DVD 112

In Collection
#2339

Drama

Oskar Werner	Montag
Julie Christie	Linda
Cyril Cusack	Captain
Anton Diffring	Fabian
Jeremy Spenser	Man with the Apple
Bee Duffell	Book Woman
Gillian Lewis	TV Announcer
Caroline Hunt	Helen
Anna Palk	Jackie
Alex Scott

Director	François Truffaut; Francois Truffaut; Laurent Bouzereau
Producer	Lewis Allen
Writer	Francois Richard; Francois Truffaut

In the future, an oppressive government maintains control of public opinion by outlawing literature and maintaining a group of enforcers known as "firemen" to perform the necessary book burnings. This is the premise of Ray Bradbury 's acclaimed science-fiction novel Fahrenheit 451 , which became the source material for French director Francois Truffaut 's English-language debut. While some liberties are taken with the description of the world, the narrative remains the same, as fireman Montag ( Oskar Werner ) begins to question the morality of his vocation. Curious about the world of books, he soon falls in love with a beautiful young member of a pro-literature underground — and with literature itself. Critics were divided on the effectiveness of the result; some praised the unique design and eerie color cinematography by Nicolas Roeg , while others found the film's stylized approach overly distancing and attacked the central performances as unnatural. In any case, however, the film inarguably succeeds in making Truffaut's reverence for the written word abundantly clear, especially during the film's justifiably famous finale. — Judd Blaise