Fahrenheit 451

(1966)

"What if you had no right to read?"

"Fahrenheit 451" is a strange, quirky, flawed film - but one I've always loved. No director could or would have interpreted the classic Bradbury novel in the same bizarre, fascinating manner as Francois Truffaut. It's a book, and a film, about freedom, choices, individuality, and intellectual repression in a future where books are forbidden; where Firemen are men who start fires...fires in which they burn books.

It was also the first color film directed by Truffaut. Although he by all accounts was not happy about making a color film and found it a bit unsettling, color is used to great effect here; sparingly, except for the extreme shade of red that is seen throughout.

"Fahrenheit 451" is supposed to be the temperature at which book paper catches fire, as the protagonist Guy Montag (Oskar Werner) explains in a scene at the beginning. Guy is a Fireman who seems happy enough with his life until he is approached by a young woman named Clarisse (Julie Christie) on his way home from work one day. She starts up a conversation with him, and the two become friendly. She bewilders him but challenges him to think and feel....and read. And when he arrives home we see his wife (also played by Julie Christie, with long hair), sedated and watching the wallscreen (TV of sorts)...we see what his life is really like, although he had told Clarisse he was "happy"...he is not.

As his friendship with Clarisse grows, he starts to secretly take home, hoard, and read some of the books he finds in the course of his daily work, and as he reads, he becomes obsessed with the books. They become his mistress, and are what finally make him feel affection and warmth. And when he starts to feel and care, so do we.

The two single best scenes are a passionate one involving an old woman who refuses to leave her books, her "children" as she calls them; and the wonderful ending of the film. The countless, painful closeups of books as they are being burned are beautifully done, and difficult to watch.

The gossip and trivia surrounding the making of the film are almost more interesting than the film itself. For instance, Truffaut and Werner had previously made the classic "Jules and Jim" together, and had been friends. However, after the huge success of "Jules and Jim", Werner had by all accounts become a bit...difficult. For example: when Werner and Christie met for the first time in real life, instead of Werner saying something like "I'm so looking forward to our working together", he immediately launched into a lecture to Christie about how he thought she should play her part. By the end of the film Truffaut and Werner detested each other (Christie was said to be a wonderful actress to work with). He used Werner as little as possible as filming progressed and their antagonism towards each other grew. For a scene in which the audience sees what is supposed to be Montag's hand pulling a tarp over himself, Truffaut purposely found the crew member with the worst nicotine-stained fingers to stand-in Werner's hands. He was forced to use a body double in several scenes, as Werner was extremely uncomfortable around fire, which made filming more difficult than expected. Werner famously got a major haircut right before the final scenes were shot, to try to disturb the film's continuity.

Truffaut was a well-known disciple of Alfred Hitchcock's films, so when Hitchcock fired his long-time music collaborator Bernard Herrmann, during the filming of "Torn Curtain", Truffaut was thrilled to acquire his talents for his own film. The score for "F451" is beautiful, and the film would not be nearly as effective without it.

Writer/producer/director Frank Darabont ("The Green Mile", "The Shawshank Redemption", to name my favorites of his) is working on a new film of "Fahrenheit 451" this year. He says it won't be a remake of the original film. I love the 1966 version, but I have to admit that I will be very interested to see how Darabont will interpret this Bradbury classic.