Tags:
Film: Fahrenheit 451
Year: 1966
Director: François Truffaut
Writer: François Truffaut and Jean-Louis Richard
Starring: Oskar Werner, Julie Christie and Cyril Cusack
Review:
This film takes place in a near utopia future where everyone watches state sponsored television and reading is forbidden. Firemen no longer put out fires, but instead they search out people with books and burn them.
One of the firemen is played by Oskar Werner. He is due for a promotion from the talk that is going around. He is one of the top notch finders of books for his station. His boss is played by Cyril Cusack who has high hopes for him. There is another guy who seems jealous of Werner and wants his position; he is played by Anton Diffring.
On the train ride home, Werner is approached by a woman; she is played by Julie Christie. She is interesting to him. She works as a teacher, but she is up for review and could lose her job for having radical beliefs.
When he gets home, his wife is also played by Christie. She believes she is part of a television show that is on that night and the actors look at the screen to ask her questions. What should be pointed out, she doesn’t answer the first one, yet they still continue on. It looks like it is sort of a mind control thing to make her part of it.
Werner gets intrigued by what the teacher says to him. He smuggles books into his home and begins reading. The first changes he notices that the pole in the fire station will no longer work for him. He opens his eyes to the truth and begins to see that what he has been closed minded and there is a wealth of knowledge out there. It really opens his eyes when a woman martyrs to die with her books.
What will Werner do?
This film has one of the scariest concepts I have seen. People are forbidden to read and you can be arrested for it. That is scary everyone is closed minded in this film and they are fine with it. I really enjoy reading and haven’t taken away is horrible.
The acting in this film is good. It is filming itself is great and the shots used add to the final product. This film is from the 60s, but it was still amazing. I was highly impressed by it and would recommend it. This should be viewed so the world doesn’t become the world that is portrayed.
My Rating: 8 out of 10