Rating: 
Summary: Do you love a book so much you would memorize it?
Review: Despite the criticisms to this adaptation of Ray Bradbury's famous novel, this is a landmark film, and well recognized as such. The ending differs a bit from the book, but this is an autonomous work of art, so it should be judged only on its own merits, of which there are many. The most obvious is François Truffaut's direction. It is stylized - not quite as much as in Jules et Jim, because the mood is markedly different, but nevertheless one sees some ingenious use of planes, angles, and composition. Another merit is Bernard Hermann's extraordinary soundtrack: paranoia, hysteria, eerie states of mind, cruelty, and sadness. These sounds complement Truffaut's images well and provide short-cuts to the weird regions of the human psyche.Now the actors. Oskar Werner is the conscientious fireman Montag whose indifferent job is to burn books in a society bent on stamping out culture and individualism. Werner plays his part with coolness and distance, with fleeting moments of intense emotion. Truffaut had complained about Werner's approach, but, given the society Montag grew up in, Werner's interpretation is the only plausible one. Julie Christie plays a double role - Montag's perfectly adjusted wife Linda and the rebellious Clarisse. It seems Truffaut had this idea of the double-role. I'm not sure it works all that well, but it certainly adds to the strangeness of this film. Cyril Cusack is the unforgettable chief of the fire department - an unsettling, bemused, ominous Inquisitor. Anton Diffring also plays a double-role, with an interesting twist: he is Montag's envious colleague eager for a promotion and a middle-aged female teacher colleague of Clarisse's who appears only for a few frames! This film is a masterpiece: sci-fi that really isn't sci-fi, but rather a disturbing image of human fear and envy.
Rating:
Summary: How to Burn Down Your Life
Review: Truffaut's film and the novel from which it is adapted have both been misunderstood for too long. To start with, you have to understand that Bradbury's novels, plays, and story are almost always allegorical - so you have to look for meanings on more than one level. Truffaut's film of Fahrenheit 451 captures all of the allegorical levels of the novel. To explain: One of the many reasons human beings read and write books is because we have a deep need to know if our inner experiences are shared by others - this need can only be answered within the context of an intimate relationship, either with another human being or with a book, which allows us to reveal or to be revealed as we are. The more the State controls the use of language, the more we are controlled. In Bradbury's novel the State effectively limits intimacy by forbidding books; and since the only reference to reality is dictated by the State, what can Montag or his wife know of love? How intimate can their relationship be? Fahrenheit 451 is a story about a man who has conformed completely to external reality; or has he? Can anyone really sell their soul to the State? Truffaut's film beautifully articulates the story, atmosphere, and themes of Bradbury's novel, as Montag unconsciously - as if sleepwalking - begins to stack the kindling, dry wood, and fuel of his dehumanized existence for the moment when his creative energy can no longer be contained and his life bursts into flames. Notice, also, how Bernard Herrman's score evokes these images of somnambulism, fire building, and spontaneous combustion. The rest, of course, is a story of rebirth, of the phoenix rising from the ashes - the victory of creative passion over State control. To summarize, 451 synergizes the story of a man's mid-life crisis with the crisis of repression of human values represented by McCarthyism. Note well: you have to give yourself over to this film in order to really appreciate it - the film requires a meditative state of mind and empathic response. Montag finds that he can no longer simply function as a cog in a machine - he needs to be loved for himself. Clearly, the literal or analytically minded will not "get" this film; neither will the romantically inclined. It's a film about wholeness, about not allowing yourself to be fragmented, or having parts of yourself chopped off by external forces. You have to bring your total self to it. It's a film about actually living through your worst life crisises, learning from them, and determining your own way of life, instead of doping and drugging yourself with memory killers devised by the State. In short, watch the film and form your own opinion - you dont need the concensus or false reassurance of a film critic or other idiot in order to live your own life.
Rating:
Summary: There Are People Who Don't Like This Film?! Hard To Believe!
Review: I first saw this film when it was released a few decades ago and loved it. I just watched it again last night and still loved it. As a HUGE book lover, I was absolutely mesmerized by this tale of a society that not only has censored all books, but also has firemen who hunt down culprits who harbor books and then burn them at 451 degrees, the heat needed to burn paper. It is French director Truffaut's only English language film, which does not hurt it in the least. This is an incredibly dull society of people who don't do much other than sit in front of tv-like screens watching approved programing put on by the state. Some of them also go to work on public transit although they do nothing that requires reading. There are no road signs, no newspapers, no menus, not a shred of visible written matter anywhere in this society. Children in schoolrooms do solely mass oral memorization. For written matter gives people ideas and this society decides it is better to live without ideas. Why one wants to live without ideas remains an unasked question in this culture. Oskar Werner plays the fireman who gets more and more intrigued by these books he's burning. Julie Christie plays two roles: a rebel who sides with the book harborers and Werner's wife, who is a couch potato living in front of the tv-screen most of the day. I was amazed to see that Werner's clothes and hair looked right up to the minute despite this film's being several decades old. You would think he was a young actor in 2001. The resolution of this film is absolutely wonderful and thus I won't say a word about it so as to spoil it for you.
Rating: 
Summary: Slow moving
Review: Very slow moving and somewhat dull movie based on Bradbury novel where books are banned in a future society. No much else to it.
Rating: 
Summary: Upside Down
Review: Generally considered a misguided experiment, FAHRENHEIT 451 is actually preferable to many of François Truffaut's more acclaimed works. Its flaws derive largely from Bradbury's novel, while its virtues are almost all original. Truffaut, for example, did not invent the ludicrous inconsistency of a totalitarian society that bans and burns books while allowing a bunch of vagrants to wander around loose memorizing them. Such inanities started with Bradbury; Truffaut simply failed to edit them out. The film presents a much more complex situation than the novel's self-flattering contrast between evil book burners and virtuous bibliophiles. Are book worms really so life-loving? Truffaut shows their behavior as disturbingly similar to alcoholics and drug addicts, and it's worth noting that Montag becomes a murderer only *after* he has been awakened to the pleasures of print. If Truffaut hadn't had a prestigious career as a critic to prove his literary bona fides, the swoon of Bernard Hermann's lush strings between the snap, crackle and pop of flames salaciously licking up pages curling into ash would amply testify to his religious awe in their presence. These images do something else, though. The book burning is quite simply gorgeous, and by confronting us with just how beautiful such "barbarism" can be, Truffaut pulls the rug out from under us. The basic story is Bradbury's, but the film inverts sympathy. The plastic book burners may be twits, but they are human twits. When Cyril Cusack (in a wonderful performance) says that the Firemen are working in mankind's interest by removing the stress of ideas, he has a point. The book lovers as presented certainly aren't an attractive alternative. They learn books and emptily recite them. They don't criticize or debate them and there is no hint any of them could write one. Despite the Barbizon School-like delicacy of Nicholas Roeg's photography in the concluding sequences, nothing about their lives is appealing. If we're honest with ourselves, most of us are far closer to the bland, conformist suburbanites of the book burners than to the shabby book people. (The movie provides a chillingly ironic mise-en-abyme for anyone watching it on a widescreen TV since Montag's wall screen matches theirs almost perfectly.) This ambivalence about the subject makes the film far more insightful than the book. About the same time he was directing FAHRENHEIT, Truffaut conducted his famous interviews with Alfred Hitchcock. There are some sub-Hitchcockian flourishes in the film, such as subjective camera stalking sequences, and a bad imitation of the "Vertigo effect." Bernard Hermann was almost certainly chosen to write the score because of his work with Hitchcock. The really important lesson Truffaut seems to have learned, however, was Hitchcock's point that a thriller stands or falls on the strength of the villain. By giving the bad guys an excellent argument and by implicating us in their villainy, Truffaut's FAHRENHEIT 451 is a cut above the pulp from which it was taken.
Rating:
Summary: Captures about 1/2 of the book's greatness
Review: As a stand-alone this movie is very good. When compared to the novel on which it is based, it is, well, not so good. But, we are just talking about the movie, so here's my thoughts. The movie captures the unemotional feel of the book completely. This backdrop must've been very useful for the director. Montag is really not an outwardly emotional guy - not many people are in that culture - so when he has a breakthrough, or makes an emotional connection, or feels panic and bewilderment, although it is muted, it stands out boldly on this bland atmosphere. We can sense the confusion he feels when the old lady is burning herself and her books, we can see his panic in the Captain's office as he searches for Clarisse's file, we can understand the pain he feels with Clarisse as he comforts her in the elevator at the school. This is not all Werner's show. Christie is superb in the dual role of Linda and Clarisse (exuding youth and exuberance from Clarisse and lifeless conformity from Linda). The other actors also perform well, but none are a big enough role to stand out. The film definitely has some just plain bad moments. The first that springs to mind is the hovercraft police searching for Montag. That was so embarrassingly low-budget that my hand, of it's own freewill, grasped the remote and fast-forwarded until the hovercraft were off of the radar screen (a surreal experience for sure). I was also unimpressed with the ending. No specific complaint there, it just didn't work for me. However, the old man teaching the boy "his" book was a moving scene. All in all, a rewarding experience. And a great score by Bernard Herrmann!
Rating:
Summary: Future Present
Review: A biting futuristic satire of a television led world where the literary stimulated are the enemies of a misological state. Traffaut's use of anachronisms: 1920's telephones and fire engines suggests this stultifying conformity and mind control are fertile today. Julie Christie is outstanding as the automaton housewive, forever pill popping, and the maverick school teacher who is the catalyst for Montag's awakening. I love this film's high strangeness. One scene in particular- the teacher and Montag go to her school to collect her belongings, she as been dismissed for being too animated with the children. Montag waits in the background as she walks down a narrow corridor. A teacher's head appears from a door, It is a fireman from Montag's station in a blonde wig and make-up ( a pun on Christie's dual role?), he/she throws the bag of belongings into the corridor and it slides improbably to Christie's feet. I've read the book and it does not have the wit and beauty of this moving expirence.
Rating:
Summary: 451 mmmmm as anyone besides Adolf tried it?
Review: Picky picky picky. Everyone is a critic. This was a well put together movie and stands on its own with any other of this genre. I still watch this movie periodically to see what I misses while anticipating the next seen. Every time the government tracks down an e-mail virus suspect I get visions of Montag (Oskar Werner) being tracked down on camera. I expect the TV announcer to tell me to go to the front door and look for the perpetratort. Try watching the movie first then read the book ISBN: 0345410017 And if you like Oskar Werner in this movie you should look at "Shoes of the Fisherman" (1968) ASIN: 630436593
Rating:
Summary: REVISITED AND CONFIRMED A CLASSIC
Review: This film gets rapped a lot, and certainly went unappreciated upon its release. I recently bought a video and was astonished it was as good as it was. Nic Roeg's cinematopraphy is a stand out, and you can see his little red touches that presaged DONT LOOK NOW, and, honestly, its one of the more compelling films for me in the Truffaut canon. Of course, Julie Christie plays two parts, and I, admittedly, would pay to watch her sew a sweater. And Bernard Herrmann delivers an at turns icy and heartbreaking score. Yes, it is cold, but isn't it kinda cold in cyberspace, too, as they predicted it would be? I mean, can we really touch?
Rating:
Summary: THE RETURN OF THE KEYSTONE COPS
Review: Science-fiction and french directors form an impossible couple. With the exception of Luc Besson's THE FIFTH ELEMENT, this country hasn't produced any major movies of this peculiar genre for decades. Too reasonable and rational, french directors preferred to specialize themselves in light psychological comedies, a genre they master. So I was a little anxious as I put the DVD in my player. After all, the Truffaut-Bradbury encounter in FAHRENHEIT 451 has often been described by the critics as the worst of François Truffaut movies. Surprise, surprise. FAHRENHEIT 451 is not as bad as I expected, on the contrary, I liked it very much because it keeps you in a state of intellectual alert during almost two hours. But don't expect any special effects here ! The purpose of François Truffaut wasn't to create a society of the future nor to enumerate the discoveries our followers will certainly make. In fact, one has often the feeling that Truffaut is presenting a regressive world rather than a future world. Look carefully at the details like, for example, the telephones, very 1920-like, or the group of firemen that could easily take place in one of the short movies of the Keystone cops. OK ! I admit that FAHRENHEIT 451 is a very cold movie but many other Truffaut's movies present this characteristic and, in my opinion, it adds to the strangeness and the peculiarity of FAHRENHEIT. And I think that the last scenes involving the " Book Men " are terrific and could justify your investment. A scene access as sole extra feature (Thank you, thank you). A DVD to rediscover.
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