'Nineteen Eighty-Four' Deemed 'Fashionably Retro'
George Orwell's dystopian novel Nineteen Eighty-Four impressed me like a brick wall falling on me when I first read it at the age of 13. I still have that paperback edition picked up for a dime at a yard sale (I've collected other editions, too).
When the actual year 1984 rolled around, I was excited to learn that a new movie adaptation was coming out, starring John Hurt and Richard Burton. The movie came and went without much fanfare or box office success, as I recall; I wondered if I was one of the few who even went to see it.
What I remember most about the movie is how well it portrayed the atmosphere of Orwell's novel: sort of a grimy 1940s world projected into the future, painted in unrelentingly oppressive browns and grays.
Andre Pulver in The Guardian discusses the novel and the 1984 movie adaptation in a recent piece. Here's a taste:
"... [O]riginally titled The Last Man in Europe, Nineteen Eighty-Four follows the doomed intellectual rebellion of Winston Smith, party member of the ruling caste in a dictatorship. Smith's love affair with a fellow rebel, Julia, is both the expression of his dissidence and the cause of his downfall; he is trapped and then interrogated by a party grandee, O'Brien. Smith, however, avoids execution--after succumbing to O'Brien's brutal methods, he is reduced to a near-braindead party functionary. ...
"... [Filmmaker] Michael Radford ... was given the much-prized option on the novel after impressing Orwell's estate with his script. Production began in late 1983, with the plan to release the film in 1984; Radford and producer Simon Perry secured finance from Richard Branson's Virgin Films. (It ended up costing Branson £5.5m, a huge amount for the time.) Radford quickly cast John Hurt as Winston Smith, but O'Brien was much harder to find; filming had already started when Richard Burton took on the role.
Read more here.
Technorati Tags:
Orwell, George Orwell, 1984, novel, books, novels, dystopia, fiction, literature, future, science fiction, prophecy, prediction, movies, film, cinema, Richard Burton, John Hurt, horror, London, satire, dictatorship, Big Brother
When the actual year 1984 rolled around, I was excited to learn that a new movie adaptation was coming out, starring John Hurt and Richard Burton. The movie came and went without much fanfare or box office success, as I recall; I wondered if I was one of the few who even went to see it.
What I remember most about the movie is how well it portrayed the atmosphere of Orwell's novel: sort of a grimy 1940s world projected into the future, painted in unrelentingly oppressive browns and grays.
Andre Pulver in The Guardian discusses the novel and the 1984 movie adaptation in a recent piece. Here's a taste:
"... [O]riginally titled The Last Man in Europe, Nineteen Eighty-Four follows the doomed intellectual rebellion of Winston Smith, party member of the ruling caste in a dictatorship. Smith's love affair with a fellow rebel, Julia, is both the expression of his dissidence and the cause of his downfall; he is trapped and then interrogated by a party grandee, O'Brien. Smith, however, avoids execution--after succumbing to O'Brien's brutal methods, he is reduced to a near-braindead party functionary. ...
"... [Filmmaker] Michael Radford ... was given the much-prized option on the novel after impressing Orwell's estate with his script. Production began in late 1983, with the plan to release the film in 1984; Radford and producer Simon Perry secured finance from Richard Branson's Virgin Films. (It ended up costing Branson £5.5m, a huge amount for the time.) Radford quickly cast John Hurt as Winston Smith, but O'Brien was much harder to find; filming had already started when Richard Burton took on the role.
Read more here.
Technorati Tags:
Orwell, George Orwell, 1984, novel, books, novels, dystopia, fiction, literature, future, science fiction, prophecy, prediction, movies, film, cinema, Richard Burton, John Hurt, horror, London, satire, dictatorship, Big Brother
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