|
| • Advanced Search • Help |
Fahrenheit 451 | Year: 1966 Classification: Science Fiction Directed: - François Truffaut Actors/Actresses: - Julie Christie - Oskar Werner Do you love a book so much you would memorize it? 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. Skill and High Art. This is Fahrenheit the way it was meant to be. Truffaut is a master film maker. I also recommend "Two English Girls" and "Jules and Jim" as well. It's impossible not to think of the Heinrich Heine quote, "Where one burns books; one will soon burn people" while watching it. The inversion of a fire fighters who, rather than put out fires, start them was a very innovative idea on Bradbury's part. The main character is quite compelling and easily evokes our sympathy. This work is prescient and timeless. In today's talk show era, do books still not remain dangerous and subversive? Beware the Four-eyed Snake of 451! In Ray Bradbury's renowned novel FAHRENHEIT 451,the ubiquitous TV set is ONE-EYED SNAKE. This was our nation's foremost story teller's metaphor for SATAN himself. Poisonous pap of televison programing--as moronic narcotic--was Bradbury's ingeniously ironic reversal of Biblical Forbidden Fruit TEMPTATION. Books (Written Word,THE LOGOS) became singluar source of SIN. A near future, Government-issue-drug stupored, anti-child, PC society run by fascist oligarchs and policed by FIREMEN (licensed to burn books and Readers to death)was Bradbury's arch parody of the Culture of Death's Garden of Eden. Francois Truffaut gamely tries to capture the suicidal listlessness...Unholy Spirit...of The 451 NATION. The anti-grace of Death is cinematically characterized by repeated sequences of autoeroticism(masturbation)by myriads of vacant-eyed,zombie-like citizens. That these lack erotic power(or even quality of the mildly perverse)conveys the pathetic depths to which a once-dynamic people has deprived itself of its own humanity. Even "depravity" requires too much energy of this narcisscist culture embracing rank stupidity in the name of equality. IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH proclaimed Orwell in 984.CYRIL CCUSACK...who essays role of THOUGHT POLICEman in the Richard Burton-featured adaptation of 1984...is BEATTY, consummate GRAND INQUISITOR and high priest. Oscar Werner is superb as MONTAG his would-be acolyte successor. Thematic climax of the film consists of ritual burning of a hidden, forbidden LIBRARY;and martyrdom death of a woman who refuses to "live" life of non-being "distracted"...as T.S. Eliot observed...from distraction by DISTRACTION. Julie Christie plays dual and pivotal roles. She is CLARISSE,the young heroine...in the novel, a 17 year old wunderkind...who initiates/converts Montag into the world of books and THE BOOK PEOPLE. [The Book People are remnant who flee 451 Society to memorize books. These persecuted enemies of the State become LIVING books, whose "leaves will one day be "for the healing of the nations." Julie Christie also plays LINDA. [In the novel she's named Mildred, Bradbury's allegorical personification of damned/damp "dust". She is Mordred anti-woman/Judas]. Linda betrays Montag(reports him to Beatty). He READS aloud an excerpt from a 19th century romantic novel and offends her child-hating friends. [One is ironically named Clara. Another...particularly repugnant...is named Mrs. Bowles: 30'ish;thrice-married/twelve abortions-so-far, narcisscist whose most recent husband blew his brains out.] Most damningly Montag's public READING of forbidden literature jeopardizes Linda's standing in THE(Virtual)TELEVISION FAMILY.[ Wall Screen 3D-TV conclaves comprising idiotic glamour show participation; and membership in "reality"-interactive serial-SOAP OPERAS ] Unlike the novel--climaxing with nuclear annihilation of the 451 Nation--Truffaut's 451 ends with thematic ambiguity paralleling its principal filming technique. Sometimes Buy Fahrenheit 451 at Amazon.com Buy posters at Allposters.com Jamster - the latest ringtones for your phone!  Search with Walhello on the Internet on Fahrenheit 451 Search with the Priority Search Engine on Fahrenheit 451 This page in other languages: Suomeksi | Nederlands | Deutsch
|
