Fahrenheit 451 (1966 film)

''Fahrenheit 451'' is a 1966 British dystopian drama film directed by François Truffaut and starring Julie Christie, Oskar Werner, and Cyril Cusack. Based on the 1953 novel of the same name by Ray Bradbury, the film takes place in a controlled society in an oppressive future, in which the government sends out firemen to destroy all literature to prevent revolution and thinking. This was Truffaut's first colour film and his only non French-language film. At the 1966 Venice Film Festival, ''Fahrenheit 451'' was nominated for the Golden Lion.

Background

Based on one of Ray Bradbury's most famous novels, ''Fahrenheit 451'' came out in 1966, one year after a dystopian film named '' Alphaville'' was released, directed by his friend and fellow filmmaker Jean Luc Godard. Truffaut wrote in a letter, "You mustn't think that 'Alphaville' will do any harm whatsoever to 'Fahrenheit'", but he was mistaken.

Truffaut's adaptation differed from the novel by portraying Montag and Clarisse falling in love. Another notable aspect of the film is that Julie Christie plays two characters, Clarisse and Montag's wife Mildred, whose name was changed to Linda in the adaptation.

Plot

In the future, a totalitarian government employs a force known as Firemen to seek out and destroy all literature. They have the power to search anyone, anywhere, at any time, and burn any books they find. One of the firemen, Guy Montag, meets one of his neighbours, Clarisse, a young schoolteacher who may be fired due to her unorthodox views. The two have a discussion about his job, where she asks whether he ever reads the books he burns. Curious, he begins to hide books in his house and read them, starting with Charles Dickens's ''David Copperfield''. This leads to conflict with his wife, Linda, who is more concerned with being popular enough to be a member of ''The Family'', an interactive television programme that refers to its viewers as "cousins".

At the house of an illegal book collector, the fire captain, Beatty, talks with Montag at length about how books make people unhappy and make them want to think that they are better than others, which is considered anti-social. The book collector, an old woman who was seen with Clarisse a few times during Montag's rides to and from work, refuses to leave her house, opting instead to burn herself and the house, so that she can die with her books.

Returning home that day, Montag tries to tell Linda and her friends about the woman who martyred herself in the name of books and confronts them about knowing anything about what's going on in the world, calling them ''zombies'' and telling them that they're just ''killing time'' instead of living life. Disturbed over Montag's behaviour, Linda's friends try to leave, but Montag stops them by forcing them to sit and listen to him read a novel passage. During the reading, one of Linda's friends breaks down crying, aware of the feelings she repressed over the years, while Linda's other friends leave in disgust over Montag's alleged cruelty and the ''sick'' content of the novel.

That night, Montag dreams of Clarisse as the book collector who killed herself. The same night, Clarisse's house is raided, but she escapes through a trapdoor in the roof, thanks to her uncle. Montag breaks into Beatty's office, looking for information about the missing Clarisse, and is caught but not punished.

Montag meets with Clarisse and helps her break back into her house to destroy papers that would bring the Firemen to others like her. She tells him of the "book people", a hidden sect of people who flout the law, each of whom has memorised a book to keep it alive. Later, Montag tells Beatty that he is resigning but is convinced to go on one more call, which turns out to be Montag's own house.

Linda leaves the house, telling Montag that she couldn't live with his book obsession and leaves him to be punished by the Firemen. Angrily, he destroys the bedroom and television before setting fire to the books. Beatty lectures him about the books and pulls a last book from Montag's coat, for which Montag kills him with the flamethrower. He escapes and finds the book people, where he views his "capture" on television, staged to keep the masses entertained and because the government doesn't want it to be known that he is alive. Montag selects a book to memorise, ''Tales of Mystery and Imagination'' by Edgar Allan Poe, and becomes one of the book people.

Cast

* Oskar Werner as Guy Montag
* Julie Christie as Linda Montag/Clarisse
* Cyril Cusack as Captain Beatty
* Anton Diffring as Fabian/Headmistress
* Jeremy Spenser as Man with the Apple
* Bee Duffell as Book woman
* Gillian Lewis as Cousin Midge on TV

Production

Casting

Truffaut kept a detailed diary during the production and later published in both French and English (in ''Cahiers du Cinéma in English''). In this diary, he called ''Fahrenheit 451'' his "saddest and most difficult" film-making experience, mainly because of intense conflicts between Werner and himself.

The film was Universal Pictures' first European production. Julie Christie was originally cast as just Linda Montag, not both Linda and Clarisse. The part of Clarisse was offered to Jean Seberg and Jane Fonda. After much thought, Truffaut decided that the characters should not have a villain/hero relationship but rather be two sides of the same coin and cast Christie in both roles, although the idea came from the producer, Lewis M. Allen.

In an interview from 1998, Charles Aznavour said that he was Truffaut's first choice to play the role given to Werner; Aznavour said that Jean-Paul Belmondo was the director's second choice, but the producers refused on the grounds that both of them were not familiar enough for the English-speaking audience. Paul Newman, Peter O'Toole and Montgomery Clift were also considered for the role of Montag; Terence Stamp was cast but dropped out when he feared being overshadowed by Christie's dual roles in the film. Laurence Olivier, Michael Redgrave and Sterling Hayden were considered for the role of the Captain, before Cyril Cusack was cast.

Filming

The film was shot at Pinewood Studios in England, with the monorail exterior scene taken at the French SAFEGE test track in Châteauneuf-sur-Loire near Orléans

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