Reception
Critics at the time felt mixed about the film, but in later years the film would be liked for what it was, a story of one possible future. Time magazine called the film a "weirdly gay little picture that assails with both horror and humor all forms of tyranny over the mind of man"; it "strongly supports the widely held suspicion that cannot actually act. Though she plays two women of diametrically divergent dispositions, they seem in her portrayal to differ only in their hairdos." They also noted that the film's "somewhat remote theme challenged technical competence more than his heart; the finished film displays the artisan more than the artist."
Bosley Crowther called the film a "pretentious and pedantic production" based on "an idea that called for slashing satire of a sort beyond grasp, and with language he couldn't fashion into lively and witty dialogue. The consequence is a dull picture—dully fashioned and dully played—which is rendered all the more sullen by the dazzling color in which it is photographed."
The film was nominated for a 1967 Hugo Award in the "Best Dramatic Presentation" category, along with Fantastic Voyage and 3 episodes of Star Trek. It lost out to the Star Trek episode "The Menagerie".
Martin Scorsese has called the film an "underrated picture" which had influenced his own films.
Leslie Halliwell described it as "1984 stuff, a little lacking on plot and rather tentatively directed, but with charming moments".
On the review aggregator web site Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds an 83% positive rating among top film critics based on 30 reviews, and a 70% positive audience rating based on 23,863 user ratings.
Author Ray Bradbury has said in later interviews that, despite its flaws, he was pleased with the film. He was particularly fond of the film's climax, where the Book People walk through a snowy countryside reciting the poetry and prose they've memorized, set to Herrmann's melodious score. He found it especially poignant and moving.
Read more about this topic: Fahrenheit 451 (1966 Film)
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