Peter Viney's Blog

Fahrenheit 451
1966

Awful British poster

Directed by François Truffaut
Screenplay by François Truffaut and Jean-Louis Richard
Based on the novel by Ray Bradbury
Additional English dialogue (uncredited) David Rudkin & Helen Scott
Cinematography by Nicholas Roeg
Music by Bernard Herrmann

CAST
Julie Christie – Clarisse / Linda Montag
Oskar Werner- Guy Montag
Cyril Cusack- Captain Beatty
Anton Diffring – Fabian / Headmistress
Jeremy Spenser – Man with apple
Bee Duffel- book woman (collector)
Alex Scott – book person ‘The Life of Henry Brulard”

The 60s Retrospective series

Released in September 1966 (UK, France), November 1966 (USA)

Child: Mummy, look there! Firemen!  There’s going to be  a fire.

Firemen start fires in this story, rather than putting them out.

Define Sci-Fi. Spaceships and aliens? A distant future? Ray Bradbury is classed as a science fiction writer, but this 1951 story doesn’t have the basic “change one scientific fact” and run from there. No hyper drives. No ETs. It’s a dystopia set in the near future, so classed with George Orwell’s 1984, Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World, LP. Hartley’s Facial Justice (my favourite of the genre) or Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale.

On line some people are happy to argue the toss about 451°F, which is the temperature at which paper combusts in this book burning novel. Bradbury might be a degree or two out either way (what kind of paper?) but to me it looks like a choice because the novel was published in (19)51, just as 1984 was written in 1948.

US poster 1966

Truffaut was fashionably French, and his interest was awoken when he told a friend he found science-fiction dull, and the friend gave him a copy of Fahrenheit 451 about a society where books and reading are illegal … as they are for women in the Margaret Atwood books. It took Truffaut six years to get the backing to produce it. He used Nicholas Roeg as cinematographer and Bernard Herrmann for music. An impressive team.

Nicholas Roeg: I’ve always felt that, although Truffaut was greatly revered and admired, at the same time, in terms of film and how much he loved film, he was underestimated. Because he was known to be a literary man, someone who was enormously fond of literature, he was adopted by a very literary set. But in fact his love of literature was separate from his love of film. I think that’s why, many times, he has been underestimated as an essentially visual person. I enjoyed working with him tremendously on Fahrenheit 451, which was a film very much to be ‘read’ in terms of images. I suppose he was the first director, the first film person, with whom I’d enjoyed having a conversation about film, or the hope of film.
Sight And Sound, Winter 1984/5

Co-stars: Julie Christie as Clarisse. Oskar Werner as Montag.

It wasn’t a happy production (how often have I typed that). Truffaut was weak in the English language. Terence Stamp was offered the role of Montag, but declined it (how often have I typed that too – that guy made some really bad decisions). He dropped out because he thought Julie Christie’s dual role would overshadow him. Still, Far From The Madding Crowd made up for it.

Ray Bradbury: The mistake they made with the first one was to cast Julie Christie as both the revolutionary and the bored wife.

Truffaut loathed his eventual lead actor, Oskar Werner, who was Austrian.  Oskar Werner had starred in Jukes & Jim, Truffaut’s best-known film, in 1962. So he should have known him, but I guess people change in four years. I suspect that sci-fi wasn’t considered a great career move for a serious actor. Truffaut had wanted Charles Aznavour or Jean-Paul Belmondo. He considered himself an ‘actors’ director’ and said Werner was the only actor he ever clashed with. According to IMDB:

Truffaut asked Werner to forgo heroics and act with a level of modesty, but Werner chose to play it with arrogance. Truffaut disliked the stilted performance Werner gave and insisted he play it like a monkey discovering books for the first time, sniffing at them, wondering what they are. Werner argued that a science fiction film called for a robot-like performance. Truffaut later declared that if he hadn’t wasted six years attempting to make the film, he would have left the set like a shot.

Nicholas Roeg reported that during the filming of the scene where the woman’s house is being burned, Werner refused to have anything to do with flames. Truffaut said he must have known there would be flames because he was playing a fireman. But Werner wouldn’t appear in the scene, so they had to use a double.

Then Werner cut his hair for the final scene to purposely create a continuity error. This was due to his hatred for the director.
IMDB

Werner sounds like the ultimate arsehole. Maybe because it’s if you say his name fast it sounds like Oscar Winner. And he wasn’t. Maybe he was pissed off at British and French posters calling him Oscar, while German and American called him Oskar.

Nicholas Roeg again:

Nicholas Roeg: (Werner) was rather concerned about his image. It appeared to be, or I surmise, that Oskar thought this was a film he was doing for François, because he owed him something or he liked him. But at that stage of his career he just wanted to get it over with. To play the part of Montag, you have to be completely dedicated to the thing. So he didn’t enter fully into the film. But François won in the end; he had to, again by the use of film, by juxtaposing one thing with another.
Sight and Sound Winter 1984/5

I know that face! Anton Diffring as Fabian

The Austrian casting with German accent stood out. He reinforced it by casting (the great) Anton Diffring alongside him. Diffring’s distinctive features saw him as the first call for playing Nazi officers for decades. You see his face, you think Nazi. This is ironic, as Diffring was Jewish and his family fled Germany in 1939. IMDB’s biography of Diffring says:

He was a much better actor than most of his roles required … In Fahrenheit 451 he was cast in all likelihood as a counterpart to the Austrian actor Oskar Werner so that Werner’s own Teutonicness in the English setting wouldn’t be as arch. He excelled as Werner’s nemesis, as he could create a mood or signal an entire story line with just a look; dialog didn’t matter (he likely would have been a superstar in silent films, when it was “the faces” that mattered).

Truffaut, just twenty years after World War Two must have been tapping in to Anglo-French pre-conceptions about men in black uniforms with German accents. We grew up on war comics. However the Captain (Cyril Cusack) was English, and Anton Diffring barely speaks – he just hovers and spies. I don’t recall whether he had a German accent even. Also Montag is the sympathetic “goodie” in this story. So the uniforms and accent gave us an initial reaction which was a red herring, and over-turned.

I was never sure how much of Werner’s accent is natural or acting it up … he pronounces upon as up … on and region as redge-on. Otherwise you’d think someone would have corrected him, however Nicholas Roeg spoke about the use of language:

Nicholas Roeg: I remember there was a lot of criticism of Fahrenheit to do with François’ knowledge of English. The critics complained that it was so stilted. But that had all been quite deliberate. He hadn’t even wanted to place it as an English film, or to suggest that the language was necessarily English. The script was written first in French, deliberately, so that it could be translated into English, then translated back into French, because he wanted to lose the English idiom completely, then finally translated back into English. He wanted it set- and I thought this was a marvellously futuristic idea – in a time when people had lost the use of language. After all, the whole premise of the film was to do with losing a literary background. And that was completely missed by the critics … There was a scene where Montag and Clarisse are sitting talking; they can see the fire station, and a man comes up and puts a note through the letter box. Montag explains why that is, people reporting on each other. Clarisse says, oh, he’s just a common informer; and Montag says, informant. Stilted things, stilted phrases: that was absolutely putting the dot on the ‘i’.
Sight And Sound, Winter 1984/5.

READING

Apart from the banned books, no written words are seen on screen, and even the credits are spoken aloud. They have numbers, but reading numbers is not phonetic reading. When his wife Linda takes an overdose, Montag describes the pill labels … Three red, and Eight golden, so they use numbers plus colours. When we go into the school, we hear children continually chanting ever more complex tables. 9 x 17 = 153 was not one I learned.

Montag has a large newspaper which is a cartoon strip of news without speech bubbles or subtext. But they do know “how” to read. So when were the books banned? In Atwood’s dystopias the women were never taught to read. Here everyone can but doesn’t.

Initially the producers were afraid of showing real books being burned, but Truffaut realized it would be a badge of pride for the incinerated authors.

THE FUTURE

Clarisse’s house

In retrospect, the thing I most liked, which surprised me at the time, was seeing the 1930s British suburban houses which I grew up in, as well as fifties concrete and glass blocks lasting into the future. It felt odd, but it makes perfect sense. We pass original Georgian houses, Victorian Gothic piles, Edwardian terraces and 1930s bay-windowed semi-detached houses every day … and the newest of those is 80 to 90 years old.

Montag’s street

Montag lives in a street of new (in the 60s) houses with steep pitched chalet roofs just like the ones our friends lived in (West Moors, Dorset). We had Star Trek and Dr Who on TV, but SFX technology was then not up to creating a futuristic and believable city and they didn’t try. Even though the houses look conventional 60s, the doors slide open sideways.

The monorail – note the stairway, instead of a station. Clarisse and Montag have just descended it.

They trekked over to France for the shots around a monorail – it was an experimental one that was demolished shortly after the film was made. The unusual point was a stairway dropping from the bottom, like the rear stairway on some aircraft. It would have meant it could stop virtually anywhere.

The fire engine (aka ‘appliance’) is odd, in that it looks Keystone Cops and 1920s rather than futuristic.

The fire station with fire engine.

A small firemen van that turns up is a Hillman Imp, which having no radiator grill (it was rear-engined) looked a bit futuristic in 1966. My sister had one. Then the police car is a standard Jaguar.

When the police are hunting Montag, they have personal flying machines, some sort of jet pack. You can see the wires (which look thicker at the bottom as if aerials- a good ploy, but it’s still obvious), and the back projection is screamingly obvious. That’s about as far as it goes. Oh, they designed some wall phones.

Here come the police! Fly by wire.

Possibly a rare nod to humour (and I’m not 100% sure) is the fireman’s pole which can whisk you up as well as down. As Montag begins to act strangely and falls out of favour, it ceases to work for him and he has to use the stair.

The wall screens were a prediction of the 65″ flat screen Sony we were watching it on, but they have an interactive element so that Linda can join in the staid and preachy TV drama. In the UK in 1966, colour TV only arrived later in the year. The wall screens were also used as lighting, and the flicker as Montag reads David Copperfield by its light is irritating. Clothes haven’t changed, and in this future early 60s / late 50s antiques are popular decor.

DYSTOPIAS

The story has classic elements. This future society is aimed at equality, and eradicating emotion of any kind.

As in L.P. Hartley’s Facial Justice (later than Fahrenheit 451 in 1960):

The Captain: We’ve all got to be alike. The only way for everyone to be happy is for everyone to be equal.

As in Brave New World they are all taking pills that somehow eradicate memory of the time before, and also create passivity. At the end, even the captain reveals memory loss.

As in 1984 it’s a fascist bullying state, where people denounce family and friends and where young men with long hair have it forcibly cut, shown on TV:

Announcer: It all goes to show. Law enforcement can be fun!

The dystopian novel often likes to have a tolerated community of escapees which the protagonist joins, or in The Testaments it’s Canada. I’ve done it myself in the ELT reader, Sunnyvista City (which also has the drug to erase memory).

TV is used as population control, and the output is bland and calming, and can call on watchers to agree or disagree by name. This is shown in the scene where Linda has a tea party for friends in front of the TV programme The Family which spouts platitudes.

The special form of address (dystopias need them, the equivalent of Comrade) is Cousin.

PLOT

Anton Diffring (centre) supervises book burning

Montag (Oskar Werner) is a fireman, expecting imminent promotion. Firemen can stop anyone, anywhere and search them for books, which are illegal. Any books found will be burned. Montag is married to Linda (Julie Christie) and they are childless, but living in modern luxury.

At home: Montag and Linda (Julie Christie – with long hair)

On the monorail he notices a young schoolteacher, Clarisse who looks very much like his wife. She would do, what with Linda being Julie Christie with a long wig, and Clarisse being Julie Christie with short hair.  Julie Christie was first cast as Linda and both Jane Fonda and  Jean Seburg declined the role of Clarisse. The producer Lewis M. Allen suggested the doubling. Linda is popping the pills as required and spends her day in front of the TV. Montag comes home to find her collapsed from an overdose – accidental? Technicians arrive to restore her.

Reviving Linda: Note- the necessary equipment is already there in the wall. It happens a lot.

There’s a scene in a children’s park where the firemen just arrive and search everyone in sight including a baby’s pram and patting a pregnant woman’s stomach to check it is not a hidden book.

Check the bag, then pat the pregnant tummy …

Another firemen, Fabian (Anton Diffring) is increasingly suspicious about Montag.  Clarisse asks Montag if he ever reads the books he burns. He starts to hide books in his house, and sits to read David Copperfield in the middle of the night.

Montag: David Copperfield. Chapter one. I am born. Whether I shall turn out to be the hero of my own life, or whether that station will be held by anybody else, these pages must show. 

(I wondered about that choice of novel … A Tale of Two Cities has a much better first line: It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.)

Linda discovers him reading, which leads to tension.

One day Clarisse asks to speak to him as they get off the monorail. She needs to talk so they go to a café. Montag points out a man hovering by the red information box outside the fire station opposite their window. He is about to inform on a book owner by posting their photo in the slot. (It’s important later that we know this is what the box is for). Montag is cynical. He knows it us used for personal revenge.

Clarisse (Julie Christie with short hair) and Montag (Oskar Werner). The informer / informant is outside the window.

Clarisse has been sacked from the school, and begs Montag to go and help her clear her locker. He is supposed to be at work, but she phones the fire station pretending to be Linda to say he’s sick. But Fabian has seen him! They go to the school. Truffaut used Diffring in drag in a tiny cameo as the school headmistress, glimpsed through a glass door. I guess there was a point.

Fabian (Anton Diffring) and The Captain (Cyril Cusack). They have a futuristic greeting

They go to a large house belonging to a book collector, ‘the book lady’,  who has a large hidden library. It’s the older woman Montag has seen earlier with Clarisse. The captain explains to Montag that books make people unhappy and make them want to think that they are better than others, which is anti-social. He explains the faults of novels, biographies and finally finds a book on lung cancer. That’s an evil book, because it will make cigarette smokers feel unhappy. It’s a pretty good point being made for 1966 when tobacco companies were still denying any connection.

The Captain (Cyril Cusack) and Montag

The Captain: Go on, Montag, all this philosophy, let’s get rid of it. It’s even worse than the novels. Thinkers and philosophers, all of them saying exactly the same thing: “Only I am right! The others are all idiots!”

The Book Lady (Bee Duffel) with box of matches

The book collector refuses to leave her kerosene soaked books, instead setting light to them herself while standing among them. The camera lingers long on a book of Dali paintings, burning page by page. (I wondered how many copies they had to burn to get those close ups).

Her death by fire has a profound effect on Montag. He goes home to find Linda with her friends happily watching the pulp TV show, full of quietly intoned propaganda messages: Strangle violence … Suppress prejudices. He calls them zombies and forces them to listen to him reading, to remind them of the emotions that have been suppressed. One bursts into tears. They call him cruel and sick.

Montag is about to pull something out of his trousers that will offend and disgust them … a book!

Montag has a nightmare in which Clarisse replaces the book collector. At the same time, Clarisse’s house is raided, her uncle is arrested, and she escapes over the roof. Montag breaks into the captain’s office to try and find information about her and is found, but not punished yet.

Linda has just posted the photo which denounces him

Meanwhile, Linda has decided to denounce him, which is done by posting a photograph in the information box outside the fire station.

Montag burns the list of names

Montag meets Clarisse, and they go to her house where they find and burn a list of book collectors. She tells him about a community where everyone “is” a book, which they have memorized. She’s off to go there.

Montag tries to resign, using shan’t more often than any non-German ever has (they taught it heavily in German schools). The captain tells him to go on a last mission, which turns out to be Montag’s house and he must reveal the books. Linda is leaving as they arrive. Montag is handed the flame thrower. He secretes a book, then turns the flame thrower on the marital bed, then on the captain.

He finds the book people after a trek. They show him his staged capture and killing on TV. That means he’s off the hook. Montag meets Clarisse and selects his book to memorize, Edgar Allan Poe’s Tales of Mystery & Imagination. Meanwhile, in deference to their director, Clarisse is memorizing a book in French.

The book people reciting their selections at the end in the snow. 

The book people were crew members and they had all contributed worn copies of favourite novels for the burning sequences. One of them is The Martian Chronicles by Ray Bradbury.

OVERALL

It held up far better than I’d expected. I had it on VHS which would have been the last time I saw it. That had seemed dull and grainy (which I’d assumed was deliberate drabness). It looks very good on the DVD. Roeg had pointed out that Truffaut had insisted on sharp bright colours. Two 80s comments called it ‘drab’ which I suspect was the VHS transfer.  I’ll go back to Nicholas Roeg- in spite of issues with the acting, they cut it together and made it work.

The film was re-made in 2018.

COMMENTS

For people watching Fahrenheit 451 in 1966, a few fundamental problems are right there on the surface. Werner is terrible as Montag, the book-burning “fireman” of Bradbury’s totalitarian future. Julie Christie is nearly as bad in a dual role as Montag’s wife and a literate stranger. And Truffaut made serious alterations to the book, which offended those bent on fidelity to the classics. Nearly half a century later, Werner and Christie’s performances now seem like a less-fatal consequence of Truffaut working in a foreign language, and his interpretation of the book can be understood as more sophisticated than insolent, a thoughtful challenge to the text that nonetheless retains its spirit. Even Bradbury came around on it.
Scott Tobias, The Dissolve, 2013

CURENT DVD

SOUNDTRACK

As far as I can see (and the Discogs website is highly reliable on this) the soundtrack never appeared on LP, and finally came out 29 years late in 1995 on CD, due to modern interest in Bernard Herrmann. It’s extremely powerful; standard film music it’s true, but very good.

JULIE CHRISTIE  … see also:
The Fast Lady (1963)
Darling (1965)
Doctor Zhivago (1965)
Fahrenheit 451 (1966)
Far From The Madding Crowd (1967)
Petulia (1968)

THE 60s REVISITED REVIEWS …

A Taste of Honey (1961)
Sparrows Can’t Sing (1963)
Tom Jones (1963)
The Fast Lady (1963)
Cat Ballou (1965)
The Ipcress File (1965)
Darling (1965)
The Knack (1965)
Doctor Zhivago (1965)
Morgan – A Suitable Case For Treatment (1966)
Alfie (1966)
Harper (aka The Moving Target) 1966
The Chase (1966)
The Trap (1966)
Georgy Girl (1966)
Fahrenheit 451 (1966)
Modesty Blaise (1966)
The Family Way (1967)
Privilege (1967)
Blow-up (1967)
Accident (1967)
Bonnie and Clyde (1967)
I’ll Never Forget What’s ‘Is Name (1967)
How I Won The War (1967)
Far From The Madding Crowd (1967)
Poor Cow (1967)
Here We Go Round The Mulberry Bush (1968)
The Magus (1968)
If …. (1968)
The Devil Rides Out (aka The Devil’s Bride) (1968)
Work Is A Four Letter Word (1968)
The Party (1968)
Petulia (1968)
Barbarella (1968)
The Thomas Crown Affair (1968)
Bullitt (1968)
Deadfall (1968)
The Swimmer (1968)
Theorem (Teorema) (1968)
The Magic Christian (1969)
The Rise and Rise of Michael Rimmer (1970)
Performance (1970)