1984

So you feel like renting a movie. After a slow drive to the video store in which you try to avoid the police from extorting you, you enter a video store with enough security cameras to see parts of you that you've never seen. You would rent some porno but today you'll be paying in credit card and you sure don't want that census taker knowing you've seen all 50 volumes of clamlappers. So instead you rent 1984. The zit face behind the counter scan your card and instantly your personal information and spending history is all over the internet. When you get back home you pop in the tape, you would have a joint, but the government has decided that pot isn't in your best intrest. Neither is beer, cigarettes, fatty foods, caffine, red meat, abortions, pornography,flag burning, sex in general or any of the other things you use to enjoy. You sit down to watch your movie and relax the rest of the night when storm trooper-like police bust down your door and carry you away. Seems renting 1984 set off an alarm in all local police computers and got you on the thought police's wanted list. You should know better then to oppose your government in any way, shape, or form. You would fight back but all those gun laws eventually equled up to a ban on the second amendment. Sound like an impossible world? Sounds fictional? Watch it then take a look at the world around you. Your half way there. Enjoy what freedoms you have left before they're gone. I'm sure one day this movie will be considered illegal.

Winston Smith is bound inside a cage, he's upset all of the folks that pay his wage, by not dancing to the tune, of the Oceania goon, and ignoring all his righteous propaganda. To begin with, he's not thinking as he should, his maths is very poor, and that's not good, plus he's finding lots of time, to commit a sexual crime, by taking his young love into the woods. But Big Brother has a way that he can smother, and O'Brien is a rather vengeful mother, observation sets the trap, then you're caught like a starved rat, and there's nowhere you can run, or look for cover. Just imagine if your world was always seen, there were cameras to report where you had been, a device always recording, what you say, knows what you're hoarding, you spend your time with it just looking at its screen.

God forbid!

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.

From the opening shot of "Nineteen Eighty Four" the viewer is plunged right into the hellhole of Oceania and the ultimate totalitarian nightmare. Whilst the year 1984 may be long past us, the essential themes of George Orwell's best known work still remain as timely and as relevant as ever.

Winston Smith (John Hurt) is a drone worker in the Bureau of Information, and his job is to edit the news in accordance with the needs of the governing Party (which is in continual, seemingly endless war with Eurasia and other opposing states). He must also refer to the dictionary of Newsspeak, which is the government's language for the distribution of information.

He lives in a world where there is no escape from the authority of the government who regiment the every thought and deed of their subjects. The Party is steadily working on a way to outlaw the concept of the family and the idea of conception. This is done to eradicate Thoughtcrime and guarantee the worker's total devotion to the Party and its leader, Big Brother.

Winston abides by this (recording his increasingly ambiguous thoughts about society in a hidden, handwritten diary) until he encounters Julia (Suzanna Hamilton), a strange young women with rebellious ideas, to whom he develops a powerful attraction. But their passionate, forbidden relationship cannot escape the all-seeing eyes of Big Brother.....

Screenwriter Jonathan Gems has a done a terrific job with the script. He successfully translates Orwell's ideas to the screen with great clarity. Micheal Radford directs with subtlety around the greasy sets and crumbling locations (the picture was filmed in and around the very area in which Orwell set his novel).

The performances from the chief principals are very strong. John Hurt is excellent as Winston, bringing a subtle and considerate approach to the character. Particularly disturbing is his final scenes, as he becomes gaunt and disfigured through government torture. Suzanna Hamilton is gentle and quirky as Julia and "Rab C Nesbitt" actor Gregor Fisher appears as Winston's ill-fated friend, Parsons.

Veteran actor Richard Burton lends a cold charisma to government enforcer O'Brien and he too excels in the film's final moments, as he coolly and sadistically tortures Winston, subjecting him to severe physical pain to subdue him, casually pulling a tooth out of his rotting mouth, then exposing him to the horrors of Room 101, all the while exhorting obedience to the Party and love to Big Brother.

The strong relevance of the concepts of "Nineteen Eighty Four" should not be underestimated. Whilst the term "Big Brother" is now synonymous with the ridiculous "reality" TV shows of the same name, others like the Two Minutes Hate (in which the workers are coerced, through a two-minute broadcast, into hating the enemies of the state); the idea of a government waging a perpetual war to advocate "peace" (especially relevant in the aftermath of September 11) as well as the editing of news and the abuse of language in order to suit the needs of government and disguise its true agendas are ideas that are chillingly present in today's society.

All of this is powerful and thought-provoking stuff, and helps to make "Nineteen Eighty Four" an accurate and powerful rendering of a still very timely piece of work.

This brilliant adaptation of George Orwell's immoral classic of the same name nearly matches its source material in terms of quality (which is quite the achievement, considering the fact that "1984" is by far one of the greatest novels I have ever read). The chilling direction and pitch perfect performances help make this disturbing vision all the more of a truthful gut punch. The fact that such a hard hitting and seemingly over the top story remains entirely relevant in today's chaotic political climate is both a disgrace and a testament to Orwell's genius, and the cinematic capturing of Orwell's classic is one of practically unbeatable quality. While little to nothing is added to the plot, the visual accompaniment of the story enhances its impact. The cinematography is fittingly dull, soaked entirely of the joys o color. The performances are simply perfect, making this one of the few novel adaptations I have seen in which I felt that the actors absolutely nailed their performing of the original work's dialogue. At the center of this terrifying satire is the performance of Richard Burton who is both subtle and mind blowingly horrifying in his indescribably villainous role, while John Hurt provides a sometimes timid, sometimes paranoid, and other times absolutely petrified protagonist that attempts to escape from the norms of the totalitarian society he is forced to live in.

While not necessarily a "horror" movie, there is no doubt that "1984" is among the most genuinely SCARY films that I have ever seen. Both the book and film have succeeded in making me shake like drug addicted pepper and salt shakers. The dystopia depicted here accurately displays the horror of an overly controlling and oppressive government system forcing its propaganda upon those below, and outwardly embracing anti-free speech and pro-war beliefs. I must restate how sadly relevant this work remains.