Fahrenheit 451
Screening on Film
Directed by François Truffaut.
With Oskar Werner, Julie Christie, Cyril Cusack.
UK , 1967, 35mm, color, 111 min.
With Oskar Werner, Julie Christie, Cyril Cusack.
UK , 1967, 35mm, color, 111 min.
Fahrenheit 451 remains one of Truffaut’s most underrated and misunderstood films, perhaps because it is less science fiction than fairy tale. Where Ray Bradbury’s novel posited a strange, terrifyingly mechanized society that banned books in the interest of material well-being, Truffaut presents a cozy world not so very different from our own, with television a universal father figure that pours out reassuring messages and the only element of menace a fire-engine tearing down the road. This was Truffaut’s first color film, with cool, crisp cinematography by future director Nicholas Roeg and a memorable score by the great Bernard Hermann. A restrained and elegiac film, Fahrenheit 451 has become more fascinating with time.
