|
Fahrenheit 451Rating:
Release Date: 01 April, 2003 Retail Price: $14.98 OUR Price: $10.99 You SAVE: $3.99! Cast: Complete Cast (14 total) |
Fahrenheit 451 Reviews
Not So Hot
I was disappointed when I went back and checked out this 1966 movie version of Ray Bradbury's famous tale about book-burning. The characters here start off in a world where books and reading are banned. It's an authoritarian world in which the government controls the media. So I had thought this movie made a commentary that would be relevant to the dangerous drift of today's governments. My memory apparently didn't serve me well though. Viewing this Fahrenheit again, I actually found it to be a weak, illogical rendering. I don't think Bradbury could have been too happy with this translation of his story onto the screen.
There are a number of minor awkward elements in this film. There is Oskar Werner's wooden acting. His soft-pedaled delivery was effective in movies such as "Ship of Fools," where it conveyed a romantic world-weariness. But here his discovery of the powers of reading calls for, if not necessarily a Helen Keller-like shriek of recognition of the power of The Word, at least some joyful animation as he has the new world between the covers of a book opening up to him. But we don't get any of that from Werner. He remains on murmuring monotone throughout.
Also, he learns to read altogether too fast. Assuming he had had no significant previous exposure to the written word, how could he then be reading Dickens, with all its Victorian archaism, in such a short time? Of course I can understand how the producers/directors of this movie would have wanted to cut to the chases and not bog down into static reading lessons. But actually, seeing the process of someone teaching himself to read would have been far more interesting than what does make it onto the screen.
Then that selection of Dickens as a turning point in people's lives strikes a completely false note. Werner finally turns on at least one of his wife's pals to the joy of literacy by reading from Dickens. However the passage he recites is a very pedestrian one, something unlikely to move anyone to turn away from the TV, much less to gush bittersweet tears at realization of all the years of having been denied access to this wonder.
Also, the way people are depicted in their pre-literate state is nonsensical. They are shown stroking, stroking themselves, as if making up for some sensory deprivation they vaguely know they are suffering. But what about the vast majority of people who have lived on this planet, up to and including today, who are still in a pre-literate state? None of them seem to feel a need to go around stroking themselves. In fact, the argument has been made that pre-literate people actually experience a wider range of sensory delights because they aren't constantly operating with the filter of the written word between them and their experience.
Which leads to the major misfiring of this movie (a pun!). It doesn't succeed in making its case against book-burning. If anything, it makes the illiterates' world look in some ways more attractive than that of the bookworm. Before Werner's defiant conversion to the wonder of books, we see him and his wife ensconced at home around the TV. His wife has convivial groups of gal-pals over. They exercise in front of the set, laugh about planned purchases, snack. There is human interaction.
In the secret glade where Werner escapes government control though, where he meets up with other rebels - there is almost no human interaction. All these booklovers are preoccupied memorizing the books they have chosen to become and to thereby save from extinction. They walk around in single file all day, becoming their books. This movie makes these escapees look like the ultimate victims of mind control as they parade woodenly past each other, barely acknowledging the existence of their fellow book saviors. I hardly think that was the kind of world Bradbury wanted to project.
Another awkward element is introduced as Julie Christie is called upon to play a dual role. This cloning of her is distracting and confusing. However, she does contribute a really interesting, intelligent commentary for the DVD release of this movie. But I don't think that bonus feature is quite enough to warrant spending too much time with Fahrenheit 451. On the whole, you might do best to just take this movie - and shelf it.
Oldie but goody
A movie version of Ray Bradbury novel of a restristed society that banned books "for our own good". People are given drugs to make them feel good all the time (like Prozac and other drugs now).
It's an excellent movie and considering where we seem to be heading, a timely movie to watch.
BTW, I found it interesting that a TV called a "Wallscreen" looks identical to today's HDTVs!
More Customer Reviews (51 total)
You like Fahrenheit 451?
|
© 2004, 2005, 2006 DVD Booty | Don't Plunder Our Cache of Booty, Matey!
Hosting made possible by donations from Cash Advance Romance, Grateful Debt, and Payday Loan Progress
