Fahrenheit 451

Truffaut’s distinctive - wait, why distinctive? - idiosyncratic adaptation of Bradbury’s vision of the present. At least it gives me that feeling; just look around you to see how many people are reading or what they read. Everything is becoming so simplified that we are not far away from a situation when there won’t be any writing anywhere. Not even opening credits (btw, Truffaut did an excellent job of down-to-the-final-detail stylization of a world without a single letter, and the whole atmosphere smacks of “cold austerity". On the other hand we would get rid of those tabloid newspaper headlines with countless exclamation marks after every act of libel. So don’t be surprised that I’m off to create my own 451° Fahrenheit. I’ll start with today’s The Sun (!!), yesterday’s Paparazzi (!!!) and then go over to archive editions of the National Enquirer (!!!!!). So Truffaut didn’t disappoint as filmmaker. But as a person. He let so many wonderful books burn just because of some detestable motion picture. Nobody has a right to do something like that... Not even genius filmmakers. Especially when I have been searching in vain for one for years. You owe me one, François! (25/03/2008)

What happens when we start to hate books and ban them? Well, most likely we will realize that without culture, without art, we cannot exist, that art is what shapes us, what makes us think and what is capable of making us live. Not just us, but the whole society. A great message conveyed in a meaningful way. Bradbury didn't have to be ashamed of this delivery. (20/02/2015)

I don't know about the book, but this didn't impress me at all. I certainly don't blame Truffaut, who, in addition to directing, also wrote the screenplay, because the weak point of the film, and probably of the book, lies in the story itself, which maps a totalitarian society in a very marginal and indecisive way, failing to convey the atmosphere of the time, and in this respect its age does not add much. By far the most dramatic scene in those 105 minutes is the final book-burning, which contains most of the evil and mystery that was otherwise only faintly and coldly hinted throughout the film. So I leave my first encounter with Truffaut at a great loss – I'll see after a second viewing, which these types of films usually need. 65% (16/03/2013)

The problem is that everything that is good, even excellent, in this movie is taken from the book. I'm having a hard time getting past the 60's American naivety and the expressively earnest acting. Even harder when I know that in two years Kubrick will make 2001 and Leone will make Once Upon a Time in the West. The joke with Ray Bradbury and Pride and Prejudice was a delight. On one thing, however, the film is absolutely right: "Aristotle's Ethics! Anyone who reads it starts to think he's better than someone who hasn't read it" -) (14/04/2010)

What I’ve always liked the most about dystopia is the helpless and hopeless situation of the characters who try to stand up to the system. Those ingredients are present, so satisfaction. My only problem is that I can’t fully understand why this society would protect their power this way and through these means, and the tactics of the resistance (the book people) are questionable to say the least. (31/05/2011)