turner@ucbesvax.UUCP (03/04/84)
The mention of Fahrenheit 451 in "double features redux" reminded me of it--unpleasant memory it was, too. Does anyone agree with me when I say that it was one of the most revoltingly inaccurate adaptations of a novel ever committed to celluloid? I mean, they got *everything* wrong, down to the color of Montague's hair. Oscar Werner--wotta zombie! And the mangling of the scene at the end--pedants mooning about, mouthing their memorized books in the purity of light snow--where the book has the gritty realism of literate outcasts by the railroad tracks, backlit by a nuclear war. Truffaut shouldn't have been allowed anywhere near that project. A total waste of Bradbury's finest novel. Especially considering that we now have the SFX to do it straight, right down the night chase scene with procaine-needle-fanged robotic hunting hound, Bradbury's most chilling creation by far. (The 1984 helicopter replacement in Truffaut's botch left me quite cold.) The book is night-moody in atmosphere, but Truffaut sets all the night scenes during the day--muggy, overcast washed-out days, too. He even substitutes a monorail for the underground train-station--on a continent worm-eaten with underground rail! Pure Sci-Fi Kitsch. How could a citizen of a formerly Nazi-occupied country do such a lousy job of portraying institutionalized book-burning? That's what I want to know. --- Michael Turner (ucbvax!ucbesvax.turner)