Fahrenheit 451 (1966) - "Weir of Hermiston" Oddity

Here's an oddity, which I first wrote about on Facebook in 2014, but I don't believe I've ever commented on it here on Bradburymedia.

FAHRENHEIT 451 (Francois Truffaut, 1966): A dying man teaches a young boy the text of Weir of Hermiston by Robert Louis Stevenson. One of the most touching sequences of the film.

 

 

Although the viewer assumes that the text is accurate, the film actually uses a paraphrase of Stevenson, and the highly affecting final line is made up for the film:

 

"And he died as he thought he would, while the first snows of winter fell."

 

The paraphrase might be easily explained: Truffaut and Jean-Louis Richard wrote the screenplay in French, and then had it translated into English; they may well have quoted Stevenson from a French-language source, and something was lost in translation. (This is conjecture on my part. I would love a French-speaking scholar to compare the original French screenplay and the contemporary (early 1960s) published French-language version of Weir of Hermiston.)

 

Ray Bradbury was so taken with the ending of the film, that he borrowed it for his own stage play version. And he borrowed the Weir of Hermiston scene from the film: Hermiston isn't mentioned in Ray's novel, but is quoted in the play, exactly as in the film. Ironically, the play misquotes exactly as the film does. How curious - especially for a work (Fahrenheit) whose logic depends on accurate oral reproduction of texts which have been physically destroyed...

 UPDATE:

 

It's been pointed out that the first section of the Hermiston dialogue in Fahrenheit 451 is, in fact, a direct quotation from Stevenson. But that leaves the final two lines - which are either made up, or are (at best) a paraphrase. Given that the first lines are a direct and accurate quotation, my conjecture above about something being lost in translation looks unlikely. Instead, it looks as if Truffaut was adapting Stevenson's words to fit the situation of the snowfall.

 

And the snowfall is known to have been accidental. Filming in England in (if I recall correctly) April, there was an unexpected and unseasonal snow shower. Ever the instinctive filmmaker, Truffaut took advantage of this opportunity to enhance the poignancy of the scene, with that line: "And he died as he thought he would, while the first snows of winter fell."

Curiouser and curiouser...