Bee Duffell in Fahrenheit 451 (1966, dir. Francois Truffaut)
“There must be something in books, things we can’t imagine, to make a woman stay in a burning house; there must be something there. You don’t stay for nothing.”
-Ray Bradbury, Fahrenheit 451
![Fahrenheit 451 (1966, dir. Francois Truffaut)
“Someone told me the story of Ray Bradbury’s novel, Fahrenheit 451, because I was saying science fiction is uninteresting and arbitrary. But when I was told, ‘This is about a society where books are banned, and where the firemen, instead of putting out fires, burn the books that they find,’ I wanted to make the movie, because I wanted to show books in difficulty, almost as if they were people in difficulty. It took me years to raise the money, and finally I had to make the picture in England, which was a serious handicap, but I kept the same idea.
There were four or five book-burnings [in the film]. In the first one you could see the books in piles of 10 and 20, while in the last one you could read the type as it was consumed by the flames, you could see the pages curling, and I wanted the audience to suffer as if it were seeing animals or people burning.”
-Francois Truffaut](http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_l5ozmhUiSL1qzdvhio1_r4_500.jpg)
Fahrenheit 451 (1966, dir. Francois Truffaut)
“Someone told me the story of Ray Bradbury’s novel, Fahrenheit 451, because I was saying science fiction is uninteresting and arbitrary. But when I was told, ‘This is about a society where books are banned, and where the firemen, instead of putting out fires, burn the books that they find,’ I wanted to make the movie, because I wanted to show books in difficulty, almost as if they were people in difficulty. It took me years to raise the money, and finally I had to make the picture in England, which was a serious handicap, but I kept the same idea.
There were four or five book-burnings [in the film]. In the first one you could see the books in piles of 10 and 20, while in the last one you could read the type as it was consumed by the flames, you could see the pages curling, and I wanted the audience to suffer as if it were seeing animals or people burning.”
-Francois Truffaut
![Bee Duffell (L) and Francois Truffaut on the set of Fahrenheit 451 (1966)
“Like me, Antoine [in The 400 Blows] is against violence because it signifies confrontation. For me, what replaces violence is running away, not from what is essential but in order to obtain what is essential. That is what I showed in Fahrenheit 451. This is the most important aspect of the film, the apology for cunning. ‘Oh, really, so books are banned? Fine, we’ll learn them by heart!’ This is the ultimate cunning.”
(via)](http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m0p41xBXOP1qzdvhio1_r1_500.jpg)
Bee Duffell (L) and Francois Truffaut on the set of Fahrenheit 451 (1966)
“Like me, Antoine [in The 400 Blows] is against violence because it signifies confrontation. For me, what replaces violence is running away, not from what is essential but in order to obtain what is essential. That is what I showed in Fahrenheit 451. This is the most important aspect of the film, the apology for cunning. ‘Oh, really, so books are banned? Fine, we’ll learn them by heart!’ This is the ultimate cunning.”
(via)
Bernard Herrmann - Prelude (Fahrenheit 451: Original Film Score)
“When [Francois] Truffaut spoke to me about doing the score for the film, I said, ‘…You’re a great friend of [avant-garde composers] and this is a film that takes place in the future. Why shouldn’t you ask one of them? ‘Oh no, no,’ he said. ‘They’ll give me music of the twentieth century, but you’ll give me music of the twenty-first.’
I felt that the music of the next century would revert to a great lyrical simplicity and that it wouldn’t have truck with all this mechanistic stuff. Their lives would be scrutinized. In their music they would want something of simple nudity, of great elegance and simplicity. So I said, ‘If I do your picture, that’s the kind of score I want to write- strings, harps, and a few percussion instruments. I’m not interested in all this whoopee stuff that goes on being called the music of the future. I think that’s the music of the past.’”
-Herrmann, quoted in Steven Smith’s A Heart at Fire’s Center: The Life and Music of Bernard Herrmann
Fahrenheit 451 (1966, dir. Francois Truffaut)
