Such was Orwell's judgment, elsewhere: "To see what's in front of one's nose requires constant struggle. In film or book form, it demonstrates how "unwords" beget unthoughts. But it's the linguistic cargo-the story of "Newspeak," the outlining of the censor's calling-that makes this tale still fearful. At that date, there was still enough post-industrial wreckage left in London to serve as a believable backdrop in this bleak parable.
WINSTON 1984 JOHN HURT MOVIE
In an end title, Radford notes that the movie was shot in spring 1984, in the time frame of the novel. The necessarily hushed dialogue makes it hard for those who aren't familiar with the plot, up to the ending where the entrails of a secret police state are anatomized by Smith and his superior O'Brien (Richard Burton in his last role). The standard critique of 1984 is that Julia isn't much of a character, being a symbol of hope and romance more than a protagonist. Against the will of the state, and its symbol Big Brother, he starts an affair with a fellow Party member Julia (Suzanna Hamilton, whose intensity and haircut suggest Ayn Rand). Loyal party member Winston Smith (John Hurt, who passed away last week) is starting to have doubts about the news he's required to obliterate at the Ministry of Truth. It's a parallel universe, where World War II is in its 45th continuous year.
WINSTON 1984 JOHN HURT PLUS
It read "2 PLUS 2 = 5."Īvailable on Vudu-for free, if you can stand a barrage of noisy commercials-director Michael Radford's 1984 does an outstanding job of illustrating the book. Supposedly, in Moscow once, there was a neon sign celebrating the year-early completion of a Five-Year Plan. Details of the show trials, the paranoia, and the use of raw alcohol to cope are straight from the Communist regime. The book is a hammer against those who looked the other way at the crimes of England's then-ally, the USSR. He even named his protagonist "Winston" as if to honor Churchill. Orwell's satire was based on the author's time working for the good guys-at the BBC, where he was a wartime propagandist. Something to do with the new administration and its forward-thinking views on the mutability of facts? I wouldn't want to speculate. George Orwell's dystopian vision seems more prescient with every passing day.įor some reason, George Orwell's 1984 is a current best-seller on Amazon. John Hurt, the wiry English actor who played a drug addict in Midnight Express, Kane in Alien, the title character in The Elephant Man, and Winston Smith in 1984 has died.
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