Based on the 1951 Ray Bradbury novel, Guy Montag (Oskar Werner) is a part of a book burning squad in the future. The world is a cold heartless place where the totalitarian government has banned all books. His wife Linda (Julie Christie) as well as the rest of society has been drugged and watching TV constantly. He falls for his lively neighbor Clarisse (Julie Christie) who turns out to be a book reader and he reads books that he confiscates.

It's certainly an interesting piece of art. However I'm not sure it's a great movie. There is a cold sterilized feel to the movie. The style is definitely dated. It's a sci-fi more in keeping with the earlier era with a human touch delivered by great french filmmaker François Truffaut. He gives the somewhat flawed but fascinating source material an European touch. The dystopia world should be a lot more scarier but Truffaut is set on making the audience think. The poetic ending is fascinating but still flawed. Nevertheless, it is a very cool idea.

This film has a very "odd" feel to it when you watch it--thanks in part to the unusual and minimalistic sets and special effects as well as the use of an all-European cast. When I first read the novel by Ray Bradbury, I hadn't envisioned Montag and his crew as English-speaking German actors and while this seems a tad strange, it does work. But, this along with Oskar Werner's strangely subdued performance make this a unique film. However, the oddest casting of all was Julie Christie as BOTH Montag's vacuous wife AND his eventual mistress who helps him run away from his job as a fireman.

Now in this film, the job of a fireman is VERY different from today's. Instead of putting out fires, the firemen in the movie are agents of the government whose job it is to enforce a total ban on all books by burning them! The logic, we are told, is that books "give people all kinds of silly ideas and lead to arguments and wars". And, the people being mostly idiotic sheep like Montag's wife, they blindly accept this. However, after a while, Montag begins to wonder and think for himself....a VERY dangerous thing indeed!! What happens next and the very bizarre final scenes in the film are really best left for you to discover yourself. I really liked the movie and book, though, because they have so much to say about society and freedom--something that helps this sci-fi story to transcend the medium and provide a wonderful metaphor for modern life.

Ray Bradbury's disturbing vision of a possible future comes vividly alive in this film adaption of Fahrenheit 451. Reading for pleasure is now banned although I imagine you must have a certain degree of literacy to read food can labels and directions to operate all kinds of machinery. But read for enjoyment or for education about the world beyond the small space of earth you frequent, that's a big no-no in this future America.

Oskar Werner stars in Fahrenheit 451, he plays a fireman who have a different function in this society. Buildings and such are now fireproof so fireman have become the enforcers of the ban against books. They seek and burn books in whatever quantities they find. A good job in a police state, but not a good one if you have an inquiring mind such as Werner has.

Julie Christie plays two roles, Werner's pleasure driven wife and a schoolteacher whose unorthodox for that society's teaching methods have brought her under scrutiny. She does a good job in both characterizations.

Bradbury's themes are grounded in reality. Looking at American history it was a crime in many slave holding states to educate a slave. Let them be happy in their ignorance and they might not get ideas about a better life and won't rebel.

But this is a society that's beyond that kind of formal slavery so the answer is the old Roman one of bread&circuses. The circus in this case is television which has evolved into an interactive medium. The vast wasteland that Newton Minow characterized television as back in the day has gone beyond anything Minow was having visions about. Entertainment has really dumbed down and the circuses aren't too far from what used to entertain the Romans.

In the supporting cast you will remember Cyril Cusack as the fire brigade captain who functions as the spokesman for this new world and Bee Duffring as the book lady who martyrs herself for knowledge in an unforgettable scene.

The ending is not Bradbury's, but one written by director Francois Truffaut. It is very much however in the spirit of the novel and a tribute to mankind's unquenchable thirst for knowledge. Don't miss Fahrenheit 451 when broadcast.