Fahrenheit 451 (1966)
| Movie | |
|---|---|
| German title | Fahrenheit 451 |
| original title | Fahrenheit 451 |
| production country | Great Britain |
| original language | English |
| Publishing year | 1966 |
| length | 109 minutes |
| age rating | FSK 12 |
| Rod | |
| directing | Francois Truffaut |
| script |
Jean-Louis Richard Francois Truffaut |
| production | Lewis M Allen |
| music | Bernard Herrman |
| camera | Nicolas Roeg |
| cut | Thomas Noble |
| occupation | |
| |
Fahrenheit 451 is a 1966 British dystopian science fiction film directed by François Truffaut . It was based on the novel of the same name by Ray Bradbury . The title refers to a temperature of around 233 °C at which paper – based on a value determined by Bradbury himself and generally regarded as too low – ignites without further external influence.
plot
In the not too distant future, a society will live according to the principle of the hedonistic pursuit of happiness. Because books, as a medium, deal with problems and conflicts, these are considered unfortunate and are prohibited by law. The fire brigade has the task of finding and burning books to ensure social happiness. Fires are no longer extinguished by the fire brigade, since fireproof buildings usually do not cause them. In the event of a fire, the building is simply demolished and the residents move to a new one.
The protagonist of the story is fireman Guy Montag. He has been happily working at his job for five years and is about to be promoted. Montag is married to Linda, a happy woman due to her consumption of entertainment media and pills.
On the way home, Montag meets Clarisse, a teacher who is no longer allowed to teach after an attitude test because she is a passionate book reader. Out of curiosity, Montag begins to secretly take books from the operations and read them at night in his apartment. He soon begins to question his work and hedonistic life, which leads to conflicts with his wife, who is not willing to give up her happy life.
Clarisse has to go into hiding after being targeted by the fire department. She meets Montag again and announces that she will flee to the "book people", who live apart from society in the woods and each learn a favorite book by heart so that it is not forgotten.
Montag decides to quit his job. Linda denounces her husband to the fire department, and Montag's last call is to his own home, where he is forced to burn his books. He sets the apartment on fire, kills the captain with the flamethrower and escapes.
He manages to track down the book people, with whom Clarisse has since found shelter. Both of them now begin to learn a book by heart in order to preserve it for posterity. An old man has already dictated his book to a younger child in order to pass it on to the next generation.
background
Fahrenheit 451 is the only English language feature film by French director François Truffaut; This is partly due to the fact that he could not finance production in France and therefore asked in the USA. Shot at Pinewood Studios in the UK , the film premiered in the French capital of Paris on September 15, 1966 , before hitting UK cinemas the following day. Truffaut preferred the dubbed French version to the English because of the supposedly smoother dialogue. The theatrical release in the Federal Republic of Germany was December 23 of the same year. The film was first shown on German television on February 3, 1973 by ARD .
Differences from the novel
- The teacher Clarisse is a young girl in the book.
- Clarisse escapes the fire department and reunites with Montag at the end of the film. In the novel, she dies in a car accident.
- In one scene, Clarisse posed as Montag's wife over the phone and called in sick to accompany her to school. In the book, Montag actually feels sick and asks his wife to call work. Also, the scene when Clarisse and Montag enter the school and she is avoided by her students is not in the book.
- In the film, Clarisse and Guy's encounters are not accidental as Clarisse and the woman who later kills herself are part of a conspiracy. There is no connection between them in the book and the meetings with Montag are actually coincidence.
- In the novel, Montag finds a mentor in the former literature professor Faber, who gives him instructions via a radio in his ear. The professor does not exist in the film.
- There is also a mechanical dog in the book that works for the fire brigade, of which Montag is very afraid because of his bestial behavior. This does not exist in the film either.
- Montag's wife Linda is called Mildred in the book, called Millie.
- The captain, who remains nameless in the film, is a sergeant named Beatty in the book.
- In the book, Beatty has the contradictory habit of despising books and finding an argument for every kind of book, why it is redundant or dangerous, and yet being literary and able to quote many works. In the film, the Captain only has the first mentioned quality, his talent for quoting is not mentioned.
- At the end of the novel, Montag's hometown is destroyed in the course of the war, which is only hinted at in the film, and the book people set off to use what they know to help the survivors start over. In the film, the city remains, you only see the book people at the end learning the books by heart.
reviews
"Truffaut develops the story of an outsider who frees himself from conformity and lethargy in order to live his personal utopia away from a repressive civilization , into a homage to literature and to occidental culture in general."
“Truffaut only takes over the basic idea of the ' bookless society' from Bradbury [...] The gloomy, frightening veneer of future inhumanity is missing. [...] On the other hand, it is endearingly old-fashioned (Breton cutlery, Edison-style telephones and half-timbered houses) that dominates, as well as something familiar from film history: clothes by Carole Lombard and Debbie Reynolds ; a fire engine similar to Frank Capra's 1936 hit Mr. Deeds goes to town (starring Gary Cooper). The characters are also almost lovable – portly petit bourgeois who do what is asked of them. […] Truffaut's film is a pessimistic film. Montag's escape from the utopian state is pointless, it doesn't point the way to a different future ."
"Intelligently made, but thematically unconvincing science fiction film by Truffaut, which lacks any political or social commitment and thus does not go beyond sophisticated entertainment. Worth seeing for more discerning visitors aged 16 and over.”
awards
The feature film Fahrenheit 451 received nominations for the UK's British Film Academy Award , for the US Hugo Award and at the Venice Film Festival .
soundtrack
- Bernard Herrmann : Fahrenheit 451st Suite , on the reverse: Bernard Herrmann − Great Film Music . London/Decca, London 1996, record no. 443 899-2 - Recorded by the National Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by the composer.
- Bernard Herrmann: Fahrenheit 451. Suite , on the reverse: Fahrenheit 451 . Varèse Sarabande, Studio City 1995, record no. VSD-5551 - digital re-recording by the Seattle Symphony Orchestra conducted by Joel McNeely .
synchronization
The German dubbed version was created by Berliner Synchron GmbH , the dialogues were written by MZ Thomas and directed by Klaus von Wahl .
| role | actor | voice actor |
|---|---|---|
| Guy Monday | Oscar Werner | Oscar Werner |
| Clarisse/Linda Montag | Julie Christie | Margot Leonard |
| Capt | Cyril Cusack | Klaus W Krause |
| Fabian | Anton Diffring | Friedrich W. Bauschulte |
| book person | Alex Scott | Joachim Cadenbach |
| Prince | Michael Balfour | Alexander Welbat |
| TV presenter | Gilian Lewis | Bettina Schoen |
| Fire brigade instructor | Tom Watson | Joachim Notke |
| jackie | Anna Palk | Marianne Lutz |
| nurse | Erik Mason | Reinhard Kolldehoff |
| paramedic | Arthur Cox | Otto Czarski |
| pupils | Mark Lester | Mathias Einert |
| Trainee Black | Chris William | Randolf Kronberg |
| TV actor | Donald Pickering | Rolf Schult |
| narrator | Renate Kuester |
Others
- The modern monorail featured in the film was the SAFEGE monorail test track built in 1960 at Châteauneuf-sur-Loire near Orléans .
- The shot at timecode 00:05:35-00:05:47 (putting on protective clothing and handing over the flamethrower) is actually the same shot as at timecode 00:06:20-00:06:35 (disconnecting protective clothing and returning the flamethrower ; but with an intermediate cut). The later shot (taking off the protective clothing) was simply copied backwards into the earlier one (from the internegative ) and cut out. This makes the "putting on" of the protective clothing (= undressing backwards) appear particularly energetic; only on closer inspection does it become apparent that the hairstyle is disheveled for no apparent reason “before” the protective clothing is put on.
- Oskar Werner himself dubbed the character he played, Guy Montag, for the German version of the film.
- The film meant the end of the friendship between Truffaut and Werner. The two had a completely opposite view of the role. As filming progressed, Werner increasingly questioned Truffaut's decisions and ignored his instructions. Towards the end of the shooting, Werner even sabotaged individual scenes.
- In 2018, Fahrenheit 451 was remade for US television, starring Michael B. Jordan , Michael Shannon and Sofia Boutella .
See also
literature
- Irene Genhart: Fahrenheit 451st in film locations VSETH & VSU (ed.): Science Fiction. – Andrzej Wajda. Documentation. VSETH / VSUZU , Zurich 1990, pp. 101–106 (with filmography).
- Thomas Hensel: Image culture as written culture or the future in the firelight of media criticism. François Truffaut's "Fahrenheit 451". In: Frank Hörnlein, Herbert Heinecke (eds.): Future in Film. Social Science Studies on Star Trek and Other Science Fiction. Scriptum, Magdeburg 2000, pp. 31-54. ISBN 3-933046-47-5 .
- Susanne Juretko: Don Quixote in the media country. Man as a metaphorical medium of the media. (Comparative analysis of books and films), European University Press, Bochum 2005, ISBN 3-932329-22-8 (= film and television , volume 1, at the same time dissertation at the University of Bochum 2002).
web links
- Fahrenheit 451 at the Internet Movie Database
- Fahrenheit 451 in the German synchronous file
- Fahrenheit 451 atRottenTomatoes
- Ulrich Behrens: Discussion in the film headquarters
itemizations
- ↑ a b Fahrenheit 451. In: Lexicon of international film . Filmdienst , retrieved March 2, 2017 .
- ↑ Spiegel.de .
- ↑ Fahrenheit 451. In: synchronkartei.de. Deutsche Synchronkartei , retrieved April 7, 2020 .