Fahrenheit 451

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Alfred Z. @Alboldskool Apr 20 A Truffaut masterwork. See more Ivy J. @ivycatmoeq3 Dec 13 it was really good although there were a few missing pieces like faber was not in the movie and no mechanical hound See more Mark B @RT67488072 08/19/2025 Macabre and sinister one minute, the next a bit Benny Hill and Carry On Flamethrower the next. It's clear the great Truffaut, doesn't know whether to stick or twist and is all over the place with this offering, a set in the future utopian nightmare, as the movie, in many places, is all comic book and just downright sillyness- the daft, toy-looking fire engine, the slightly campy uniforms and the use of an over the top flame thrower to burn any book, adds to the schmaltzy feel. Books are incinerated right there, in someone's home...not taken outside onto the road or driveway, so the whole house is burnt down as well. Then there's a bloke whose stopped in the street by a gang of the 'burning book firemen' because his hair is too long. The firemen also dish out on the spot hair cuts as well. Handy that. Zombie parents sit transfixed as they are searched watching their kids on the swings. Cyril Cusack, the fire brigade Captain, even searches a baby and finds (yes wait for it) a tiny, tiny, tiny book which he must confiscate. I was waiting for Kenneth Williams to suddenly appear and start saying things like 'oooooh matron' or 'quick nurse, the screens.' But there are moments where you can feel the sinister and macabre at every turn. The woman, who has been discovered hoarding hundreds of books, gives herself to the flames of the fire as her books go up in smoke after the splendidly sadistic Cusack gets his flame thrower out. The woman's face is horrible as she burns alive and suddenly you are back in the room. I liked the overhead monorail train which gives the movie some realism at least. I didn't like Julie Christie playing the wife of the fireman turned rogue book collector, Oskar Werner. Too glam, too Dr Zhivago, luv. I did like Werner who turned from hunter to the hunted. I didn't like the ending. Werner takes refuge with all the other exiled book lovers in a forest where everyone is named after the book they clung onto. And they all live in a disused railway carriage. Nothing futuristic here. Then Julie Christie saunters into the last scene from nowhere. Plenty of make up and those false eyelashes fluttering away but with a new short hair cut. But no sign of Cyril and the boys on their shiny red toy town fire engine with their flame thrower. Thank goodness! See more SICKS6SIX S @sicks6six 02/19/2025 A very thought provoking movie. It has an cheap TV series feel about it. A bit like Dr Who. The sets look like they might fall over. The costumes look like those cheap wear once fancy dress outfits you can buy at joke shops. Naughty nurse outfits for £25. But this film is all about the content and it hasn't made the crossover from book to film as well as it might have. Lack of funding. Poor direction. Unhappy cast and crew. Who knows but it's nowhere near as bad as it is a lot better than the 2018 remake which averaged 20% in the reviews. I haven't seen the remake so perhaps a back to back sitting is on the agenda. Maybe the remake might become a cult classic because its so bad like The Blob with Steve McQueen or is it Paul Newman. I always get them two mixed up. See more Steve H @RT60678087 10/02/2024 OK, so this is a good film if you like a story being built. Asides from Julie Christie being unable to pull of two separate roles (they seem to be the same person but with different haircuts) the film is enjoyable. Oscar Werner plays the role that builds and builds as he embraces books. Christie, despite being likeable and pretty, is as per above (I understand they wanted to try and show a likeness between his wife and the girl he met but JC didn't have the acting range). Anton Diffring is moody and Cyril Cusack is all knowing and smug with it. Bradbury himself said he preferred the ending to the film, rather than his book (the book itself is quite shocking in the demise of one of the main characters). It's a clever film, a bit dated and with some very amusing special effects (the toy fire engine being shot from distance to make it look like a real one). I like my films to have characters I can like and not like, this is a good one and it does justice to the book whilst still being a good film to watch. It was due a remake but they managed to right royally screw that up with the Michael B Jordan catastrophe. Maybe they can do another, better remake and use the Spider in that one (only thing missing from the first film was the spider but I'd rather have no spider than bad special effects for that). See more Matthew B @RT07450941 08/24/2023 François Truffaut was one of the more admired directors of the French New Wave, but his first movie in colour (and only English-language) movie is not one of his better-loved works. Fahrenheit 451 often inspires only lukewarm film reviews. It has its admirers. Martin Scorsese insisted that the film is under-rated, and cited it as influence on his own work. Ray Bradbury, author of the famous novel on which the film was based, said that he liked the adaptation. He particularly praised the poignancy of its ending. Bradbury did feel that it was a mistake to cast Julie Christie in two roles however. Truffaut made this decision to indicate that her two characters are not easily broken down into good and bad, but are two sides of the same coin. This casting choice may have been an error on Truffaut's part. He was conscious of the film's other flaws. Not an English speaker himself, Truffaut was unhappy with the stilted language used in the English version of the film. Indeed the dialogue often sounds odd and awkward, though perhaps that is appropriate for a future world in which the written word is missing from people's lives. Some of the gestures made by the actors are also stiff. There is the peculiar salute that the Firemen give to one another, and the Masonic handshakes that seem so cumbersome. These are only small problems however. The film's most serious weakness is its leading actor. Truffaut had worked with the Austrian actor Oskar Werner before, notably on Jules and Jim, Truffaut's most famous movie. Somehow this time the chemistry was not there. By the end of the production, the two men were not speaking, and Werner childishly cut his hair before the filming of the final scene in order to make a continuity error. One of the leading areas of contention between the two men was Werner's insistence on delivering a robotic performance in the leading role of Montag. Truffaut wanted a more human Montag, and the film would have benefited from a sympathetic leading character. However Werner stubbornly insisted that his dull acting would capture how people would speak in the future, and the film is stuck with it. Truffaut's directing is repetitive, but in a hypnotic way. The same images return – the fire engine racing through the streets, the firemen going up and down poles, the pages curling as the books are burned. Truffaut chose some of his favourite books to be among those that are set on fire. The sight of some of literature's most famous works being destroyed is strangely beautiful, and yet it feels sacrilegious. From the outset the film establishes the strangeness of a world that looks superficially like ours. The opening credits are spoken, and not written down. The importance of using one's voice in place of written words will be seen again at the end of the film. The camera shows television arials everywhere, and constantly zooms in on the arials until they fill the screen. They now dominate people's lives instead of books. One of the dominant colours of the film is red, often seen on walls, and in bricks. The red recalls the traditional colour of fire engines, and the flames of the fires started by this modern incarnation of the service. A society in which imagination and alternative opinion is suppressed can only be a drab one. Most of the citizens live in dreary housing units. Montag's home is called Block 813. It does not have a more picturesque name. The people of the future dress in plain clothes, and have mundane hairstyles. One rebellious individual who lets his hair grow long is held down and given a haircut by force. The biggest killjoys and bullies are the Firemen. They dress in nondescript uniforms and black helmets, as if they are seeking to remove all colour and joy from the world. Their job is to remove contraband books from people's houses and burn them. They have become experts at finding the secret hiding places of books – lampshades, heaters…Some are concealed in the very televisions that have supposedly replaced them. The central character of the film is not a natural rebel. Indeed he is one of the enforcers of the existing regime. Montag works as a Fireman, and he has no problem with this role for many years. He even has the approval of his boss, Captain Beatty (Cyril Cusack), who would like to promote Montag. ontag steals one of the books that he was supposed to destroy, and brings it home. It is David Copperfield. Montag reads the book as if he is learning a new language, stumbling over the words, and running his finger along each line as he reads. Soon Montag becomes addicted to reading, and he is indiscreet. His wife finds out, and is upset. Montag reads a passage from David Copperfield to Linda's friends, and opens up buried feelings that one woman had forgotten. (That Montag can still read, and Linda's friend remembers emotions are clues that the story is not set too far in the future.) Fahrenheit 451 is not about an all-powerful government that forces its views on the people, but about a population that is already narrow-minded and oppressive, and backed up by a responsive government. Bradbury's concern was not with power, but with conformity. Hence the book-burners are not concerned with repressing knowledge, but with repressing opinion. Alternative opinions are the enemy of happiness, and books express a plethora of opinions. Hearing other opinions will give offence, and it is better for everyone to hold the same opinion so that nobody gets upset, or so the book-burners think. Bradbury's book approaches the issue from a conservative point of view. He is attacking something that we would now call political correctness or cancel culture. Every book has opinions that are offensive to someone, so if we take matters to the utmost extreme, then we should ban – and burn – all books. Happiness is to be achieved by avoiding offence. Offence is to be avoided by suppressing opinions. Opinions are to be suppressed by destroying the repositories of different opinons. While Fahrenheit 451 stays reasonably close to the original novel, it does have a remarkable ending that differs from the book, and I must avoid a spoiler here. However you can read my blog (with spoilers) offering a full appreciation of Fahrenheit 451 at: https://themoviescreenscene.wordpress.com/2021/06/17/fahrenheit-451-1966/ See more Read all reviews

Fahrenheit 451

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