Fahrenheit 451 (1966)

Cast includes:
CHARACTER	ACTOR/ACTRESS	RATING
Guy Mortag	Oskar Werner
Clarisse / Linda Montag	Julie Christie
The Captain	Cyril Cusack
Fabian	Anton Diffring

Review

The idea, from Ray Bradbury's novel, is a dystopian society in the not too distant future in which books are prohibited and written material is kept at a minimum. The apathetic population is entertained by watching poorly scripted interactive tv-plays on their futuristic flat panel wall display in their 1960s furnished living-rooms. The concept might have felt imminent in post-WWII years with Nazi censorship bright in mind, but as realized by director Francois Truffaut, in his one and only English language film, it just feels irrelevant and constructed. When fireman (read: bookburner) Guy Montag (Oskar Werner) meets his vivacious neighbour Clarisse (Julie Christie), her questions about how it was true that there once was a time in which books were allowed feel absurd and improbable, giving the premise a soft and puerile core.

The problem with Truffaut's vision here is the incongruity between the inanity of the people and the somewhat unconvincing totalitarian system in which a small force of people who act and feel like firemen supposedly are able to keep an entire unhappy population sedated by burning their books. Firstly, the power of the people is underestimated, and secondly, Truffaut's visualization becomes giddy and unfocused, making the dramaturgy almost inane. Oskar Werner, our sensible protagonist, runs around feeling more confused than threatened or suppressed, and as he eventually finds refuge in what must have been the most virtuous and correct hippie camp of the 1960s, we realize that Fahrenheit 451, such as it is, is not a film that has aged well.