.gif)
Fahrenheit 451 (1966 film)
Encyclopedia
Fahrenheit 451 is a 1966
film
directed by François Truffaut
, in his first colour film as well as his only English-language
film. It is based on the novel of the same name
by Ray Bradbury
.
The film starred Oskar Werner
as Montag and Julie Christie
, who was nominated for a BAFTA Award for Best Actress in a Leading Role
award for the dual roles of Linda (Mildred) Montag and Clarisse.
At the house of a book collector, the captain discusses with Montag at length about how books change people and make them want to be better than others. The book collector, a middle-aged woman, refuses to leave her house, and is burned to death with her books – having started the fire herself with a match. Returning home that day, Montag shocks his wife's friends with a reading from a book (one of whom cries because she now realizes how shallow her life is and remembers the feelings that she repressed over the years). He dreams of Clarisse as the book collector. That same night, Clarisse's house is raided, but she escapes through a trapdoor in the roof. Montag breaks into the captain's office looking for information about the missing Clarisse, and is caught, but not punished.
Montag meets with Clarisse and helps her break back into her house, to destroy papers that would bring the Firemen to others like her. She tells him of the "book people", a hidden sect of people who flout the law, each of whom have memorized a single book to keep it alive. Later, Montag tells the captain he is resigning, but is convinced to go on one more call – which turns out to be Montag's house. His wife has left him and, unable to live with Montag's books, turned him in. Angrily, he destroys the bedroom and television, before setting fire to the books. The captain lectures him about the books, and pulls a last one from Montag's coat, for which Montag kills him. He escapes and finds the book people, where he views his "capture" on television, staged because the government cannot allow him to be alive. Montag selects a book to memorize, and becomes one of them.
Truffaut kept a detailed diary during the production, and this was later published in both French and English (in Cahiers du Cinema in English). In this diary, he called Fahrenheit 451 his "saddest and most difficult" filmmaking experience, mainly because of intense conflicts between Truffaut and Werner.
The film was Universal Pictures
' first European production. Julie Christie was originally just cast as Linda Montag, not both Linda and Clarisse. The part of Clarisse was offered to both Jean Seberg
and Jane Fonda
. After much thought, Truffaut decided that the characters should not have a villain/hero relationship, but rather be two sides of the same coin, and cast Christie in both roles, although the idea came from the producer, Lewis M. Allen
.
In an interview from 1998, Charles Aznavour
said he was Truffaut's first choice to play the role eventually given to Werner; Aznavour said Jean-Paul Belmondo
was the director's second choice, but the film's producers refused on the grounds that both of them were not familiar enough for the English speaking audience. Paul Newman
, Peter O'Toole
and Montgomery Clift
were also considered for the role of Montag; Terence Stamp
was cast, but dropped out when he feared being overshadowed by Christie's dual roles in the film.
Laurence Olivier
, Michael Redgrave
and Sterling Hayden
were considered for the role of the captain before Cyril Cusack
was cast.
The film was shot at Pinewood Studios
in England
, with the monorail
exterior scene taken at the French SAFEGE
test track, in Châteauneuf-sur-Loire
near Orléans
, France
(since dismantled). The film featured the Alton housing estate in Roehampton
, South London and also Edgcumbe Park in Crowthorne
, Berkshire. The final scene of the Book People was filmed in a rare and unexpected snowstorm that occurred on Julie Christie's birthday.
The production work was done in French, as Truffaut spoke virtually no English, but co-wrote the screenplay with Jean-Louis Ricard. Truffaut expressed disappointment with the often stilted and unnatural English-language dialogue. He was much happier with the version that was dubbed into French
.
The movie's opening credits are spoken rather than displayed in type, which might be the director's hint of what life would be like in an illiterate culture.
Tony Walton
did costumes and production design, while Syd Cain
did art direction.
Clarisse survives to the end of the film by escaping a raid on her home and is reunited with Montag when he flees the city. Bradbury was pleased with Truffaut's decision.
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 [Christie] 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 [Truffaut's] 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 [Truffaut's] 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".
The film scores 86% on the Rotten Tomatoes tomato-meter.
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.
to a CD of a rerecording of the film score by William Stromberg conducting the Moscow Symphony Orchestra
, Bradbury had suggested Bernard Herrmann
to Truffaut. Bradbury had visited the set of Torn Curtain
, meeting both Alfred Hitchcock
and Herrmann before Herrmann left the film. When Truffaut contacted Bradbury for a conference about his book, Bradbury recommended Herrmann, as Bradbury knew Truffaut had written a detailed book about Hitchcock.
When Herrmann asked Truffaut why he was chosen over "modern" composers such as the director's friends Pierre Boulez
or Karlheinz Stockhausen
, the director replied that "They'll give me music of the twentieth century, but you'll give me music of the twenty first!"
Herrmann used a score of only string instrument
s, harp
, xylophone
, vibraphone
, marimba
, and glockenspiel
. As with Torn Curtain, Herrmann refused the studio's request to do a title song.
1966 in film
The year 1966 in film involved some significant events.-Events:Animation legend Walter Disney, well known for his creation of Mickey Mouse, died in 15 December 1966 of acute circulatory collapse following a diagnosis of, and surgery for, lung cancer...
film
Film
A film, also called a movie or motion picture, is a series of still or moving images. It is produced by recording photographic images with cameras, or by creating images using animation techniques or visual effects...
directed by François Truffaut
François Truffaut
François Roland Truffaut was an influential film critic and filmmaker and one of the founders of the French New Wave. In a film career lasting over a quarter of a century, he remains an icon of the French film industry. He was also a screenwriter, producer, and actor working on over twenty-five...
, in his first colour film as well as his only English-language
English language
English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...
film. It is based on the novel of the same name
Fahrenheit 451
Fahrenheit 451 is a 1953 dystopian novel by Ray Bradbury. The novel presents a future American society where reading is outlawed and firemen start fires to burn books...
by Ray Bradbury
Ray Bradbury
Ray Douglas Bradbury is an American fantasy, horror, science fiction, and mystery writer. Best known for his dystopian novel Fahrenheit 451 and for the science fiction stories gathered together as The Martian Chronicles and The Illustrated Man , Bradbury is one of the most celebrated among 20th...
.
The film starred Oskar Werner
Oskar Werner
-Early life:Born Oskar Josef Bschließmayer in Vienna, Werner spent much of his childhood in the care of his grandmother, who entertained him with stories about the Burgtheater, the Austrian state theatre, where he was accepted at the age of eighteen by Lothar Müthel. He was the youngest person ever...
as Montag and Julie Christie
Julie Christie
Julie Frances Christie is a British actress. Born in British India to English parents, at the age of six Christie moved to England, where she attended boarding school....
, who was nominated for a BAFTA Award for Best Actress in a Leading Role
BAFTA Award for Best Actress in a Leading Role
Best Actress in a Leading Role is a British Academy Film award presented annually by the British Academy of Film and Television Arts to recognise an actress who has delivered an outstanding leading performance in a film.- Winners and nominees :...
award for the dual roles of Linda (Mildred) Montag and Clarisse.
Plot summary
In the future, a totalitarian government employs a force known as Firemen, to seek out and destroy all literature, permitting them to search anyone, anywhere, at any time. One of the Firemen, Montag, begins to question the idea of book burning. One day, on his way home on the tram, he meets one of his neighbors, Clarisse, and they have a discussion about his job, where she asks if he ever reads the books. Subsequently, he begins to hide books in his house, and to read them. 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 program that refers to its viewers as "cousins").At the house of a book collector, the captain discusses with Montag at length about how books change people and make them want to be better than others. The book collector, a middle-aged woman, refuses to leave her house, and is burned to death with her books – having started the fire herself with a match. Returning home that day, Montag shocks his wife's friends with a reading from a book (one of whom cries because she now realizes how shallow her life is and remembers the feelings that she repressed over the years). He dreams of Clarisse as the book collector. That same night, Clarisse's house is raided, but she escapes through a trapdoor in the roof. Montag breaks into the captain's office looking for information about the missing Clarisse, and is caught, but not punished.
Montag meets with Clarisse and helps her break back into her house, to destroy papers that would bring the Firemen to others like her. She tells him of the "book people", a hidden sect of people who flout the law, each of whom have memorized a single book to keep it alive. Later, Montag tells the captain he is resigning, but is convinced to go on one more call – which turns out to be Montag's house. His wife has left him and, unable to live with Montag's books, turned him in. Angrily, he destroys the bedroom and television, before setting fire to the books. The captain lectures him about the books, and pulls a last one from Montag's coat, for which Montag kills him. He escapes and finds the book people, where he views his "capture" on television, staged because the government cannot allow him to be alive. Montag selects a book to memorize, and becomes one of them.
Cast
- Oskar WernerOskar Werner-Early life:Born Oskar Josef Bschließmayer in Vienna, Werner spent much of his childhood in the care of his grandmother, who entertained him with stories about the Burgtheater, the Austrian state theatre, where he was accepted at the age of eighteen by Lothar Müthel. He was the youngest person ever...
as Montag - Julie ChristieJulie ChristieJulie Frances Christie is a British actress. Born in British India to English parents, at the age of six Christie moved to England, where she attended boarding school....
as Linda Montag/Clarisse - Cyril CusackCyril CusackCyril James Cusack was an Irish actor, who appeared in more than 90 films.-Early life:Cusack was born in Durban, Natal, South Africa, the son of Alice Violet , an actress, and James Walter Cusack, a sergeant in the Natal mounted police. His parents separated when he was young and his mother took...
as Captain - Anton DiffringAnton DiffringAnton Diffring , born Alfred Pollack, was a German actor.-Biography:Diffring was born in Koblenz...
as Fabian
Production
The film was Universal Pictures
Universal Pictures
-1920:* White Youth* The Flaming Disc* Am I Dreaming?* The Dragon's Net* The Adorable Savage* Putting It Over* The Line Runners-1921:* The Fire Eater* A Battle of Wits* Dream Girl* The Millionaire...
' first European production. Julie Christie was originally just cast as Linda Montag, not both Linda and Clarisse. The part of Clarisse was offered to both Jean Seberg
Jean Seberg
Jean Dorothy Seberg was an American actress. She starred in 37 films in Hollywood and in France, including Breathless , the musical Paint Your Wagon and the disaster film Airport ....
and Jane Fonda
Jane Fonda
Jane Fonda is an American actress, writer, political activist, former fashion model, and fitness guru. She rose to fame in the 1960s with films such as Barbarella and Cat Ballou. She has won two Academy Awards and received several other movie awards and nominations during more than 50 years as an...
. After much thought, Truffaut decided that the characters should not have a villain/hero relationship, but rather be two sides of the same coin, and cast Christie in both roles, although the idea came from the producer, Lewis M. Allen
Lewis M. Allen
Lewis Maitland Allen born 27 June 1922 Berryville, Virginia died 8 December 2003 New York City was an American film producer and Tony Award winning Broadway producer. He was married to screenwriter Jay Presson Allen...
.
In an interview from 1998, Charles Aznavour
Charles Aznavour
Charles Aznavour, OC is an Armenian-French singer, songwriter, actor, public activist and diplomat. Besides being one of France's most popular and enduring singers, he is also one of the best-known singers in the world...
said he was Truffaut's first choice to play the role eventually given to Werner; Aznavour said Jean-Paul Belmondo
Jean-Paul Belmondo
Jean-Paul Belmondo is a French actor initially associated with the New Wave of the 1960s.-Career:Born in Neuilly-sur-Seine, Hauts-de-Seine, west of Paris, Belmondo did not perform well in school, but developed a passion for boxing and football."Did you box professionally very long?" "Not very long...
was the director's second choice, but the film's producers refused on the grounds that both of them were not familiar enough for the English speaking audience. Paul Newman
Paul Newman
Paul Leonard Newman was an American actor, film director, entrepreneur, humanitarian, professional racing driver and auto racing enthusiast...
, Peter O'Toole
Peter O'Toole
Peter Seamus Lorcan O'Toole is an Irish actor of stage and screen. O'Toole achieved stardom in 1962 playing T. E. Lawrence in Lawrence of Arabia, and then went on to become a highly-honoured film and stage actor. He has been nominated for eight Academy Awards, and holds the record for most...
and Montgomery Clift
Montgomery Clift
Edward Montgomery Clift was an American film and stage actor. The New York Times’ obituary noted his portrayal of "moody, sensitive young men"....
were also considered for the role of Montag; Terence Stamp
Terence Stamp
Terence Henry Stamp is an English actor. Since starting his career in 1962 he has appeared in over 60 films. His title role as Billy Budd in his film debut earned Stamp an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actor and a BAFTA nomination for Best Newcomer.His other major roles include...
was cast, but dropped out when he feared being overshadowed by Christie's dual roles in the film.
Laurence Olivier
Laurence Olivier
Laurence Kerr Olivier, Baron Olivier, OM was an English actor, director, and producer. He was one of the most famous and revered actors of the 20th century. He married three times, to fellow actors Jill Esmond, Vivien Leigh, and Joan Plowright...
, Michael Redgrave
Michael Redgrave
Sir Michael Scudamore Redgrave, CBE was an English stage and film actor, director, manager and author.-Youth and education:...
and Sterling Hayden
Sterling Hayden
Sterling Hayden was an American actor and author. For most of his career as a leading man, he specialized in westerns and film noir, such as Johnny Guitar, The Asphalt Jungle and The Killing. Later on he became noted as a character actor for such roles as Gen. Jack D. Ripper in Dr...
were considered for the role of the captain before Cyril Cusack
Cyril Cusack
Cyril James Cusack was an Irish actor, who appeared in more than 90 films.-Early life:Cusack was born in Durban, Natal, South Africa, the son of Alice Violet , an actress, and James Walter Cusack, a sergeant in the Natal mounted police. His parents separated when he was young and his mother took...
was cast.
The film was shot at Pinewood Studios
Pinewood Studios
Pinewood Studios is a major British film studio situated in Iver Heath, Buckinghamshire, approximately west of central London. The studios have played host to many productions over the years from huge blockbuster films to television shows to commercials to pop promos.The purchase of Shepperton...
in England
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
, with the monorail
Monorail
A monorail is a rail-based transportation system based on a single rail, which acts as its sole support and its guideway. The term is also used variously to describe the beam of the system, or the vehicles traveling on such a beam or track...
exterior scene taken at the French SAFEGE
SAFEGE
SAFEGE is an acronym for the French consortium Société Anonyme Française d' Etude de Gestion et d' Entreprises and is pronounced SAY-fij in English....
test track, in Châteauneuf-sur-Loire
Châteauneuf-sur-Loire
Châteauneuf-sur-Loire is a commune in the Loiret department in north-central France.-See also:*Communes of the Loiret department...
near Orléans
Orléans
-Prehistory and Roman:Cenabum was a Gallic stronghold, one of the principal towns of the Carnutes tribe where the Druids held their annual assembly. It was conquered and destroyed by Julius Caesar in 52 BC, then rebuilt under the Roman Empire...
, France
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
(since dismantled). The film featured the Alton housing estate in Roehampton
Roehampton
Roehampton is a district in south-west London, forming the western end of the London Borough of Wandsworth. It lies between the town of Barnes to the north, Putney to the east and Wimbledon Common to the south. The Richmond Park golf courses are west of the neighbourhood, and just south of these is...
, South London and also Edgcumbe Park in Crowthorne
Crowthorne
Crowthorne is also a suburb of Johannesburg, South AfricaCrowthorne is a village and civil parish in the Bracknell Forest district of south-eastern Berkshire. It has a population of 6,711...
, Berkshire. The final scene of the Book People was filmed in a rare and unexpected snowstorm that occurred on Julie Christie's birthday.
The production work was done in French, as Truffaut spoke virtually no English, but co-wrote the screenplay with Jean-Louis Ricard. Truffaut expressed disappointment with the often stilted and unnatural English-language dialogue. He was much happier with the version that was dubbed into French
French language
French is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts...
.
The movie's opening credits are spoken rather than displayed in type, which might be the director's hint of what life would be like in an illiterate culture.
Tony Walton
Tony Walton
Tony Walton is an English set and costume designer.Walton was born in Walton-on-Thames, Surrey, England, United Kingdom. He began his career in 1957 with the stage design for Noel Coward's Broadway production of Conversation Piece. Throughout the late 1950s and early 1960s he designed for the New...
did costumes and production design, while Syd Cain
Syd Cain
Sidney B. "Syd" Cain was a British production designer who worked on more than 30 films, including four in the James Bond series in the 1960s and 1970s....
did art direction.
Clarisse survives to the end of the film by escaping a raid on her home and is reunited with Montag when he flees the city. Bradbury was pleased with Truffaut's decision.
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 [Christie] 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 [Truffaut's] technical competence more than his heart; the finished film displays the artisan more than the artist."
Bosley Crowther
Bosley Crowther
Bosley Crowther was a journalist and author who was film critic for The New York Times for 27 years. His reviews and articles helped shape the careers of actors, directors and screenwriters, though his reviews, at times, were unnecessarily mean...
called the film a "pretentious and pedantic production" based on "an idea that called for slashing satire of a sort beyond [Truffaut's] 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
Hugo Award
The Hugo Awards are given annually for the best science fiction or fantasy works and achievements of the previous year. The award is named after Hugo Gernsback, the founder of the pioneering science fiction magazine Amazing Stories, and was officially named the Science Fiction Achievement Awards...
in the "Best Dramatic Presentation" category, along with Fantastic Voyage
Fantastic Voyage
Fantastic Voyage is a 1966 science fiction film written by Harry Kleiner, based on a story by Otto Klement and Jerome Bixby.Bantam Books obtained the rights for a paperback novelization based on the screenplay and approached Isaac Asimov to write it....
and 3 episodes of Star Trek
Star Trek: The Original Series
Star Trek is an American science fiction television series created by Gene Roddenberry, produced by Desilu Productions . Star Trek was telecast on NBC from September 8, 1966, through June 3, 1969...
. It lost out to the Star Trek episode "The Menagerie".
Martin Scorsese
Martin Scorsese
Martin Charles Scorsese is an American film director, screenwriter, producer, actor, and film historian. In 1990 he founded The Film Foundation, a nonprofit organization dedicated to film preservation, and in 2007 he founded the World Cinema Foundation...
has called the film an "underrated picture" which had influenced his own films.
Leslie Halliwell
Leslie Halliwell
Robert James Leslie Halliwell was a British film encyclopaedist and television impresario who in 1965 compiled The Filmgoer's Companion, the first one-volume encyclopaedia devoted to all aspects of the cinema. He followed it a dozen years later with Halliwell's Film Guide, another monumental work...
described it as "1984
Nineteen Eighty-Four
Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell is a dystopian novel about Oceania, a society ruled by the oligarchical dictatorship of the Party...
stuff, a little lacking on plot and rather tentatively directed, but with charming moments".
The film scores 86% on the Rotten Tomatoes tomato-meter.
Author Ray Bradbury
Ray Bradbury
Ray Douglas Bradbury is an American fantasy, horror, science fiction, and mystery writer. Best known for his dystopian novel Fahrenheit 451 and for the science fiction stories gathered together as The Martian Chronicles and The Illustrated Man , Bradbury is one of the most celebrated among 20th...
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.
Music
According to an introduction by Ray BradburyRay Bradbury
Ray Douglas Bradbury is an American fantasy, horror, science fiction, and mystery writer. Best known for his dystopian novel Fahrenheit 451 and for the science fiction stories gathered together as The Martian Chronicles and The Illustrated Man , Bradbury is one of the most celebrated among 20th...
to a CD of a rerecording of the film score by William Stromberg conducting the Moscow Symphony Orchestra
Moscow Symphony Orchestra
Founded in 1989, the Moscow Symphony Orchestra comprises 80 musicians, including graduates from such institutions as the Moscow Conservatory, Kiev Conservatory, and Saint Petersburg Conservatory. The orchestra is produced by Stas Namin, and conduced by Konstantin Krimets. It has recorded over 100...
, Bradbury had suggested Bernard Herrmann
Bernard Herrmann
Bernard Herrmann was an American composer noted for his work in motion pictures.An Academy Award-winner , Herrmann is particularly known for his collaborations with director Alfred Hitchcock, most famously Psycho, North by Northwest, The Man Who Knew Too Much, and Vertigo...
to Truffaut. Bradbury had visited the set of Torn Curtain
Torn Curtain
Torn Curtain is a 1966 American political thriller film directed by Alfred Hitchcock, starring Paul Newman and Julie Andrews.-Plot:On a cruise ship en route to Copenhagen, Michael Armstrong , an esteemed American physicist and rocket scientist, is to attend a scientific conference...
, meeting both Alfred Hitchcock
Alfred Hitchcock
Sir Alfred Joseph Hitchcock, KBE was a British film director and producer. He pioneered many techniques in the suspense and psychological thriller genres. After a successful career in British cinema in both silent films and early talkies, Hitchcock moved to Hollywood...
and Herrmann before Herrmann left the film. When Truffaut contacted Bradbury for a conference about his book, Bradbury recommended Herrmann, as Bradbury knew Truffaut had written a detailed book about Hitchcock.
When Herrmann asked Truffaut why he was chosen over "modern" composers such as the director's friends Pierre Boulez
Pierre Boulez
Pierre Boulez is a French composer of contemporary classical music, a pianist, and a conductor.-Early years:Boulez was born in Montbrison, Loire, France. As a child he began piano lessons and demonstrated aptitude in both music and mathematics...
or Karlheinz Stockhausen
Karlheinz Stockhausen
Karlheinz Stockhausen was a German composer, widely acknowledged by critics as one of the most important but also controversial composers of the 20th and early 21st centuries. Another critic calls him "one of the great visionaries of 20th-century music"...
, the director replied that "They'll give me music of the twentieth century, but you'll give me music of the twenty first!"
Herrmann used a score of only string instrument
String instrument
A string instrument is a musical instrument that produces sound by means of vibrating strings. In the Hornbostel-Sachs scheme of musical instrument classification, used in organology, they are called chordophones...
s, harp
Harp
The harp is a multi-stringed instrument which has the plane of its strings positioned perpendicularly to the soundboard. Organologically, it is in the general category of chordophones and has its own sub category . All harps have a neck, resonator and strings...
, xylophone
Xylophone
The xylophone is a musical instrument in the percussion family that consists of wooden bars struck by mallets...
, vibraphone
Vibraphone
The vibraphone, sometimes called the vibraharp or simply the vibes, is a musical instrument in the struck idiophone subfamily of the percussion family....
, marimba
Marimba
The marimba is a musical instrument in the percussion family. It consists of a set of wooden keys or bars with resonators. The bars are struck with mallets to produce musical tones. The keys are arranged as those of a piano, with the accidentals raised vertically and overlapping the natural keys ...
, and glockenspiel
Glockenspiel
A glockenspiel is a percussion instrument composed of a set of tuned keys arranged in the fashion of the keyboard of a piano. In this way, it is similar to the xylophone; however, the xylophone's bars are made of wood, while the glockenspiel's are metal plates or tubes, and making it a metallophone...
. As with Torn Curtain, Herrmann refused the studio's request to do a title song.