Rating summary

Movie		3.0
Video		4.5
Audio		4.0
Extras		0.5
Overall		3.0

Fahrenheit 451 Blu-ray Movie Review

Not so hot.

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman September 28, 2018

Godard Mon Amour provided a supposed “backstage” look at a sea change in the cinematic life of one the titans of French cinema, during the raucous era of the mid-sixties. I began our Godard Mon Amour Blu-ray review with a joking “pop quiz” of sorts where I asked readers to instantly name a French film director, concluding that the vast majority of readers might almost automatically name either Jean-Luc Godard or François Truffaut. In that regard, while perhaps not as intentionally dense and obsfuscatory as La Chinoise, the Godard film at the center of Godard Mon Amour, was in Godard’s already increasingly thorny body of work, there is a rather odd mid-sixties film from Truffaut, at least within the context of his overall career. Truffaut’s 1966 adaptation of Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451 doesn’t seem to fit very snugly into Truffaut’s oeuvre, and, among other things, it stands as the only English language film the vaunted auteur made. The 1966 version of Bradbury’s iconic story met with mixed reaction, with many finding fault with Julie Christie’s dual role, but the film had some really evocative cinematography courtesy of Nicolas Roeg and one of Bernard Herrmann’s more interesting scores. Some of the depictions of “futuristic” life in the 1966 Fahrenheit 451 seem positively prescient, including nonstop “news” (fake or otherwise) on flat panel screens attached to (or actually part of) walls, and the underlying story of a tyrannical all knowing, all seeing State depriving citizens of books served as a chilling metaphor for oppression and “group think”. Now more than fifty years after Truffaut’s kind of odd film, HBO has revisted the venerable property, giving the presentation a few visual bells and whistles that were missing from the Truffaut version, but at times not really dealing adequately with several huge historical differences that have accrued since 1966, including “little” things like the internet.

Is it possible to craft a “thoughtful” science fiction piece about the oppression of people generally, and specifically with regard to reading material, in an age where everyone is interconnected and information, if not knowledge, is literally at everyone’s fingertips? That seems to be the central question that this Fahrenheit 451 is either unwilling or unable to address adequately. There are stabs made at a kind of HAL-ish entity known as Yuxie, as well as this particular future’s version of the “internet” (heavily policed, of course), but the whole underlying aspect of history being erased and reading material being banned is weirdly jettisoned or only alluded to in this version, a perhaps debilitating excision.

Instead, Fahrenheit 451 flirts with a design aesthetic that is one part 2001: A Space Odyssey, one part Blade Runner , as it documents the slow but steady awakening of “fireman” Guy Montag (Michael B. Jordan), who is of course tasked with starting fires (i.e., burning books) rather than extinguishing them. Montag is mentored by Captain John Beatty (Michael Shannon), who masks his martinet tendencies with some genuine concern for his charge. The film begins with a really well done credits sequence that melds a Kafka quote with one from the United States Constitution, and which then shows a variety of iconic works from world literature being destroyed by flames, but once the film actually gets to Montag and Beatty, things become a bit more moribund, despite obvious attempts to inject excitement into the proceedings by having bit marauding forces burst into homes to destroy hidden caches of information.

There are some variances from both Bradbury's source novel and the 1966 film adaptation, some with regard to informant slash revolutionary Clarisse (Sofia Boutella), something that may deprive the story of a needed emotional hook. Without a romantic interest (at least for a while), the story revolves instead around the relationship between Montag and Beatty, to fitful effect.

But co-writers Ramin Bahrani (who also directed) and Amir Naderi just don’t seem to trust Bradbury’s source material enough, adding all sorts of supposedly “hip” verbiage to make the property more contemporary seeming. The internet is “the 9” (why?) and the book lovers are Eels (again, why?), along with other allusions that are there simply to add a bit of an exotic feel but which end up signifying nothing (why “Stay Vivid”, the motto that is seen ubiquitously throughout the story?). This Fahrenheit 451 excels in some of its stylized conceits, but from a story perspective, it’s largely burnt out.

Fahrenheit 451 Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Fahrenheit 451 is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of HBO Films with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 1.78:1. Once again, the IMDb doesn't offer much in the way of technical data, but your intrepid reviewer found this interview with cinematographer Kramer Morgenthau that admittedly sounds a bit like a Panavision puff piece (you'll note it's hosted on Panavision's site), but which states Morgenthau digitally captured the imagery with Sony Varicam models, at what sounds like a source resolution of 4K. Unless I missed it, the interview doesn't state whether this was finished at a 2K or 4K DI, but one way or the other, this is an often wonderfully detailed presentation, something that's all the more remarkable due to the fact that so much of it so so heavily and variously graded, and how much of it takes place in the dark (both of which can be seen in many of the screenshots accompanying this review). Shadow detail is well above average in even really dusky shots, and in brighter lighting fine detail is often exceptional. The palette can't exactly be called "natural" looking due to the wide variety of grading and lighting conditions utilized, but it is also widely variant and is nicely suffused almost all of the time. There were a couple of very brief flirtations with banding when darkness suddenly gave way to some form of light (flame or otherwise), but other than that this is a very pleasing transfer that my hunch is the film's fans will enjoy.

Fahrenheit 451 Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Fahrenheit 451 features a DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 track that tends to provide surround activity in fits and starts depending on how much activity is going on in the frame. Some of the "raid" scenes really bristle with excellent immersion, along with at least occasional jolts of LFE, but there are also pretty long talky segments where there isn't even a ton of ambient environmental noise. There is really good attention paid to the ambient reverb in some of the cavernous interiors in the Ministry. All elements are delivered cleanly and clearly on this problem free track.

Fahrenheit 451 Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Behind the Fire (1080p; 4:41) is standard issue EPK fare, with a few brief interviews interspersed with behind the scenes footage and snippets from the final film.

Fahrenheit 451 Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

This Fahrenheit 451 offers significant allure in terms of its stylized presentational proclivities, but emotionally it strangely fails to connect. There's nothing even remotely as moving as the final scene in Truffaut's version of the film, despite an attempt at a sort of "poetic" wrap to this particular version of the tale. Technical merits are solid for those considering a purchase.