A keen adaptation of Ray Bradbury's novel by Truffaut; eerie in its simplicity and matter-of-factness about book burning and Big Brotherism.
Fahrenheit 451 (1966)
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Reviews Counted:29
Fresh:25
Rotten:4
Average Rating:7.5/10
Consensus: Fahrenheit 451 is an intriguing film that suffuses Truffaut's trademark wit and black humor with the intelligence and morality of Ray Bradbury's novel.
Runtime: 1 hr 53 mins
Genre: Science-Fiction/Fantasy
Synopsis: In a dark futuristic world, literature, reading, and independent thought have been outlawed. The government has gone so far as to employ a special league of firemen to burn all books on sight. But... In a dark futuristic world, literature, reading, and independent thought have been outlawed. The government has gone so far as to employ a special league of firemen to burn all books on sight. But when one otherwise obedient fireman (Oskar Werner) meets an intriguing revolutionary (Julie Christie), she provokes him to question the legitimacy of his actions. Tensions mount when he blatantly transgresses the very laws he's employed to enforce, and his terrified wife becomes an informant. Because the subject of censorship seems to be perpetually contemporary, one can argue that the significant social impact of FAHRENHEIT 451 will forever be current. François Truffaut's film is based on the best-selling novel by Ray Bradbury. [More]
Starring: Julie Christie, Oskar Werner, Cyril Cusack, Anton Diffring
Starring: Julie Christie, Oskar Werner, Cyril Cusack, Anton Diffring, Jeremy Spenser, Bee Duffell, Alex Scott, Michael Balfour, Anna Palk, Ann Bell
Director: François Truffaut
Director: François Truffaut
Screenwriter: François Truffaut, Jean-Louis Richard
Producer: Lewis M. Allen
Composer: Bernard Herrmann
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Reviews for Fahrenheit 451
This 1966 film often looks good (it was Truffaut's first in color, photographed by Nicolas Roeg), but the ideas, such as they are, get lost in the meandering narrative.
Francois Truffault's film adaptation of the classic Ray Bradbury novel is an interesting miss.
Holy smoke! What a pretentious and pedantic production he has made.
An underrated film, perhaps because it is less science fiction than a tale of 'once upon a time.'
With a serious and even terrifying theme, this excursion into science fiction has been thoughtfully directed by Francois Truffaut and there is adequate evidence of light touches to bring welcome and needed relief to a sombre and scarifying subject.
A marvelously courageous personal statement that becomes more fascinating with time.
This is the kind of film that should encourage the perceptive viewer to rush out to the library to read someone like Herman Melville before it's too late.
Fahrenheit 451 is made of scenes that are truly horrifying, some scenes that are filled with black humour and some scenes that are both.
Truffaut faces Bradbury's abstractions head on, not as science-fiction but as humanistic fairy-tale
Dated and a little silly now, but one must love Ray Francois and Julie in a common mix.
On the downside, it doesn't particularly feel like a Truffaut film, but on the upside, it's a decent entry in the sci-fi genre.
... conveys Bradbury's intellectual vision well enough to stand the test of time more effectively than a number of mindless science fiction films
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