ALL SCI-FI

[CucamongaDan]

Wow, I'm honored to have the opportunity to start a thread for this great movie as my first post at All Sci-Fi! I can't believe there doesn't seem to be one up to now.

For me, everything about the movie works, from the spoken credits until the end. I think it and the book complement each other nicely.

Bernard Herrmann's score both excites and haunts me, and the acting is first rate. Julie Christie shines in her dual role. She is effective as both Montag's wife, the catalyst of his desperation, and his dangerous fling, a beacon to the emotional intimacy the dystopia keeps from him.

It makes me wish Fran??ois Truffaut made other films in English!

Also, its a lot of fun to see all the book titles on display.

[Bud Brewster]

I'm plum shocked that we didn't have a thread for this movie. I would have sworn we did, but I checked the alphabetical index and the chronological index, and this movie has been sadly omitted from All Sci-Fi —

— until now. Thanks, Dan!
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Is there no man on Earth who has the wisdom and innocence of a child?
~ The Space Children (1958)

[Bogmeister]

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__________________ Fahrenheit 451 - Trailer


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An ironic counterpoint to the highly-literate nature of the source novel and the premise, the credits at the beginning are spoken out loud rather than displayed as written words — yes, written words are not allowed within the confines of this universe.

The film title refers to the temperature at which paper burns. I've always had a fondness for this one — it could easily have been pretentious and preachy, but director Truffaut somehow manages the right balance between messaging and entertainment.

I think what also helps is Oskar Werner in the central role of Montag. It's up to him to carry the audience along, and in this he's successful. Julie Christie is in dual roles — as his wife and as the new woman in his life — and she's stunning to look at as usual, but both her characters are detached and rather self-involved. Perhaps that's as it should be — it's Montag who must exhibit a passion which should absorb the viewer's interest.

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The film is based on Ray Bradbury's famous sf novel. This posits an indefinite future and alternate reality where books are outlawed. Firemen in this reality are charged with tracking down and burning illegal books.

Montag is one of these firemen, an experienced member of the force and up for promotion as the story begins. His captain (Cyril Cusack, creepy) tests him constantly, making sure that Montag is always thinking correctly — though maybe "thinking" is a misnomer here. The government has absolute control in this society and does all the important thinking for its citizens.

This is especially evident with Montag's wife (Christie), who is quite vacuous via pills and government videos.

On an air tram on his way home one day, Montag meets another woman (also Christie), a supposed neighbor, and she asks him some odd questions about why books are not allowed and if he ever read one of those objects he burns. Soon after, Montag secretes his first book home — David Copperfield by Dickens — and begins to read it at night while his wife sleeps.

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From a practical standpoint, many things don't make sense in this reality. At one point, Montag is told that firemen actually put out fires in some distant past and he responds with incredulity. But someone has to put out fires in this reality — this is never explained.

Files contain no paperwork, just photos. So how are records kept for reference on progress, information (computers? again, not explained). Since there are no books, no written works for the general populace, how and why would someone like Montag be able to read as he soon demonstrates he is able to?

But this is a fable, a commentary on totalitarianism. It's never spelled out by anyone exactly why books are against the law and how all this came to be, but we don't need to hear it. Books are a conduit for free thinking and information; remove these and you should have a population of nearly-mindless drones, easy to control.

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BoG's Score: 7.5 out of 10

________________________ Fahrenheit 451


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Trivia 451: Early small role for Mark Lester as a schoolki. He became a child star a couple of years later in Oliver! (6

____________________ Fahrenheit 451 1966


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BoG
Galaxy Overlord Galactus

[scotpens]

[Bud Brewster]

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I was 14 years old when my family went to the Seattle Worlds Fair, and I was able to ride the monorail. I've been to Disneyland several times with my own kids. LOVE those monorails!

It's unfortunate that the monorails we thought would be common in the future never came to past.


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Is there no man on Earth who has the wisdom and innocence of a child?
~ The Space Children (1958)

[Phantom]

To say I was energized when I heard someone was actually (and finally) going to film Bradbury's novel would be an understatement.

Bradbury was my introduction to the world of adult literature fueled mostly by articles in Famous Monsters. For me that magazine was the bridge from childhood to an awakening knowledge of a vast universe of undiscovered wonders that ranged far beyond the fairy tales of Hans Christian Anderson and the Brothers Grimm.

After Bradbury there was Heinlein, Clarke and Asimov (I devoured his short stories and historical research into The Bible and the plays of Shakespeare)

I'm betting punster Forry Ackerman would be astonished to know that his juvenile oriented magazine was the beginning of my education beyond the standard classroom.

However, back to Fahrenheit 451

I still remember walking into the theater and hearing a woman comment to her companion as they came out, "That was the strangest movie I've ever seen."

In many ways, she was right. It's a cold movie, as emotionally divorced from the audience as Montag and Linda are from each other. Montag moves through his world like a sleepwalker while Linda spends most of her day watching television and vicariously living through the lives characters on what can best be described as a soap opera about terminally vacuous people.

It is only when Montag accidentally meets the radical Clarisse, who asks dangerous questions, that he begins to see wider possibilities for himself and Linda.

Oscar Werner was a great choice to play Montag with his soft spoken, Viennese accent and morose persona that perfectly fitted in with Montag's remoteness. The actor was in demand at the time, acclaimed for his work in Ship of Fools the previous year. A difficult man, he and Truffaut clashed over artistic differences during the filming and their relationship was irreparably damaged.

Julie Christie was cast in the duel roles when both Tippi Hedren and Jean Seberg became unavailable. Although it was unintentional, it intrigues us with the possibility of what Clarisse might have been like under other circumstances.

Anton Differing as Montag's chief rival at the firehouse is another of my favorite "chilly" actors. Possessed of striking features and icy eyes, Differing was typecast as a villain and wound up playing a series of Nazis and madmen. Horror movies fans will remember him as the sadistic doctor in The Man Who Could Cheat Death and the Circus of Horrors.

Incidentally, book paper does not burn at 451 degrees. Bradbury simply asked a fire chief about it and got that temperature. He liked the sound of it and never checked to see if it was correct.

I owe a debt of gratitude to Oscar Werner. Some years ago I was cast as Otto Frank in The Diary of Ann Frank. While researching the role, I recalled Werner's accent and used it for the character. I hope he wouldn't have minded.
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What Is Essential Is Invisible

[Bud Brewster]

[Pow]

I read that Ray Bradbury felt that many people had missed the point of his book, as well as the film. He was making a stronger case that humankind would be distracted from reading by nations creating interactive television for their citizens to immerse themselves into. Who needs books when you can view TV day and night?

Do nations burn books in this day and age? No, not so much. They do ban certain books just as America is doing in some states. And certainly the dramatic photos of Nazi Germany making a bonfire out of books was scary and powerful.

What really is truly prescient by Bradbury was envisioning a society glued to the boob tube and demonstrating little or no interest in reading books, even when they are readily available to us.

[Bud Brewster]