Fahrenheit 451

by Andreas Demler 

This movie review is the final contribution to the course UPM59 I attended to at this years november session of the european exchange program ATHENS in Madrid. This philosophy and science-fiction-movie based seminar on technology and it's discontent held by Salvador Rodríguez Nuero intended to provide information highlighting the relation between science, technology and society: For this purpose, we analysed the way Science-Fiction films represent, show or mirror hopes and fears, desires and anxieties of contemporary society. Special attention was paid not only to plot analysis (or narration), but to the visual and aural strategies which reinforce plot or undermine it.

I chose Francois Truffaut's film 'Fahrenheit 451' from 1966, because i`ve read the novel it's based on some years ago in school. The distopic story written by Ray Bradbury in 1953 coinceded with many of the courses' topics, so i considered it as very suitable. Watching Truffaut's adaption of Fahrenheit 451 as rather free interpreted but excellent piece of art I unfortunatelly found some noticable differences, especially concerning the technical science-fiction part, but nevertheless this version is quite adequate to be analized on this occasion.