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Fahrenheit 451 [VHS] [1966]
![Buy Fahrenheit 451 [VHS] [1966]: Oskar Werner,Jeremy Spenser,Cyril Cusack,Anton Diffring,Julie Christie,](http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/419ZKB6XASL.jpg "Buy Fahrenheit 451 [VHS] [1966]: Oskar Werner,Jeremy Spenser,Cyril Cusack,Anton Diffring,Julie Christie,")
Buy Fahrenheit 451 [VHS] [1966]: Oskar Werner,Jeremy Spenser,Cyril Cusack,Anton Diffring,Julie Christie,
Buy Fahrenheit 451 [VHS] [1966] Now
Parental Guidance
4 Front Video
Release date: Monday 6th of March 2000
Starring: Oskar Werner, Jeremy Spenser, Cyril Cusack, Anton Diffring, Julie Christie, £5.99
Editorial
Amazon.co.uk Review
The classic science fiction novel by Ray Bradbury was a curious choice for one of the leading directors of the French New Wave, François Truffaut. But from the opening credits onward (spoken, not written on screen), Truffaut takes Bradbury's fascinating premise and makes it his own. The futuristic society depicted in Fahrenheit 451 is a culture without books. Firemen still race around in red trucks and wear helmets, but their job is to start fires: they ferret out forbidden stashes of books, douse them with petrol and make public bonfires. Oskar Werner, the star of Truffaut's Jules and Jim, plays a fireman named Montag, whose exposure to David Copperfield wakens an instinct towards reading and individual thought. (That's why books are banned--they give people too many ideas.) In an intriguing casting flourish, Julie Christie plays two roles: Montag's bored, drugged-up wife and the woman who helps kindle the spark of rebellion. The great Bernard Herrmann wrote the hard-driving music; Nicolas Roeg provided the cinematography. Fahrenheit 451 received a cool critical reception and has never quite been accepted by Truffaut fans or sci-fi buffs. Its deliberately listless manner has always been a problem, although that is part of its point; the lack of reading has made people dry and empty. If the movie is a bit stiff (Truffaut did not speak English well and never tried another project in English), it nevertheless is full of intriguing touches, and the ending is lyrical and haunting. --Robert Horton, Amazon.com
Retro Futurism
Review date: 2010-02-10 Rating: 8 out of 10
Beautifully acted movie with subtle and understated artistic (French) direction that provides an almost errie mood of a world that selects and emphasises the current social culture (1960s) and past historical occurrences (book burning) that seems to ultimately point to a warning that if some current trends are not held in check then a general populace labotamy will take place. This is indicative of some films and TV (The Prisoner)of the sixties where the stale conservatism of the fifties and prior give way to new liberal freedom of thought and action, yet the conservative shadow still threatens to stifle true human freedom. So the film works on two levels, the 'literal' almost impossible senario of having nothing to read and the subtext just mentioned. As in Orwell's "1984" the paranoia that something else outside us has control of our lives, (including TV) that is unnatural and cold and cruel, and here has the disguise of kindness, freedom and welfare. There is also the idea of being asleep to our captivity and those who awaken and rebel suffer retribution and isolation as well as the struggle to find a cure in oneself and a more suitable environment to live.
Fahrenheit 451 [VHS] [1966] Reviews
Boring 451
Review date: 2009-12-11 Rating: 4 out of 10
I have to say having enjoyed the book, i found this film slow and boring. It took for ever to get to the chase scene and this was over very quickly and wasnt a patch on the book.
Best to avoid.
excellent film
Review date: 2009-11-17 Rating: 8 out of 10
I haven't seen this film for many years, but it is a very memorable one indeed. It is often forgotten about when the great SF movies are talked about or listed.
Sadly the film remains very pertinent to the age we live in with attempts at censureship still a relevant issue even in our so called democratic societies.
One does get the feeling that we won't have to particularly worry about the powers that be burning books, but be more worried at the ever increasing general "apathy" of the population and the psychological need to look for simple (absolute)answers to fill the void and uncertainty of the world.
The soundtrack adds so much to this film
Review date: 2009-10-19 Rating: 8 out of 10
Set in the future, Fahrenheit 451 depicts a society where books have been banned, where feelings have been repressed, where emotions have been stripped away, where being different is a crime.
The film has a washed out flat look to it which reflects its subject matter. The indigenous 1960's fashions and designs look suitably futuristic.
There are some nice touches. Montag 'reads' a comic strip whose text has been removed; the firemen slide up the pole at the fire station; there are no on screen opening credits, instead they are declaimed vocally.
The most disturbing parts of the film for me are the burning of books, with its obvious parallels to the Nazi regime. The most lyrical section is the final one where the book people are memorising book texts.
The performances reflect the subject matter and style of the film, that is they are controlled and muted, though Cyril Cusack brings an energy to his role in keeping with his role as the leading fireman. Julie Christie is, as always, luminous and very watchable. Strangely, Anton Diffring's German accent is dubbed. I guess the director did not want two actors with German accents (the other being Oskar Werner).
There is a sadness which pervades the film, a melancholy, a quiet desperation and this is underlined by Bernard Herrmann's superb music, which lifts the film onto a higher plane, and qualifies it for a 4-star, rather than a 3-star rating.
Burn it! Burn it!
Review date: 2009-10-13 Rating: 2 out of 10
What a dull experience, watching funky 60's French monorails, horror hair and indiscriminat Euro-talent sleepwalk through an underwritten version of an overwritten book. Bradbury's gushing proto-beat stream of self-consciousness fed through Truffaut's primary-colour non-style looks like the Magic Roundabout without the magic during a traffic jam.
Julie Christie pulls off the remarkable feat of failing to act twice in the same film. Oskar the German Bloke behaves like Keanu Reeves without the animation. But special mention must go to Truffaut who fails to point the camera in the direction of a story, a real idea or even the right colour half the time.
Bradbury says the book is a critique of the effects of TV, not censorship, as the movie suggests. Ironically, the book was indeed published in later editions without the words'hell' and 'damn'. An equivalent recompense would have been to censor the entire film, apart from the bit they filmed backwards when he goes up the pole. I grunted. You?
Truffaut should stick to abasing himself before creeps like Hitchcock and making wolf-boy movies nobody apart from Mowgli can sit through. This movie lacks even the gauche enthusiasm he brought to his vague magazine ramblings about Godard's film grammar (equally unwatchable/readable). Bradbury's book makes you cringe enough as it is, because of his DNA-strings of adverbs and nascent paedophilia, but Franny does the same job without the metal dog, without any talent and without even speaking the language (saved him from the adverbs, then.)
Product Details/Specifications
Actor(s):
Oskar Werner
To find out more about Oskar Werner click on their nameJeremy Spenser
To find out more about Jeremy Spenser click on their nameCyril Cusack
To find out more about Cyril Cusack click on their nameAnton Diffring
To find out more about Anton Diffring click on their nameJulie Christie
To find out more about Julie Christie click on their nameCreators:
Oskar Werner (Primary Contributor)
Julie Christie (Primary Contributor)
François Truffaut (Writer)
Jane C. Nusbaum (Producer)
Lewis M. Allen (Producer)
David Rudkin (Writer)
Helen Scott (Writer)
Jean-Louis Richard (Writer)
Ray Bradbury (Writer)
Recording label: 4 Front Video
Manufacturer: 4 Front Video
EAN: 5013037784367
Binding: VHS Tape
Number of items: 1
Format: PAL,
Release date: 2000-03-06
Universal product code (UPC): 440044546360
Number of discs: 1
Aspect ratio: 4:3 - 1.33:1
Audience rating: Parental Guidance
Running time: 109 minutes
