Rating: 
Summary: An underrated Truffaut delight
Review: There are many who haven't cared for this movie since it first came out in the mid-Sixties, and they're right to say that it's not very much like the Bradbury novel it's based on, the special effects are largely terrible (the wires helping to levitate the police jetpacks are comically evident), and Oskar Werner seems surprisingly stiff in the lead role of Montag (as Truffaut himself admitted, Werner lost all the spontaeity he showed in JULES ET JIM and seems to be working at his acting very painfully).All that being said, this film is nevertheless a minor classic. It is one of the most thoughtful and atmospheric science fiction films ever made, and has an absolutely thrilling Bernard Herrmann score to compliment the gorgeous Nicholas Roeg photography. The closeups of the books burning are in particular quite stunning and oddly poignant--one book burns only one page at a time, as each subsequent sheet of paper curls up and vanishes--so that they seem like little murders. The film also features one of Julie Christie's greatest performances as the emotionally anesthetized and intellectually infantile housewife Linda (oddly, she was originally only cast in the more typical role for her of the rebel Clarice, but when Truffaut was left at the last minute without a Linda he asked her to double roles--much to the film's enrichment). The closing sequence of the book reciting their novels in the light snow is justly famous, but there are few truffaut films with so many "classic sequences": the old woman burning herself down atop her pile of confiscated books as a political protest; Linda's near-fatal (and immediately forgotten) drug overdose, and her subsequent recovery; the idiotic audience-participation show she and Montag watch on the wallscreen; and the great montage sequence showing the people on Montag's monorail tram fondling themselves and kissing their reflections, underscoring both the loneliness and narcissism of this society. A special note to first-time (or multiple) viewers: pay close attention to the words the "Cousin" announcer says on Linda's wallscreen.. they're actually incredibly funny...
Rating: 
Summary: Back to the future
Review: "Look, mummy, there's going to be a fire!" exclaims the young boy as hero Sontag goes off on his duty to keep people from learning. This little film, that couldn't keep up with its big brother book, still packs quite a wallop. The "future" presented in this flick definitely seems like the past in 2004. Still, the message of anti-intellectualism is as rich and poignant today as anytime. Even by digital 2004 standards "F451" remains a memorable landmark about a time in world history when people worried about things as mundane as book burning, government intrustion in personal lives, and seeking life experience greater and more meaningful than looking nice, having a good figure and an empty head.
Rating:
Summary: Oskar Werner, François Truffaut and Bernard Herrmann
Review: Any film that has Oskar Werner in the lead, is directed by François Truffaut and has a score by Bernard Herrmann has to make one sit up and take notice. Taken from Ray Bradbury's futuristic novel Truffaut's outlook is still not entirely satisfying for those who choose to read as Herrmann's music seems to underscore. The images remain haunting.
Rating:
Summary: A Neglected Classic
Review: For whatever reasons, this film has failed to attract the attention and appreciation which I think it deserves. It was directed by Francois Truffaut and based on Ray Bradbury's novel, co-starring starring Oskar Werner (Guy Montag) and Julie Christie in two roles (Linda and Clarisse), with superb cinematography provided by Nicolas Roeg. Its title is eminently appropriate, emphasizing the temperature at which paper will burn in a totalitarian society. Books are systematically incinerated by "firemen" whose single purpose is to eliminate anything which encourages and nourishes freedom of thought. In fact, Montag is one of them, a Fire Captain. Over time, his loyalties become divided between a love of literature and an obligation to destroy it. Hence the dual role for Christie: Clarisse McClelland is a neighbor and book lover to whom Montag is attracted (in several different ways) whereas Linda is committed to feeding the bonfires with as many books as can be located. Why do books pose such a serious threat? In the novel, Fire Captain Beatty explains it this way. "Give the people contests they win by remembering the words to more popular songs.... Don't give them slippery stuff like philosophy or sociology to tie things up with. That way lies melancholy." In other words, entertain people with mindless television programming, thereby to isolate them from any ideas which could raise doubts about the oppressive system. The quality of acting is consistently outstanding throughout the cast. The film is generally faithful to Bradbury's novel, taking certain liberties here and there but preserving the atmospherics of menace, fear, and (worst of all) submission. From Bradbury's perspective (and mine), the heroes and heroines are those who meet in secret, sharing passages from great books which they have memorized and are no longer accessible texts. The great books will "live" only as long as they do, sharing them with others courageous enough to help sustain a "fire" within their minds and hearts.
Rating: 
Summary: Literary Classic Deserved Better Treatment
Review: Classic book. Decent movie. There was something about the look and feel of the movie that seemed to be a mismatch with the story. I just didn't feel that everything came together here. An average film adaptation of a literary classic.
Rating:
Summary: I guess I missed something in the "translation" . . . .
Review: It's interesting to note how many reviewers (VHS and DVD) haven't read the book but have only watched the movie. Hmmm . . . I don't mean that cynically, but it is an interesting observation vis a vis the book's central premise. Many others deal with plot, etc.; I want to focus on Truffaut's "translation" of Bradbury's work. I've tried several times to make it to the end of this movie, and I just can't do it. The langorous pace may be intended to reflect the culture in which Montag exists; however, the whole "New Wave" sensibility of the film just doesn't fit the gritty, urgent message I believe Bradbury wants to convey. The central metaphor of the book is ignition: not just the ignition of all books and the world of ideas, but the conflagration that occurs in the human mind once it begins to percolate with ideas and in the heated chase that Montag must undertake once he forsakes all for the life of books and ideas. This contrasts starkly with Truffaut's treatment, and it left me bored and wishing some other director had taken Bradbury's masterpiece and done it justice.
Rating: 
Summary: oh God, get me out of this torment!
Review: i read the book for school and I can tell you honestly, this movie left out one of the most key things in the book: Montag's plan to burn down all the hjouses of the firemen. and also, there's a lot of German influence in this: hint, hint, the Nazi's burnt books and all the people in this movie are white-skinned, blonde-haired (or at least not brunnettes) and blue-eyed. talk about rascism. in the book, the whole wall was supposed to be covered in TV, but in the movie, the TV is as big as my moniter. I'm glad they're gonna make a remake, but Mel Gibson's gonna direct it. oh, man, not that pro-Nazi, Anti-Holocaust freak! why him again. I would give you my speech on why he's reascist, but that would take too long. if I could give negative ratings, I would give it a -infinity.
Rating:
Summary: A wonderful issue with multiple implications
Review: This science fiction novel became an authentical icon at sixties. Ray Bradbury wrote a nightmare tale in which the having of books is forbidden .
Of course, the first it comes to your mind is the Reichstag affair in that famous burnig books. But beyond the anecdotical similarity, Bradbury anticipated the huge impact of the audiovisual culture in the citizen's behavior.
Day afterday, for the mass media the employement of his free time, seems getting far from the lecture, and the concept of knowledge is substituted by information.
This is the central nucleus of this reading.
Truffaut made a haunting film with a touch of romanticism that weaks the central message.
Julie Christie - this living leyend - carries under her shoulders all the dramatic consequences derivated from her "sin". And Oscar Werner (Montag) is the fireman book who slowly changes his mind about his initial beliefs.
Of course there are many coincidences with Orwell's 1984,but it's a must for you watching this movie.
It will let you thinking for a long time, specially those twenty minutes ending.
And then make the link with Jersy Kosinski's novel "From the garden".
Rating:
Summary: A dark future perhaps not so far
Review: To have a book is verboten (forbidden). And those people who still read them, will be punished.
Thsi statement is the central nervous of that film. The sequence of a woman reading a comics without words is a cruel methapor of a world that reminds us to the book's burn in the Reichstag in the thirties.
Julie Christie, an extraordinary actress and a true icon of the sixties, steals the show. Oskar Werner as Montag is OK.
A film who'll disturb and will let you thinking.
A must for you to watch it.
The paper burns at 451 Farenheit degrees.
Rating:
Summary: Just as good as the book!
Review: 'Fahrenheit 451' is one of the rare films that is just as good as the book. Check it out if you can. But, be warned, it is not completely faithful to the book.
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