Fahrenheit 451

This was the fourth movie by François Truffaut that I watched and I was hoping it might surprise me a lot. The premise literally suggested it. But while watching, I quite quickly realized that it s more or less all about the premise. After all, the reviewer Enšpígl is right. The movie is quite emotionless. You can’t form a relationship with the characters. And that’s pretty bad, because in a world full of fascists I would need someone to hang onto and hope for the better. I didn’t see anything like that in the 112 minutes of this movie. I just glimpsed into a world that was making me sick. It was just as impersonal as the movie 1984, which introduced a similar premise. (09/21/2014)

Fahrenheit 451 is nothing more or less than a dignified adaptation of Ray Bradbury's famous novel. I remember that, for example, Mel Gibson toyed with the idea of a remake repeatedly, and he certainly was not alone. You can sprinkle in a few million dollars, and add a series of special effects, but without a fundamental revision of the original text, there is nothing to be done with this work. I have no problem with Truffaut; in fact, I would say that his traditionally cooler and detached film style fits the story perfectly. However, I do have an issue with the literary source. I find Bradbury's depiction of totalitarianism unconvincing and the rebellion against the system naive. Bradbury created his work at a time when television gained a dominant position in the field of information distribution, and light television entertainment quickly overwhelmed the naively conceived idea of "elevating" the masses through television broadcasts of operas and educational documentaries. Bradbury seemed to think that higher culture would succumb to the battle against superficial pop culture, and the demise of culture would lead to the establishment of a totalitarian system. However, this allegory has several flaws. Books are not a stronghold of higher culture; they are merely a medium that can have various content and quality, just like a film or a television program. Except for the insane experiment of the Khmer Rouge, who took away much more from the people and essentially everything, no one ever thought of destroying books. Instead, they usually succeeded in taming books, often with great success. Bradbury would be shocked by the millions of copies of prominent authors' works and propagandistic writings in many dictatorships. The survival and success of a regime are not so much related to the size of libraries and cultural subsidies, but rather to the (in)ability to satisfy and entertain the population through consumption. The dictatorships in Eastern Europe certainly did not fall because Vaclav Havel's plays were not allowed or Marta Kubišová could not sing; they fell because the population hungry for consumption exchanged them for full shops following the example of Western Europe. The authoritarian system in China successfully survives even with censorship simply because China's economy is booming, and the extremely anti-cultural and intolerant religious system in Saudi Arabia, well-fed by oil, speaks for itself. Truffaut cannot be denied a good hand in choosing the main characters (perhaps I imagined the wife to be more insipid), the impressiveness of some scenes (the internal struggle of the informer), and above all, the atmosphere (the red fire truck ominously racing through the streets). Nevertheless, in the world of cinema today, I can find much more interesting and chilling dystopias. Overall impression: 60%. (04/30/2013)

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% (03/16/2013)

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. (05/31/2011)

Sometimes less is more. Truffaut knew this well, which is why the austere architecture and simple visual effects are not a bad thing; on the contrary, they perfectly illustrate the gloomy atmosphere of a uniformed Orwellian society. The unique atmosphere, Truffaut's inventive direction, and Bradbury's book, when things like this combine, the result will be nothing short of a compelling piece of cinema. (05/11/2003)