1984 - Made in 1984

My interested in Michael Radford's 1984 was raised recently when it was revealed to me that Mr Radford's kid attends my girlfriend's school.  Having recently introduced her to his wonderful 2004 version of The Merchant of Venice (Al Pacino plays Shylock no less) the school had him come along and give a talk to the kids about his career.  We never got anything like that when I was in school - I can tell you for free.

I'm no expert on literature, but I think 1984 is one of the great works of fiction.  Structurally and narratively is it as good as anything I've ever read.  Its discussion of the use of language, education and social stratification as a way of controlling a population was a grim nightmare when it was written, however in the modern age the people of North Korea really do live in such a world.  Orwell's vision of telescreens that would allow a totalitarian state to continuously keep tabs on a population isn't beyond comparison to a modern snooper's charter.  The language from 1984 has seeped into the everyday idiom - phrases like "Thought Police", "Big Brother", "Room 101" and "Doublethink" need no explanation.

Anyway - it's my favourite book.

A film adaptation would always be troublesome since so much of 1984 happens in the internal monologue of our main character Winston Smith.  We experience the world from his point of view. Since film-making from a first person viewpoint is almost impossible, and over-use of internal monologue tedious, Radford (who wrote the screenplay) does an excellent job of world-building without resorting to it.  A number of flashback scenes that go to Smith's childhood, mentioned briefly in the book, are expanded upon here to build the nightmare world of Orwell's envisioning.

John Hurt plays Smith, and he does it with a painful strain that conveys everything we know about the character from Orwell's words.  In one of his last ever roles, Richard Burton plays the enigmatic O'Brien, who Smith initially believes to be an operative of the underground movement, but soon reveals himself to be an apparatchik of the state.  His performance is calm and methodical, his character is equally happy sitting discussing politics as he his administering torture.

Having been worried that this adaptation wouldn't be able to do justice to my favourite novel, I came away from watching it fully happy with what I had seen.