Review of Fahrenheit 451 (1966) by Devon — 11 Sep 2008

Ray Bradbury takes a crack at 1984? Actually, there are elements of all the futuristic classics: 1984 (only we call each other "cousins" instead of "brothers"), Brave New World (the government keeps us all doped up and watching tv), A Clockwork Orange (albeit a little more sophisticated than that movie).

.. Oskar Werner is "Montag", a futuristic fireman, who's job it is to set fires, not extinguish them (all the houses of the future are fireproof anyway). It's his job to burn books, because books can lead to unhappiness with one's life, and unhappiness is the enemy of the people.

There are also squads to go around cutting men's hair if it gets too long (I wonder if that was added specifically for the movie and the times it was made in?), but it's the firemen this movie is most concerned with.

On every corner are "information boxes" which aren't for getting information but for reporting your neighbors for any crimes against the state. Newspapers seem to be a series of cartoons without words, like one big funny page.

Montag's wife is addicted to her wall-mounted flatscreen tv, which is called "the family", she even gets to participate in one of the programs, but the shows are so vapid, they're about having dinner parties and figuring out correct seating arrangements (almost sesame street level programming).

There also seems to be reality programming for keeping up with runaway criminals, etc. (and if the reality doesn't fit into the story-line they wish to tell, they'll adjust it to make it so). In fact, all the housewives are addicted to this family.

They also don't believe in such things as war, saying that people die in other ways, motor accidents, but no one's ever died in a war, that just doesn't happen. Montag's fire chief tells him "the only way to be happy is for everyone to be equal", and it's the books that make people long for different lives.

One day, Montag's curiousity gets the better of him and he decides to read a book, and that's when he turns from hero to enemy of the state. The directing of this film is creative in it's use of effects such as split-screen, and the score by Bernard Hermann fits the tone perfectly.

Perhaps the ending might've been a little silly, but it's a small complaint in an overall excellent film.