Commentary
Truffaut’s film is based on Ray Bradbury's famous novel, Fahrenheit 451. It was Truffaut's first color film and his only non French-language film. At the 1966 Venice Film Festival, Fahrenheit 451 was nominated for the Golden Lion.
The film was shot at Pinewood Studios in England. The monorail exterior scene was taken at the French SAFEGE test track in Châteauneuf-sur-Loire near Orléans, France. It was dismantled shortly after filming. The film featured the Alton housing estate in Roehampton, south London, and Edgcumbe Park in Crowthorne, Berkshire. The final "Book People" book reciting scene was filmed at Black Park near Pinewood. It was hoped the weather would improve for the final days of shooting. Instead, it had begun snowing during the night. The presence of snow in the final shots was unexpected and unplanned but proved to be effective.
The production work was done in French, as Truffaut spoke virtually no English but co-wrote the screenplay with Jean-Louis Richard.
The movie's opening credits are spoken rather than displayed in type, which suggests what life would be like in a society in which the printed word is banned.
Characters
As already mentioned in Part 1 in the previous post, “Fahrenheit 451” deals with a tightly controlled society in which books are outlawed and firemen use hoses not to put out fires but instead to burn books which are outlawed.
Julie Christie as has been mentioned above is cast in both roles with the opposing forces of conformity (Linda) and non-conformity (Clarisse) competing to influence the decisions Montag ultimately makes.
Clarisse helps to reveal to Montag that he is merely a tool of a system of authority that maintains control by virtually incinerating human history, personal and collective memory, and independent thought.
The Clarisse character in Bradbury’s book is killed off early in a suspicious hit-and-run accident. In Truffaut’s film, she reappears towards the end and being reunited with Montag helps to offer the viewer a sense of future hope.
Relevance
Scene from "Fahrenheit 451"
The film’s story deals with matters that have extended far beyond either side of the 1960’s era. Namely, censorship, conformity, and omnipresent surveillance and control by government. In this sense, "Fahrenheit 451" delivers a very relevant message. Book burning had indeed occurred in humanity’s past, in Nazi Germany and Communist Russia during the 20th century.
People in many countries today have to endure censorship of ideas and restriction of free speech. Ideas that conflict with their government’s view of reality and which challenge established authority are banned outright and those who express such ideas in print, over the airwaves and on social media and the internet are often severely punished.
Even in so-called democratic Western countries no-one should feel particularly smug about our perceived freedoms as we sit transfixed in front of our huge flat panel smart TV screens satiated with binge streaming; sopping up social media stupidity on our devices; reveling in the unreality of “reality” TV and televised dumbed-down bread & circuses; documenting every trivial and stage-managed aspect of our lives for our “cousins” and hoping beyond hope we’ll be liked, followed and friended, all the while ensuring we’re constantly plugged in and not wasting our time taking time out to sit, think and wonder.
And so we sit agape at the screens as countless experts, celebrities, officials and functionaries of the information/influencer industry try to tell us what and how we should be doing, thinking, eating, drinking, behaving, accepting, considering, knowing, wanting, hoping, valuing, and on and on and on they babble at us with advice right down to the most effective way to wipe our noses.
Then there are the largely useless corporate pimps: the advertisers and on-line influencers who primp, pirouette and pout at us from our devices getting us to turn tricks as consumer whores. And so off we go to tap-and-go or buy now and pay later to fill our lives up with the latest stuff which we can one day happily dispose of on the nature strip or local tip.
Thank god for the ever wakeful and watchful Woke-brigade with their fire-hoses of political correctness at the ready to be trained on any hint of independent, contrary, unorthodox, and unsanctioned thought and deed. "Gone With The Wind" – take that!
"Dr Seuss" – take that! "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn" – take that & that! After all, such books and films might upset and make people feel uncomfortable. We can’t have that, can we?
Onward, Cancel Culture! Burn those books, topple these statues, ban those films, re-write and censor history, prescribe what words can and cannot be used: He, she, husband, wife…..Coon cheese! What? Edward William Coon, you say? No, no, no, ban it, change it now! What’s that? You can still buy a copy of "Mein Kampf!" Oh, shut up! Take that!
Our freedom of expression and right to privacy is even being slowly eroded by corporate entities and social media platforms who hoover up our personal information, determine what we can and cannot do with QR-coded arrogance and restrict what we can think and say based on what they judge to be acceptable or not with the punishment of finding oneself being excluded, fined, removed or de-platformed – a veritable non-person.
Both Oskar Werner and Julie Christie’s performances are quite good, as is Truffaut’s direction along with the tight editing, effective camera work and of course, Bernard Herrmann’s suspenseful and thrilling musical score.
Of particular note is the scene featuring the burning of the illegal book collector along with her library of books. The viewer cannot help but feel impacted by the sense of suffering and cruelty being inflicted on the book covers and pages that are burning and curling before turning black as they are consumed in a mass of searing orange flames. This together with the Joan of Arc-like defiance of the old woman as she herself strikes the match and succumbs to the flames.
The old woman represents that kind of spirit that still exists in the form of say, a single soul standing defiantly in front of an advancing Chinese tank, or young Hong Kongers putting their lives on the line in the face of brutal repression and in defence of their freedoms, or ordinary citizens in Myanmar who face bullets fired by those who one would expect are supposed to serve and protect, or Palestinians prepared to resist suffocating and overwhelming oppression being imposed on them.
In the 21st century we are fortunate that we are awash with reading material whether it be in the form of traditional printed books, ebooks, on-line web-sites and blogs, social media, newspapers, and even audiobooks. But access is not always equitable and censorship still does occur in many places.
Despite the prevalence of the written word and the many various platforms it is conveyed by, along with the amazing opportunities that exist for ideas to be expressed and exchanged, I can’t help wondering if whether people are any better informed than someone like the character Montag who wasn’t aware that firemen like him once had the role of putting out fires. It is like, for example the situation in my own country when some people are asked what Australia Day means to them and they reply that it is an occasion to celebrate the discovery of Australia by Captain Cook!! Well, for the correct answer, you’ll just have to check the facts by reading up on it.
We certainly know about the myths, legends and approved sanitized, nationalistic and sanctimonious versions of our history, but the fact remains that people (particularly so in my own country) just don’t really know their history. This despite the availability of information about it: written and audio-visual. So, who is to blame?
It also must be remembered that information that is not mentioned, is withheld or is left out ought to be of concern when it comes to matters of free speech, the free flow and access to information and an informed public.
The story of “Fahrenheit 451” serves as a cautionary tale that reminds us that we should be on our guard whenever ideas are outlawed by a governing elite that fears an independent-thinking public and that we should be prepared to question its motives for doing so. Only our own apathy, our preference for convenience and our succumbing to distractions will prevent us from doing so. In this era of the increasing use of information technology, it is of primary importance that we resist attempts by established and new rising political, economic, social, technology and media elites to engage in intellectual repression and manipulation through the media and elsewhere.
Our freedom of expression and right to privacy is even being slowly eroded by corporate entities and social media platforms who hoover up our personal information, determine what we can and cannot do with QR-coded arrogance and restrict what we can think and say based on what they judge to be acceptable or not with the punishment of finding oneself being excluded, fined, removed or de-platformed – a veritable non-person.
**********
Both Oskar Werner and Julie Christie’s performances are quite good, as is Truffaut’s direction along with the tight editing, effective camera work and of course, Bernard Herrmann’s suspenseful and thrilling musical score.
The old woman represents that kind of spirit that still exists in the form of say, a single soul standing defiantly in front of an advancing Chinese tank, or young Hong Kongers putting their lives on the line in the face of brutal repression and in defence of their freedoms, or ordinary citizens in Myanmar who face bullets fired by those who one would expect are supposed to serve and protect, or Palestinians prepared to resist suffocating and overwhelming oppression being imposed on them.
In the 21st century we are fortunate that we are awash with reading material whether it be in the form of traditional printed books, ebooks, on-line web-sites and blogs, social media, newspapers, and even audiobooks. But access is not always equitable and censorship still does occur in many places.
Despite the prevalence of the written word and the many various platforms it is conveyed by, along with the amazing opportunities that exist for ideas to be expressed and exchanged, I can’t help wondering if whether people are any better informed than someone like the character Montag who wasn’t aware that firemen like him once had the role of putting out fires. It is like, for example the situation in my own country when some people are asked what Australia Day means to them and they reply that it is an occasion to celebrate the discovery of Australia by Captain Cook!! Well, for the correct answer, you’ll just have to check the facts by reading up on it.
We certainly know about the myths, legends and approved sanitized, nationalistic and sanctimonious versions of our history, but the fact remains that people (particularly so in my own country) just don’t really know their history. This despite the availability of information about it: written and audio-visual. So, who is to blame?
It also must be remembered that information that is not mentioned, is withheld or is left out ought to be of concern when it comes to matters of free speech, the free flow and access to information and an informed public.
The story of “Fahrenheit 451” serves as a cautionary tale that reminds us that we should be on our guard whenever ideas are outlawed by a governing elite that fears an independent-thinking public and that we should be prepared to question its motives for doing so. Only our own apathy, our preference for convenience and our succumbing to distractions will prevent us from doing so. In this era of the increasing use of information technology, it is of primary importance that we resist attempts by established and new rising political, economic, social, technology and media elites to engage in intellectual repression and manipulation through the media and elsewhere.
Books shown or mentioned in the movie:
Don Quixote |
She Might Have Been Queen |
Othello, the Moor of Venice |
Social Aspects of Disease |
Vanity Fair |
The Ethics of Aristotle - |
Madame Bovary |
The Brothers Karamazov |
Le monde a coté |
The Sorrows of Young Werther |
Alice's Adventures in Wonderland & Through the Looking-Glass |
The Martian Chronicles |
Gaspard Hauser |
Plato's Republic |
Robinson Crusoe |
Fahrenheit 451 |
The World of Salvador Dali |
Pride and Prejudice |
Jeanne d'Arc |
Gone with the Wind |
Life and Loves |
Animal Farm |
The Weather |
No Orchids for Miss Blandish |
My Autobiography by Charles Chaplin |
Jane Eyre |
Les negres |
Moby Dick |
Confessions of an Irish Rebel |
The Picture of Dorian Gray |
The Ginger Man |
The Adventures of Tom Sawyer |
Petrouchka |
The Trial. |
The Catcher In The Rye |
|
The Moon and Sixpence |
|
Lolita |
|
David Copperfield |
|
Mein Kampf |
|
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