‘Under the spreading chestnut tree, I sold you and you sold me.’ I enjoy my dreary ambiance, and Radford’s film punches you in the gut, pulls your hair and forces you to absorb the ugliness of a true dystopic masterpiece. The senses go into overdrive as the audience member watches the film as it’s so evocative. The mise en scène is wonderful and carries so many allusions to power, insignificance and futility that excites me even as I think about it. You can smell the acidic air in which he and Julia breathe in as they make love in the woods. You can feel the cracking of the plaster as Winston touches the walls in his hovel. The setting is eerie and almost appears as if it was ripped from the pages of the novel. This is perhaps the purest form of any 1984 interpretation I have come across thus far. The voice, the soul and longing for another kindred soul in a doomed land of the slaves.
The touch, the needs and the flesh of another being. There is no real love in his world, but the inherent yearning for the smell and taste of another human. It’s because I compare them to Orwell’s, and want more of it. I mentioned in my THX 1138 review that such plots worry me, but that is not because I dislike them. The only love that is tolerated is love for the party, Big Brother-the omniscient and omnipresent party leader. Like THX 1138, 1984 follows this tragi-romance in a barren, dystopic world whereby such emotion is considered volatile. His trysts with Julia (Suzanna Hamilton) provide his only measure of enjoyment, but lawmakers frown on the relationship-and in this closely monitored society, there is no escape from Big Brother.’ In a story based on George Orwell’s classic novel, Winston Smith (John Hurt) is a government employee whose job involves the rewriting of history in a manner that casts his fictional country’s leaders in a charitable light. ‘A man loses his identity while living under a repressive regime. The plot is as follows (for those of us that haven’t read it in high school!): I will obviously be comparing this to the novel and reviewing based on atmosphere and depiction of Orwell’s dystopia. Who controls the present controls the past.’Ī quick side note: I’ve chosen to review Radford’s interpretation of Orwell’s novel because of the time in which it was filmed (oddly enough, during nineteen eighty-four). ‘Who controls the past controls the future. These are key elements of integral cyberpunk texts such as Neuromancer and The Diamond Age and is something that we should continue if we are to further understand our modern world.
#GEORGE ORWELL 1984 JOHN HURT FREE#
And the dire warning of a future government that regulates free thought and the spread of information. The sterility of a heavily controlled population. The coldness and darkness of the sprawling city. But Orwell has imparted key themes that are relevant to cyberpunk, and that is the feeling of alienation. I have mentioned in many reviews and essays how George Orwell’s words have inspired my words and guided my voice, and this is something that is important to the cyberpunk lexicon.ġ984 is not overtly cyberpunk. Ever since I’d written my review on George Lucas’ THX 1138, Michael Radford’s interpretation of 1984 has been on my mind (especially after the passing of the beloved John Hurt). I’ve been wanting to write this for a long, long time now. ‘ If you want a vision of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face-forever.’ – George Orwell, 1949.
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