FARENHEIT 451
By Steve Biodrowski
Francois Truffaut’s adaptation of Ray Bradbury’s cautionary novel (set in a future when book are banned and “firemen” are employed to burn them) is a lovely and thought-provoking piece of science fiction, even if it does push the metaphor a tad far. In the film, not only books but writing itself seems to have been banned; in fact, not a single printed word appears anywhere in the film. Personnel files are filled with nothing but photographs, and prescription medicines have only color-coded labels; even the film credits are spoken. (One is left wondering how higher education could possibly exist without textbooks, but that’s being perhaps a bit pedantic.)
The story follows Montag, a young fireman (Oskar Werner) who comes to question his profession when he begins to wonder what is in all those books he burns. He begins sneaking volumes home and reading them at night, after his wife (Julie Christie) has gone to sleep. He meets another young woman (also Christie) who is part of the underground movement that preserves books. Montag’s Captain (Cyril Cusack) suspects what’s happening and warns Montag of the dangers of reading. “We must burn the books, Montage—all the books!” the Captain says confidently, holding up a copy of Hitler’s MEIN KAMPF, after explaining that the only way for people to be happy is for everyone to be equal, and the very act of reading a book makes one different: “THE MORALS AND ETHICS OF ARISTOTLE—anyone who read that would be bound to think he was better than someone who hadn’t!” Montage rejects this advice, eventually killing the Captain and joining up with a group of misfit outsiders who commit books to memory in order that they will be preserved even if all copies are burned. (In a nice touch, Montage shows up with a copy of Bradbury’s THE MARTIAN CHRONICLES.)
The film suffers slightly from limited production value that prevents Truffaut from visualizing all the elements that Bradbury imagined. For instance, in the book, the firemen employ a mechanical hound that eventually turns against Montag—symbolizing his expulsion from the oppressive system of which he used to be a part. In the film, Montage is “hounded” by a quartet of flying policemen (wearing jetpacks), in which the process photography is unfortunately all-too apparent.
On the other hand, Truffaut frequently turns the low-tech approach to his advantage. For example, the book ended with the futuristic society destroying itself in an atomic holocaust, while the outsiders who had left the city survived to inherit the Earth. The film substitutes a poetic denouement with the “living books” still in isolation, camped out in the woods, reciting their texts to themselves as they criss-cross each other’s paths during a light snowfall (a scene reportedly improvised thanks to the weather, which provided the snow).
Also, the use of available locations, instead of futuristic sets, for the exterior scenes lessens the distance between the audience and the characters, emphasizing that the film is a metaphoric exaggeration of contemporary sensibilities, not a fairy tale of some inconceivably distant future.
This was French director Truffaut’s first English-language effort, and the film has occasionally been criticized for its stilted dialogue. However, the effect actually tends to work in the film’s favor, creating a displaced sense of an alternate version of our world.
In retrospect, it is interesting to note that, when the film was made, the perceived enemy of literature (in the days before computers, videogames, and the Internet) was television: the credits are spoken over a montage of rooftop antennae; the story implies that the populace is kept pacified by soap opera-type broadcasts that address the viewer as if he/she were a character. In one of the more clever moments, a television set in a suspect’s house is revealed to be filled not with tubes and wires but with contraband books!
The title refers to the temperature at which book paper is supposed to catch fire and burn. Michael Moore’s documentary FARENHEIT 911 is an obvious play on this term (supposedly the “temperature at which freedom burns”).
Mel Gibson had long expressed an interest in remaking the film, as actor and director. Bradbury himself would like to see a new version (even though he likes Truffaut’s film) because he hopes some of the missing elements (like the hound) finally reach the screen. Most recently, he collaborated on a script with Frank Darabont (THE GREEN MILE), who is planning to direct the new version.
