The link below will take you to a few of the final scenes of Truffaut's film version of FAHRENHEIT 451, featuring the Book People in the forest. It's my favorite part of the film, with Bernard Herrmann's superb score being the proverbial "icing on the cake":
And my next-to-favorite scene in Truffaut's FAHRENHEIT 451: the title sequence. No written words, just a narrator speaking in a monotone over a series of colorized stills of television antennas, with Bernard Herrmann's score in the background. Brilliant!
In keeping with this thread's theme of Truffaut's film of FAHRENHEIT 451, the link below will take you to almost seven minutes of Bernard Herrmann's score, accompanied by photos and short movie clips. Herrmann has always been my favorite composer for film, and his score for FAHRENHEIT 451 is one of his most haunting and beautiful.
Herrmann, for all his incredible talent, was a notoriously difficult person. Ray once told me that he and others were invited to someone's home to listen to a recording of an new opera version of MOBY DICK that Herrmann had composed. Herrmann was present as well. At the end of the recording, Ray told me that he, as well as the other guests, were struck by the beauty of what they had heard, and remained silent for a few moments, taking it all in. Ray said Herrmann was furious when the listeners did not immediately respond with enthusiasm and praise for the recording, and proceeded to start to storm out of the home. Ray said it took him and other listeners several minutes to explain to Herrmann that they had been struck by the beauty of his opera, and that their momentary silence was not to be interpreted as a dislike of the work. Again, a difficult man.
For more information about the life and work of Bernard Herrmann, I strongly recommend the terrific biography written about him, A HEART AT FIRE'S CENTER: THE LIFE AND MUSIC OF BERNARD HERRMANN, by Steven C. Smith.
For those who may be interested in learning more about the life and music of Bernard Herrmann, who wrote the music for FAHRENHEIT 451, the link below will take you to a short documentary on the composer. The show places its greatest emphasis on Herrmann's ground-breaking, all-string score for Alfred Hitchcock's 1960 film, PSYCHO, which has perhaps become the most imitated score in film history:
The link below will take you to the complete soundtrack to the Francois Truffaut film of FAHRENHEIT 451, recorded in 2007. The Moscow Symphony Orchestra, conducted by William Stromberg, performs Bernard Herrmann's brilliant score, one of Herrmann's finest in a long and distinguished career:
From the FrenchFilms.org website, the link below will take you to an excellent review and analysis of Francois Truffaut's film of FAHRENHEIT 451. What is especially interesting is that the review includes background information on the production taken from the diary Truffaut kept regarding the making of the film:
Originally posted by Richard: The link below will take you to the complete soundtrack to the Francois Truffaut film of FAHRENHEIT 451, recorded in 2007. The Moscow Symphony Orchestra, conducted by William Stromberg, performs Bernard Herrmann's brilliant score, one of Herrmann's finest in a long and distinguished career:
Awesome, thanks for this! While I love Truffaut's films, I generally feel that 451 was his exercise in trying on the Hitchcock hat after their famous recorded discussions. It definitely has it's moments though, and the world is better for another Hermann score!
Posts: 411 | Location: Azusa, CA | Registered: 11 February 2003
groon, with respect to the Hitchcock influence on Truffaut, I think it may have been even more pronounced in his very next film, THE BRIDE WORE BLACK, which was also scored by Bernard Herrmann. Interestingly, per the liner notes for the 2007 CD release of Herrmann's FH451 score, when Herrmann asked Truffaut why he did not ask some other then-current composers to score his film, Truffaut responded: "They'll give me music of the twentieth century but you'll give me music of the twenty first!" And for a very complimentary 2014 review of FAHRENHEIT 451 (including Herrmann's score) by the late Charles Silver, former Curator of the Department of Film at the Museum of Modern Art, just click on the link below:
