Nineteen Eighty-Four (1984)

Director:

Michael Radford

Writers:

George Orwell (novel)
Michael Radford (written by)

Release Date:

14 December 1984 (USA)

Genre:

Drama | Romance | Sci-Fi | Thriller

Tagline:

George Orwell's Terrifying Vision Comes To The Screen.

Plot:

George Orwell's novel of a totalitarian future society in which a man whose daily work is rewriting history tries to rebel by falling in love.

Plot Keywords:

Future | 1984 | Propaganda | Big Brother | Sex

Awards:

Nominated for BAFTA Film Award. Another 6 wins & 1 nomination

Cast

John Hurt	...	Winston Smith
Richard Burton	...	O'Brien
Suzanna Hamilton	...	Julia
Cyril Cusack	...	Charrington
Gregor Fisher	...	Parsons
James Walker	...	Syme
Andrew Wilde	...	Tillotson
David Trevena	...	Tillotson's Friend
David Cann	...	Martin
Anthony Benson	...	Jones
Peter Frye	...	Rutherford
Roger Lloyd-Pack	...	Waiter (as Roger Lloyd Pack)
Rupert Baderman	...	Winston as a Boy
Corinna Seddon	...	Winston's Mother
Martha Parsey	...	Winston's Sister

Also Known As:

1984 (UK) (alternative spelling)

Runtime:

113 min

Country:

UK

Language:

English

Color:

Color (Eastmancolor)

Aspect Ratio:

1.66 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono

Certification:

Iceland:16 | Canada:R (Manitoba/Nova Scotia/Ontario) | Argentina:16 | Australia:M | Finland:K-16 | Netherlands:12 | Norway:18 (1984) | Sweden:15 | UK:15 | USA:R | West Germany:16 (f) | Canada:13+ (Quebec)

Filming Locations:

Alexandra Palace Way, London, England, UK

Company:

Umbrella-Rosenblum Films Production

Trivia:

Executive Producer Marvin J. Rosenblum, a Chicago lawyer, secured the film rights to the novel from Orwell's widow, Sonia Brownell, shortly before she died in 1980. It took a lot of persuading on Mr. Rosenblum's part before Mrs. Orwell eventually agreed to allow him to produce the film only under the stipulation that no futuristic sci-fi special effects be used to tell the story. Mrs. Orwell was said to have hated the 1956 version of "Nineteen Eighty-four" starring Edmond O'Brien and Jan Sterling. She was also appalled when David Bowie proposed turning "Nineteen Eighty-four" into a rock musical in the mid-1970s.

Goofs:

Continuity: When Winston and Julia are together in the room upstairs for the second time, Julia asks Winston what time the clock says. He responds that it is 21 hours, or 9pm. When Julia leaves and Winston picks up the glass ball off the table, the clock behind it says 2:30.

Quotes:

[first lines]
Big Brother: [voiceover] This is our land. A land of peace and of plenty. A land of harmony and hope. This is our land. Oceania. These are our people. The workers, the strivers, the builders. These are our people. The builders of our world, struggling, fighting, bleeding, dying. On the streets of our cities and on the far-flung battlefields. Fighting against the mutilation of our hopes and dreams. Who are they?

Movie Connections:

Referenced in Cyprien (2009)

Soundtrack:

Sex Crime

Faithful adaptation - maybe too much?

George Orwell's literary masterpiece "1984" is presented with amazing accuracy and detail in this version filmed during the very months of the author's vision. The casting, set design, and atmosphere are all right on the mark for how I envisioned them during reading the book. This film is dark and uncompromising, and follows many of the dialogs verbatim from the book.

The flaw in the film, for me, is that I felt like I only enjoyed and understood this movie BECAUSE I had read the book already. There is a theory I once heard and agree with: the closer an adaptation is to the source, the more necessary it is to read the source. A good adaptation is faithful to the essentials of a story but makes necessary changes so that it not only becomes cinematic, yet also becomes something that a viewer unfamiliar with the source material can understand. I think if I were ignorant of the story, there are too many things that would confuse me in this film which the book seems to go out of its way to explain.

For example: Who/Where exactly is Oceania? How did the countries go from their current political state to the envisioned one? Why do the people gather in mass and scream passionate hateful exclamations at the screen? What exactly does Winston actually do? Who are the proles? I praise movies that can effectively tell a story without means of voice-over, a much overused device in films. In this case though, I think a little may have helped, not necessarily wall-to-wall, but sparingly used. The movie is effective by being more ambiguous than the book, but I tend to think maybe it is too ambiguous.

In summary, read the book if you haven't (either before or after seeing the film) to get a complete overview of the author's vision. With that as a foundation, this really is a good cinematic portrayal, and of a story that is still relevant and not impossible to come to pass. Obviously 1984 is long since gone bye-bye, but 2084 or 2054? Oppression can always come as long as people desire self-centered power and the masses don't pay close attention.