Fahrenheit 451
- Brandon Thompson
- Jan 17, 2016
- 2 min read
We all love a good book don't we? Well I hope you do. Whether or not you like books you should check out this movie. In the future firemen don't put out fires, they seek out books and put them on fire. They act as a book police, searching for books in people's houses and arresting them. The story is about one of these firemen (Guy Montag played by Oskar Werner) who burns the books and gains a desire to read them after talking to stranger who lives near him.
Directed by Francois Truffaut (The 400 Blows, Jules et Jim, Day, member of Cahiers du Cinema section of the French New Wave) hasn't directed bad fims, however some of his works aren't as high quality as others. This is Truffaut's first and only English film. This however doesn't make for bad dialogue but it can be quite minimal at times. I believe Truffaut did this on purpose to let the actors act.
What Truffaut does well here is that he uses the enviroment and sets to really help the story. One hard to miss part of this is when Guy Montag's wife is watching TV and it's a show where she has to interact with it. As all books are being burnt there is no writing to be seen anywhere outside of book, this along with the credits (which are spoken) create a great atmosphere for the movie to be presented in.
This is a movie everyone should see becasue as watching it you can trully grasp the importance of books. The movie would be interesting in a modern day scenario with eBooks and computers but it just further shows the importance of a hard copy book.
I didn't think the performances were anything special espically when you compare Werner (the lead) to Jean-Pierre Léaud in The 400 Blows. I think this might have come down to the tense realtionship between Werner and Truffaut to which my understanding was based on how the character of Montag should be played. Also Truffaut would've walked off set if he hadn't worked on the movie for six years.
Overall this is a film that makes you think and it's a movie that if you haven't watched movies like it can lead you to watch more or at least try it out. The movie has a strong direction but is lacking the strong performances to completely satisfy me.
What are your thoughts on this movie if you have seen it? Did it make you hot! hot! hot! Yes? No? Maybe?
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