REVIEW : “Fahrenheit 451” (1966) - Movie by Francois Truffaut

Sometimes, after watching a movie, that “on paper”, should prove an interesting and engaging experience, it leaves me baffled and slightly concerned that I must have missed something.

Fahrenheit 451 is a complete mystery to me. Practically nothing works in this movie and I mean nothing. The direction is directionless and pretentious, the acting is bloody awful, the special effects are ridiculous, the music, not exactly bad, but sounds more like something from Psycho than a sci-fi movie (yes it is the same composer). The cinematography is mostly goofy and amateurish except for a few well shot and artistically inspired scenes (that really do not fit the feel of the movie). And... its a science fiction movie that does not want to be a science fiction movie.

Now to give it some credit I have looked up the back story, the behind the scenes, and it was a complete mess to be fair. Truffaut was out of his safe, intimate story telling. He obviously thought that after having interviewed Hitchcock in his famous seance with hin, that he could just pull of a Vertigo or something of that calibre. He basically fell out with the lead male actor and went on to tell the story of it while the movie was being made.

Truffaut is far from anything like the stature of his great idol Hitchcock. The dialogues are stiff, the tracking shots are keystone cops like, the expression of the actors are all but gone and leaves me thinking. Is this the so called father of the new wave of cinema directing this piece of junk!

In fact is not the first time I get this stiffness feeling when watching Truffaut, it is rather a common feature of his style. Here he just takes it to the next level. It is bloody awful.

It is not like the plot and the story, based on the novel of Bradbury is bad as such. In fact I am intrigued by these types of dystopic Orwellian tales, where you get a different angle on what may be the problem already in the real world.

But Truffaut is just about the worst choice I can think of directing this type of thing. I do wonder what a serious director like Kubrick could have done with it. I really do not understand why Truffaut felt an urge to make this movie, since neither before or after did he do anything like it. So much for the better i suppose.

Oscar Werner plays the main role as Montag and the two female roles are played by the one and same Julie Christie. If Julie Christie´s performance is somewhat wooden, Oscar Werner’s performance is stiff as cast iron. It is hard for me to understand that a movie with actor performances and inappropriate directing like this slipped through the portal of quality at Universal. What were they thinking!

It is apparently well known that the “cannot be bothered” attitude of Werner clashed with Truffaut´s pretentious ideas of his own worth as a director. But it sifts through to the screen and all you can think of is, please let this end soon rather than later.

This movie certainly is both an anomaly in the resume of Truffaut but also in general cinema. I really had in the back of my head that this was one of those movies where the rumours precedes it, and for quality reasons. After watching it for the first time I can only be baffled why. Maybe the book is great, the movie certainly is not.

I enthusiastically do not recommend this movie. Avoid unless you are a diehard Truffaut completist or want to make a review like I do. I see no other reason to sit through it

3/10