There are films that are so famous that you think you know a lot about it without really watching it. Then you watch it and you realize that you didn't know anything about it. Of course. Because a film is a self-generating presence. It exists only NOW and that NOW needs a screen and time to develop itself in front of your eyes/ears/body.
So I watched Fahrenheit 451 for the first time tonight! It's strange that I haven't had a chance to watch it when I am a fan of Truffaut! The film was interesting, all right. The plot was a little too forced, but still very interesting. And the famous final scene in the snow was moving enough.
Yet come to think of it, perhaps the hidden theme of the film is the quation 1 human = 1 book. Hmmm. It must be so. By abolishing the mémoire-aide in print, we go back to the age of orality. So the story is a double critique! Against the culture that abolishes books, and the culture in which there are too many books.
So in the realm of "book keeping," there is a constant struggle among the principles of "zero," "one," and "many." In my room everywhere books are accumulated like so many fallen leaves. Sometimes I have an urge to discharge all of them. Back to the zero stage. Then I pick up and read one book. And the one leads to two, and so on and on.
I enjoyed the film. At one point there is a boy who appears in the corridor of a school. Hey, I know who he is. That's Mark Lester! The star of my generation, I wonder where he is and what he is doing now...
