1984 (1984)
1984 is a good movie. 1984 has always been a good movie.
also…
“It’s a beautiful thing…the destruction of words.”
1984 is in fact a very good movie and reasonably faithful to Orwell’s book.
We’ll avoid too many Spoilers because for as often as people cite lines from the story, I don’t find all that many people who have actually seen the film or (aside from AP English teachers) read the book from cover to cover.
The broad strokes:
1984 is about as dystopian as you can get. The protagonist, Winston Smith (John Hurt - Snowpiercer), works for a totalitarian government in a country called Oceania (basically the U.S. and U.K.) locked in a grim, perpetual war with two other great powers - East Asia and Eurasia.
Winston’s job, which he seems to be pretty good at, is erasing and creating people (not literally, but close…imagine a person who had the power to change the info on your Facebook account…and then convince everyone that the changes were not changes, but the truth all along). That’s his gig.
While we get hints that he isn’t satisfied with the status quo, things trudge along until he meets Julia (Suzanna Hamilton - Out of Africa), a fellow worker in the government run buy the mysterious but ever present Big Brother (a video screen showing the face of actor Bob Flag). The two of them strike up a relationship that is as dangerous as liberating for them, which becomes a central driver in the story.
Oh yeah, along the way Winston meets a guy named O’Brien, played by a relatively unknown actor who goes by Richard Burton (The Spy Who Came in From the Cold) or something like that.
The end of the film - and book - isn’t happy, but it is powerful…and Winston’s defiance of the system gives us hope that, even in the belly of the beast, truth is not entirely extinguished.
There have probably been more books written about 1984 than there people who have watched this movie, and they have explored its themes in more detail than we could dream, but one that is worth keeping an eye out for is the idea that the characters are continuously forced to accept things that are imitations of the “real” thing: fake meat, pornography and prostitution vs. love, and even psychological torture over physical.
Putting on my non-movie hat as a historian though, the most compelling thing about the film and book - at least for me - is that it speaks to a truth I believe: history is nothing more or less than the stories we tell about ourselves. Those stories change in the telling. History is history. Truth is truth. They are not always the same.
To check out Orwell’s truth, we recommend taking a look for yourself HERE.
Four out of Five - no Five out of Five - no, it has always been Four out of Five Stars.
⭐⭐⭐⭐
What’s your truth about 1984? Drop us a note and let us know!
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