1984

This is a relatively faithful rendering of one of the novels that I remember from my youth. All the high school kids (who read anything) were reading it and talking about it. This was in the early sixties. I could not put the book down as terrifying and depressing as it was. All elements of society were controlled by the leaders. It brings to mind modern North Korea where the citizens are clueless and fed jingoistic nonsense. Winston Smith is a worker who has an intellectual side. He begins, through connections with others, to see that there is something wrong with the way he and his fellows are treated. Everything is controlled. He is ill and every day is like the last. Big Brother is looking out for everyone. He's probably not a real person, but they don't know. Winston meets Julia and they start to have a relationship. We know where this is going. As bad as things are, the producers don't get into some of the even more oppressive business of the government. Not a story for the squeamish.

9/11/01 is the date we lost a lot of freedom, perhaps irrevocably. Whether we move into the society that George Orwell describes in 1984 or retain a significant measure of individuality is up to us. But we will sacrifice a lot for security.

Which in Orwell's world written in the late Forties the target date was 1984. Like On The Beach Orwell got the date wrong, but doesn't mean it still can't happen. Atomic war came in 1965 and the world divided into three great super republics, people's republics if you will. Our American leads in a mostly British supporting cast, Edmond O'Brien and Jan Sterling, are from different factions. O'Brien is a member of the Inner Party with a drone like job who is starting to question assumptions on wish his society is built. Among them marriage is tightly controlled with love not a factor. But he does fall for Jan Sterling of the Outer Party.

In a country with constant monitoring, privacy is what they want. But there is no right to privacy and surveillance goes way beyond what we have post 9/11. Sterling and O'Brien pay big time for wanting some alone time.

Besides Sterling and O'Brien other performances to point out are Michael Redgrave as O'Brien's superior at work, Donald Pleasance as another drone worker who is also a graduate of the state's re-education facility and David Kossoff as the kindly old antique dealer who turns out to be something else.

The society most resembling the Orwellian 1984 is that of North Korea with their hermetically sealed country with a cult of secular worship of the ruling family. If the people there shake loose from the tyranny of the People's Republic it might be a great indication of hope for people who will insist on their individualism. Are we sliding in that direction? Time will tell.

1984 has had a few different versions made for big and small screen. This one can stand with any of them.

Good, and I do really mean GOOD, dystopian Sci-Fi is the only (sub-) genre in cinema that occasionally manages to frighten me or make me feel uncomfortable. Titles such as "Soylent Green", "Z. P. G", or the more recent "Children of Men" are deeply disturbing not because we will be battling alien races or intelligent robots in the not-so-distant future, but because mankind itself made the planet unlivable. George Orwell, and his uniquely magnificent novel "1984", is probably the founding father of dystopian SciFi (although the influence of "Metropolis" is also unneglectable) and it's still one of the most horrifying tales ever written as far as I'm concerned.

Admittedly "1984" didn't turn out to be the phenomenal movie I secretly hoped it would be. It's an engaging, competently made, and absorbing transfer of Orwell's totalitarian nightmare from paper to screen, but some things are missing. I just didn't feel it. I didn't feel Big Brother's eyes penetrating in my back, I didn't feel the Inner Party's tyrannical madness, or their greed to own and control every human being's life. I didn't feel Winston and Julia's desperate desire to live in complete freedom. Perhaps the year of release, 1956, was still a bit too early to turn the novel into a motion picture. Director Michael Anderson somewhat fails to recreate the bleak and depressing atmosphere, as well as the dauntingly monotonous set-pieces, of a truly miserable dystopian world. 20 years later, however, Anderson would prove himself certainly capable of doing so with "Logan's Run". The 70s were just the ideal decade for dystopian Sci-Fi.

Of course, I would like to finish by underlining that "1984" is nevertheless a very good film, and worth tracking down for fans of the Sci-Fi genre, as well as George Orwell admirers. Several aspects are fantastic, notably the strong performances of the emotional Jan Sterling and the stoic Michael Redgrave. There are a handful effectively disturbing highlights as well, like the inspection rituals Winston has to endure in his own apartment, the public promoting of events like "hate-week" or the persona of young Selena Parsons, who has been so completely indoctrinated by Big Brother that she even becomes terrifying to her own neighbor and father (the stupendous Donald Pleasance in an early role).

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.

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!"