Fahrenheit 451 is a 1966 British dystopian drama film directed by François Truffaut and starring Julie Christie, Oskar Werner, and Cyril Cusack. Based on the 1953 novel of the same name by Ray Bradbury, the film takes place in a controlled society in an oppressive future, in which the government sends out firemen to destroy all literature to prevent revolution and thinking. This was Truffaut's first colour film and his only non French-language film. At the 1966 Venice Film Festival, Fahrenheit 451 was nominated for the Golden Lion. Background Based on one of Ray Bradbury's most famous novels, Fahrenheit 451 came out in 1966, one year after a dystopian film named Alphaville was released, directed by his friend and fellow filmmaker Jean Luc Godard. Truffaut wrote in a letter, "You mustn't think that 'Alphaville' will do any harm whatsoever to 'Fahrenheit'", but he was mistaken. Truffaut's adaptation differed from the novel by portraying Montag and Clarisse falling in love. Another notable aspect of the film is that Julie Christie plays two characters, Clarisse and Montag's wife Mildred, whose name was changed to Linda in the adaptation. Plot In the future, a totalitarian government employs a force known as Firemen to seek out and destroy all literature. They have the power to search anyone, anywhere, at any time, and burn any books they find. One of the firemen, Guy Montag, meets one of his neighbours, Clarisse, a young schoolteacher who may be fired due to her unorthodox views. The two have a discussion about his job, where she asks whether he ever reads the books he burns. Curious, he begins to hide books in his house and read them, starting with Charles Dickens's David Copperfield. This leads to conflict with his wife, Linda, who is more concerned with being popular enough to be a member of The Family, an interactive television programme that refers to its viewers as "cousins". At the house of an illegal book collector, the fire captain, Beatty, talks with Montag at length about how books make people unhappy and make them want to think that they are better than others, which is considered anti-social. The book collector, an old woman who was seen with Clarisse a few times during Montag's rides to and from work, refuses to leave her house, opting instead to burn herself and the house, so that she can die with her books. Returning