My least favorite Truffaut. I think Truffaut was out of his element filming in English and it drops too many things from the book. Never caught the flavor of the book very well. Looks too low budgetbesides.
Just to add to what Steve said – I also agree that Truffaut stretched too far with this in terms of filming it in English. I always admire that he wanted to make a film in the language, and much of the stuff he loved and was influenced by (Hitch etc.) was English-language. Unfortunately, I just don’t think he had a sufficient command of the language to truly realise the film he wanted. He brought English sections into other films (some of the post-“400 Blows” Doinel films, “Anne & Muriel”, “Adele H”), but I think he always would have liked to have mastered the language.
This is actually one of my favorite Truffaut films. It’s the dark horse. The thing is, Truffaut didn’t have a choice but to film in English. He couldn’t sell the idea to anyone in France so when he had the chance he went to England to make it.
Of course some things were dropped from the book. The year was 1966. How were they going to do mechanical dogs?
Oskar Werner’s stubbornness didn’t help either.
The film is wonderfully shot. Only thing I don’t like very much is the flying police.
Agree with CEM about the location (where exactly? Not too much birches for England?) and the flying police. Great work, anyway.
I like 451..The score is absolutely beautiful. Frank Darabount has a scrpit written and has been shopping it around…he want’s to remake it so badly..
Wasn’t Nicolas Roeg the cinematographer on this?
I find it entertaining. I have always been a huge Bradbury fan, but his books have not translated to film very well. If you like graphic novels, I bought this (http://www.amazon.com/Ray-Bradburys-Fahrenheit-451-Authorized/dp/080905101X/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1270269621&sr=8-3) last year and really loved it.
I also enjoyed this, but only after first overcoming the stiltedness of the dialogue and saturated colours.
As mentioned in a post here, the film is often (incorrectly) criticised because of Truffaut’s apparent lack of command of the English language. However, an interview with Nicolas Roeg (who was DoP on Fahrenheit) from Sight and Sound magazine in Winter 1984/1985 helps explain:
“The critics complained that it was so stilted. But that had all been quite deliberate. He [Truffaut] 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 back to 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.”
As for the heady colour work, the saturated primary colour palette which jars so well with the exterior scenes, Roeg comments:
“When we discussed the look of the film, he [Truffaut] said, I don’t want it to have a reality, I want it as a Doris Day film, with little shining colours. We had great trouble, because at the time people were going for a tremendous realism. I was ordering huge lights, to make it high key, glossy, like Technicolor.”
bad movie
Great movie. Doesn’t have the tone of the novel, but is pretty amazing in its own way.
I enjoyed this movie. Is it a masterpiece? No…it’s well put together, has some clever moments and Julie Christie (x2) is terrific.
what Jaspar said
Daniela La Rosa
My favourite is Fahrenheit 451. Who likes it?