some people miss in the reading is that the society was not against books and reading, they had technical manuals; they were against literature and unauthorized reading material. The more trivial differences are the changing of his wife's name from Margaret to Linda, and the absence of the mechanical dog; the dog important to the book plot is not necessary in the movie.
You will immediately notice that the movie credits are presented verbally. This was a well-put together movie and stands on its own with any other of this genre. Another interesting touch is having Julie Christie play both the wife with long hair and the school teacher with short hair so you get a contrast on personalities. In the book it was a teenage neighbor.
I still watch this movie periodically to see what I misses while anticipating the next seen. Watching the nightly news today with everyone warning us of criminals on the loose, I get visions of Montag being tracked down on camera. I expect the TV announcer to tell me to go to the front door and look for the perpetrator.
Try watching the movie first then read the book by the same name.
If you like Oskar Werner in a movie you should look at "Shoes of the Fisherman" (1968).
Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury (Audio CD)
The Shoes of the Fisherman
Movie Review: "Dumbed-Down" Remake Unnecessary
Summary: 5 Stars
As I read over some of the reviews from those who found grave fault with this wonderful science fiction classic, I cannot help but see the irony in how the theme and message of this story ~ decline of human potential, insight, perception and intelligence, and the inevitable individual/socital disconnect from emotion due to limitation of the full spectrum of human communication ~ is lost on so many people today, who ironically have every right and capacity to read and communicate as they please...or, closer to the truth, at the level their culture has more or less "instructed" and conditioned them to. It's no coincidence that, just as the characters in this story are blind to their own repression, many people in these times would be unable or unwilling to acknoweldge that chosen, self imposed limitation.
People who have been raised in a culture that doesn't promote and encourage reading(beyond what is deemed necessary), that doesn't encourage a broad range of views(mass media primarily espousing one all encompassing view via "wall screens")and is comprised of people who have been intellectually malnourished by huge doses of insipid tv programs and empty, high-gloss FX movies, will yes, in all likelihood, find Farenheit 451 to be "too slow" and "boring".
However, there is lyrical beauty and black humor in this prophetic tale for those who have the eye and heart to recognize it. It's the story of man's awakening to his own repression and the subsequent struggle to break free from a counterfeit, by-the-numbers existence, and a manifold love story as well; Montag meeting the young woman who sparks the buried flame, and the love of ever expanding consciousness, imagination and inherent knowledge of self.
Is it merely man's 'ability' or is it an actual 'need' to record and even create himself through the translation of thought-into-written word? "I have to catch up with the remembrance of the past".."there is a person behind each one of these books, and that's what interests me", Montag tells his TV-brainwashed wife. He knows she is beyond reach, but senses new hope within himself, and new romance with his book-stashing neighbor.
Isn't it, afterall, the possibility of new found love(of life)that inspires and compells him to overcome his repression?
For those who prefer their science fiction grounded in the questioning and dilemma of the human condition and existence, this unconventional love story is quite rewarding.
Movie Review: Fairly faithful adaptation of the Bradbury novel.....
Summary: 5 Stars
Perhaps one of Truffaut's most ambitious films. One knows we are in for something special when the opening titles of the movie are spoken rather than written and hints to the innovative approach Truffaut has taken to depicting perhaps Bradbury's most popular novel.
Don't be disappointed with the lack of eyepopping special effects in this film--there really isn't any, yet Truffaut effectively evokes the oppresive and almost totalitarian mood of a society that has banned the practice of reading and the consumption of the written word.
Without sounding redundant singing the praises of the principal actors, Werner, Christie, Cusack, and the underappreciated German actor, Anton Diffring, the film is not an improvement on the novel (unlike Coppola's "The Godfather" over Mario Puzo's novel), but a pretty faithful take on Bradbury's vision. I have no doubt that high school English teachers will find the film a suitable inducement for students to actually read the novel rather than the Cliff Notes.
Christie is superb as both Montag's wife, Linda and mistress, Clarisse, in a dual role that must have been both a challenge and an inspiration. Oskar Werner, perhaps one of the most underestimated actors of the 60's, portrays Montag with conviction and an imposed dimension of uneasiness that the role demands.
The opening scenes of the "firemen" setting ablaze a stack of paperbacks confiscated from an apartment and midway to a middle-aged woman's deliberate attempt to incinerate herself along with her collection of books is a disturbing and effective piece of filmmaking while setting the tone for a very chillingly realistic depiction of censorship.
The special features, including a interview/discussion with Bradbury, a lucid and engaging full-length commentary by Julie Christie, and a short documenatry on the musical score by Bernard Hermann are all welcome additions to this DVD.
Movie Review: Fahrenheit 451
Summary: 5 Stars
I think it's kind of poetic that I ended up getting the film adaption of Ray Bradbury's "Fahrenheit 451". It was because I couldn't find the book anywhere! I don't know how good it is as an adaption, but I found the film thought provoking, well directed and clever.
The film is set in a world where books are banned and burnt. Nothing is to be read, except for the numbers on top of the bottles of pills and sedatives people of this age often take. Books have contradicting ideas, the book burning "firemen" claim. They make people unhappy sometimes, they change people. Authors are raised on high in the world of literature, as if they are more than the people around them. For a happier society, where everyone can be equal, books must be destroyed, they say. Montag is a fireman, a talented one due for a promotion. He has a wife, he has a large television set in the wall (though most people in this world have two), and he considers himself a pretty happy guy. A young woman approaches him on the monorail home, having seen him around for so long on the trip home she felt she should say hello. She asks about his job, and wonders if he ever read any of the books he burnt. It gets him thinking, and he ends up reading a copy of David Copperfield by Charles Dickens that is due to be torched. Like the Firemen say, it changes his life, and suddenly this happy society seems a little more sinister than before...
I think it's a film that flows really well, has a couple of nice directorial quirks, and has that British 1960s feel in it's sets, landscapes and colour schemes, which I always like. It's kind of strange that it's an English film, since Ray Bradbury, the author of the book is American. Ah well. There's a lot of ideas being toyed with here, the nature of memory, of knowledge, of oral traditions, of control. A lot to think about.
Definitely worth a look for sci-fi fans, I think.