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1984 More at IMDbPro »
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| Index | 13 reviews in total |
17 out of 19 people found the following review useful:
Double good version of the Orwell classic, 24 October 1998
Author:
bux from Tecumseh ok
Dingy, atmospheric version of George Orwells tale concerning two citizens of the New World Order involved in illicit, illegal love. Nothing is pretty in this story, and perhaps O'Brian and Sterling are a bit long in the tooth for the characters the author had in mind, however the superb dramatizations overcome any casting mishaps. The story of life in a totalitarian society rings chillingly familiar today. And, in the conclusion, to quote the poet laureate of our times, Todd Rundgren "Winston Smith Takes it on the Jaw Again!"
14 out of 16 people found the following review useful:
Powerful and Shattering, 18 December 2006
Author:
brad_and_ethan from Los Angeles
I finally was able to see this film, having seen the 1984 version with John Hurt when I was in college. I recall the 1984 version having some good production values, but I remember being disappointed also. This version was well-cast, and the art direction was also competent. Edmund O'Brien turned in a great performance as Winston Smith. I think that he brought a great quality of desperation to the role; which seemed to run contrary to John Hurt's performance. I'm sure there was a lot left out of the book. But I get tired of hearing people moan and groan about the argument of literature vs. cinema. Come on people, film is time-based, and can't digress like novels can. The screenwriter/director mainly extracts plot points, and can't be bothered with too much exposition (unless of course they have a whopping budget!). I've read many criticisms where more skeptical viewers complain that we don't get to know Big Brother's motives, strategy, etc... What?!! It's Big Brother - an enigmatic and probably non-existent despot....you're not supposed to know his whole story! The love affair, although brief, is very empathetic. In lieu of all the paranoia, Big Brother-cheerleading, etc. - the love between Winston and Julia is a good emotional oasis. Even though I watched a poor copy of this version, it really did make an impression. One of the few criticisms I have is Room 101. I thought the rat shot/scene was truncated, and could've been dramatized more. That's where the John Hurt version trumps this one.
26 out of 44 people found the following review useful:
I've NEVER forgotten this movie., 23 June 1999
Author:
(bluewall@mpinet.net) from Deltona, Florida
I saw this movie as a young boy,and at the time I was very naive as to what they meant by "Big Brother" Many people to day, in particular the young, do not know the real meaning to Big Brother. Another name for it is the "New World Order" As in the Bible,you will have a noticeable stamp on your body in order to buy food or what have you. And your whereabouts will be monitored. And for this reason, I've NEVER forgotten this movie. It's a must see film by those that are as naive as I was,when I was a young boy.
7 out of 8 people found the following review useful:
A dystopian nightmare that effectively captures the essence of Orwell's novel, 11 September 2007
Author:
ackstasis from Australia
*** This review may contain spoilers ***
In a recent review of Terry Gilliam's 'Brazil,' I confidently referred
to the film as a "weird, twisted, fantastical tale of the sheer
absurdity of an Orwellian society." In all honesty, at that time, I
wasn't even certain of what constituted an "Orwellian" society, since I
had never read the novel, and was only repeating fragments which I had
extracted from other sources. Not more than three weeks ago, I decided
to finally get my hands on George Orwell's famous dystopian story to
see what it was all about, and was somewhat surprised to discover that
it was one of the most engaging pieces of literature I had ever read.
Eager to find out how the film adaptations treated Orwell's themes, I
immediately tracked down copies of Michael Radford's timely version
(released in 1984), as well as Michael Anderson's harder-to-find
'1984,' released in 1956.
Michael Anderson's '1984' was not, in fact, the first adaptation of
George Orwell's novel, following a 1954 BBC television Sunday Night
Theatre broadcast, which I've heard is phenomenal. I had expected that
a 1950s adaptation would sugarcoat some of the novel's darker and more
pessimistic themes, and yet I was pleasantly surprised to find that
screenwriters Ralph Gilbert Bettison and William Templeton have
followed Orwell's story quite closely. Edmond O'Brien plays Winston
Smith, a lowly member of the Outer Party at the Ministry of Truth,
where he works every day at "revising" history to correspond with Big
Brother's most recent declarations. Winston secretly harbours a
resentment towards Big Brother and his totalitarian government, a crime
that is punishable by death should he be observed by the all-powerful
Thought Police. However, Winston is not alone, and he soon discovers
that the beautiful young Julia (Jan Sterling) also shares his
reservations, and the two strike up a romantic relationship, meeting in
locations without surveillance and always toying with the risk of
capture.
Inevitably, both are arrested by the dictatorial government, and
Winston falls into the hands of Gen. O'Connor (changed from O'Brien in
the novel, possibly to avoid the name clash with the film's main star),
played by Michael Redgrave. Slowly but surely, O'Connor sets about
destroying Winston's will, persisting with his torturous punishment,
not only until Winston obeys Big Brother, but until he loves him. An
alternative ending reportedly had Winston and Julia screaming "Down
with Big Brother" as they fell before the firing squad, a conclusion
that I suspect would have infuriated George Orwell. Fortunately, the
version I saw stayed much truer to the spirit of the novel, ending with
a "rehabilitated" Winston proclaiming his genuine love for the almighty
leader. There is also a brief, ten-second epilogue in which the
narrator practically spells out the film's moral – as if it wasn't
clear enough already – but this minor slip-up is easily forgiven.
The performances in the film are very well done. Edmond O'Brien does
not look how I had originally pictured Winston Smith – perhaps a bit
plumper than expected – but he did an excellent job, most impressive in
the scenes of his torture. There is one brilliant long-take in which we
see O'Connor pacing back and forth across the screen, periodically
holding up four fingers and trying to convince Winston that there are
five. Winston, pictured on a television monitor behind O'Connor,
vigilantly maintains that "two and two equals four," before the
latter's persistent torture finally breaks him. The acting here from
both parties is sublime, and we can really feel the agony that poor
Winston is enduring. Also notable is actor Donald Pleasence, who plays
R. Parsons, an average workman who is hopelessly devoted to the Party
and its leader, even after he is arrested for alleged thought-crimes.
Perhaps one of the few complaints that I can make about the film is how
Room 101 was dealt with. Though I was most impressed with O'Brien's
acting during this sequence, it was all over much too quickly to be
effective, and we don't even see a thing, treated only to the frantic
squeaks of a mass of hungry rodents. Whilst it is often true that the
less the audience sees the better, here didn't seem to be one of those
moments, and the whole scene would have worked much better, in my view,
had we been subjected to what Winston could see; to be face-to-face
with "the worst thing in the world." Other than this, I can certainly
recommend '1984' for its fine treatment of a challenging piece of
dystopian literature. This one is well worth tracking down.
10 out of 15 people found the following review useful:
Loved the movie, want a copy, 8 June 2004
Author:
neonbylaurie from USA
I saw the movie once back in 1968 or so and thought it was great. Don't know how I'd view it now but I have never had any desire to see the remake. The fact that the movie is in black and white still leaves a very visual impression of the stark, bare lives people like Winston Smith led. No color in their lives and certainly no color in their thoughts was the order of their day. I think the film captured that along with the idea that their technology available was also unenlightening. It served only one purpose and that was to control. I don't think I would be as impressed if the movie were made today. Our technology is too sophisticated. In the original version, less is more.
4 out of 5 people found the following review useful:
A strangely bowdlerized version of a great book, 3 May 2009
Author:
emperordalek from Chicago, IL
*** This review may contain spoilers ***
After wanting to see this movie for about three decades and after
teaching the book for almost two, I finally found a copy recently and
was surprised by two things: 1) how surprisingly faithful this movie is
at times, even more so in certain parts than the definitive 1984
version; and 2) just how painful it is to watch something that
bowdlerizes a story you're intimately familiar with.
On the one hand, the 1956 version gets the larger picture of Orwell's
dystopia completely wrong. Much like the BBC version of two years
previously, the movie ignores Orwell's descriptions of Airstrip One as
a ruined and war-torn version of London for the most part, and such
places as the Ministry of Truth and the canteen look like every other
50s sci-fi movie's version of the 1980s. (They even change Goldstein's
name to something futuristic-sounding and unmemorable, though they may
have been to avoid any hint of anti-Semitism.) No wonder Orwell's widow
hated it so.
It's also no surprise that both Julia and O'Brien (oops, sorry, it's
O'Connor here, probably because of the lead actor's name being too
close to O'Brien) are able to spot Winston as different: Edmund O'Brien
plays Winston not as an intellectual stuck in a society antithetical to
intellectual thought but as a bit of a gormless idiot, a man who has to
be told repeatedly "That photo does not exist. Yes, that one in your
hand. Yes, THAT one. It doesn't exist. What, are you deaf?" It's hard
to imagine THIS Winston Smith lasting for very long in the actual
novel, let alone the 1984 version of the movie. This Winston is also
enough of an idiot to believe that the steely, vaudeville villain-eqsue
O'Connor could ever be sympathetic - though, to be fair, that's more to
do with Michael Redgrave deciding to play the part without an ounce of
subtlety, and neither movie does a decent job of explaining why Winston
trusts O'Brien in the first place. Of the three actors to play this
part, it's definitely Burton first, then André Morell, then Redgrave
far in the rear. And don't even get me started about trying to do a
movie in the 50s about a society trying to abolish the orgasm...
And yet the movie gets some bits absolutely right. Winston's visit to
O'Brien's quarters, unlike the similar visit in the later version,
includes Julia and includes her objection to O'Connor's suggestion that
they may someday have to separate. (All these years, I thought that
scene occurred in the later version, too, but rewatching it the other
night revealed that it doesn't.) It also gets some of the broader
strokes right, too: I hadn't expected the Two Minute Hate to work so
well in this futuristic setting, nor to have the torture scenes make
any sense. Still, give me the later version anyday over this one. This
is definitely your grandfather's 1984, not Orwell's.
4 out of 6 people found the following review useful:
Terrific, but the earlier Peter Cushing version....., 7 April 2007
Author:
wnstn_hmltn (wnstn_hmltn@yahoo.com) from United States
......is even better (wanna see St. Pete's classic? Feel free to contact wnstn_hmltn@yahoo.com for a copy). One might be tempted to call this a remake, and I suppose it is, but it was the first theatrical rendition, enabling audiences to watch Big Brother (watching them) on a bigger screen than was possible via the BBC/Peter Cushing version (1954) of two years earlier. I agree with previous commentator "bux's" observance that, while Edmond O'Brien and Jan Sterling may not have been Orwell's first casting choices for Winston and Julia for the reason stated, the sterling performances generated by the leads and their supporting cast more than compensate. As a huge fan of the late, great Hammer Films luminary Michael Ripper, I was especially pleased to see him helping to take up the rear as an Outer Party Orator, exemplifying the tender loving care with which producer N. Peter Rathvon saw fit to cast even the smaller roles.
14 out of 27 people found the following review useful:
Interesting, just not very good!, 22 September 2002
Author:
TheBogieFan from Yorkshire, England
First things first, i am amazed at how bad the casting was on this film! Ed O'Brien is not the slimmest and just isn't Winston Smith. Donald Pleasance was terrific as Symes in the 1954 BBC version, here he plays Parsons and he doesn't suit the role at all. Strangely the Inner Party member O'Brien has been renamed O'Connor in this production. More worryingly the Prole Sector is referred to as the People's Area or some such nonsense - why why why? And all the references to "The Bells Of St Clements" at Charrington's antique shop have been removed. The screenplay is not close enough to the book, the film lacks suspense and certainly it is inferior to the marvellous 1954 BBC production which was presumably done on a much lower budget. If you want to see how 1984 can be done see that (if you can) or the more common 1980s film with John Hurt and Richard Burton, this film is a dud!
"This is a story of the future, not the future of space ships", 8 December 2011
Author:
aa-ron-1 from London, England
*** This review may contain spoilers ***
*Also contains minor spoilers from the 84 version of 1984.*
"THIS IS A STORY OF THE FUTURE- NOT THE FUTURE OF SPACE SHIPS AND MEN
FROM OTHER PLANETS- BUT THE IMMEDIATE FUTURE."
A sentence that stays on your screen for over 10 seconds as the film
opens, just to ensure you get the idea that this is the future that
could be near, in case you've missed the film's title 1984.
How could someone who's actually read the book think this is in anyway
truthful to the it..? Visually, the Ministry of Truth looks like
something off Star Trek, the canteen was ridiculous, seriously? Food
tray coming out of a hole? "the girl with black hair" apparently was
blonde, Winston is 40 pounds too heavy, and their strange overalls are
so seldom shot in full length, I was under the impression that Winston
was wearing a sports jacket most of the time.
The psychological aspect of the book was never shown through this film,
Winston's fear of rats were explained so briefly that it was hideous,
"Rat! A rat! it's the one thing I really hate" screams Winston after
throwing the coral dome at the rat in the film. It's a phobia, you
don't get up and throw things at it like anyone else would, in the book
he went into shock, simply from the knowledge of one being near,
started sweating and shivering. The sense of oppression and the idea
that anyone could be watching was portrayed by a annoying short girl
playing a member of the Junior Spies buzzing around Winston the whole
time, a character that did not exist in the book. It's details like
that which shows whoever made the film thought its audiences are too
dumb to understand anything unless it's screamed at their faces.
I felt patronised throughout the film, and worst of all, the line at
the end by the narrator "This is the story of the future, it could be
the story of our children if we fail to preserve their heritage of
freedom", I assume everyone who's written the reviews of this film
wrote it when internet had been invented? Or when IMDb has been
established? Maybe this film was relevant in the 50s, but viewing it
now? It's a blatant piece of propaganda that grants very little credit
as an adaptation to a great book. It's taken everything that's
intellectual from the book, filtered it so that the only message left
is "this is what's going to happen if the Russians win", they should
really have played God Save the Queen through the credits.
Like someone else has pointed out, this is your overly patriotic
grandpa's version of 1984, not Orwell's.
True to the book, 23 July 2011
Author:
IPreferEvidence from Finland
*** This review may contain spoilers ***
The only film version of 1984 I've seen so far and for some reason I
have a feeling that the never versions are gonna suck.
Having read the book I can say that the film is very accurate and true
to the novel. The acting is solid and the characters are enjoyable and
again true to the book.
Obviously the plot is the key factor here and very clever but if you
have read the book you wont be surprised except for the fact that they
changed the ending to be a happier one. I guess not to upset the
audience since the ending the book gives is so dystopian and
hopeless(and excellent).
The small change to the plot doesn't affect the movie that much and you
really have to give the makers credit for being so accurate to most of
the book. Many of the of the most memorable parts of the book can also
be found in the movie such as "5 minute hate" and the jail scene with
the other prisoners(if you've read the book you know what I mean).
Even though slightly merrier then the novel its really not happy at
all. Its very grim and the clinical look of the sets just creates a
very convincing dystopian big brother future with no escape and no one
to ask for help.
Recommended for anyone into scifi or fans of Orwell.
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