FAHRENHEIT 451 (1966) **1/2 Sci-fi (Ray Bradbury) pulp fiction through the lens of Francois Truffaut. He does a good job of inflating things a bit with warmly idiosyncratic shots but the reality is that it would have been more fertile ground for a Saturday Night Live skit back in the days of the geniuses. Anyone else directs this and I'm laughing at it. In the future it's illegal for guys to have long hair, or for anyone to have a book. So everyone watches a lot of television, is shallow, can't even think of an answer when the television talks to them, has to do uppers to stay awake, wants to be popular, etc. The worst of it is that the tv doesn't even call them "brothers and sisters," but instead opts for "cousins." It's a fairly safe premise and allows for plenty of colouring around the daily routine. Far more interesting are the unintended revelations of the heroic readers. They do stuff like die in fires because they don't want to leave their books, make their wives sleep alone until they turn them in to the book cops (the fire department), and eventually wander around the forest in an electron configuration of abject isolation babbling lines of their favorite book. None of them are communicating on any level. Julie Christie plays two roles, and argues visually in favor of long hair.
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