Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #548 in DVD
• Released on: 2004-09-20
• Rating: Suitable for 15 years and over
• Aspect ratio: 1.85:1
• Format: PAL
• Original language: English
• Number of discs: 1
• Running time: 106 minutes

From the Label
George Orwell's novel of a totalitarian future society in which a man whose daily work is rewriting history tries to rebel by falling in love.

Synopsis
A fine and stunning screen adaptation of Orwell's prophetic 1948 novel about a world in which the government completely controls the masses by controlling their thoughts, altering history and even changing the meaning of words to suit its needs. This was Richard Burton's final film.

Customer Reviews

Good film of a great book
Given that '1984' is one of those books that's just too well-written to survive dramatic adaptation with all its depths and ironies intact, Michael Radford did a pretty good job of making a movie out of it back in the year that the book was actually set. He used as locations the same then-derelict London docklands that Kubrick would use for "Full Metal Jacket", giving the film an authentically bombed-out look. The largely English cast is excellent. Suzanna Hamilton, in her first film role, is as good a Julia as can be imagined; plucky, sharp and sexy to begin with, and in her final post-torture appearance, a sullen, dead-eyed shadow. Richard Burton is superb as O'Brien, giving the quietest and least flashy performance of his erratic film career. The supporting players are all great, but the gold palm goes to John Hurt, who manages to make Winston a more sympathetic character than he is in the book. Orwell had a good point to make about Winston, namely that he was the kind of guy who would have ended up selling out Julia; but the heartbroken look on Hurt's face in the last moments of the film lets you know that this Winston truly understands the extent to which he has betrayed his better self. The ending of the movie is both more ambiguous and more heartbreaking than the end of the book.

Among the incidental pleasures: Dominic Muldowney's music is both authentically totalitarian-kitsch, and weirdly moving; the national anthem 'Oceania, 'Tis for Thee', played at strategic moments throughout, is, on a verbal level, a fascist hymn, but musically speaking it's a lament for the humanity that the characters have lost. Even the Eurhythmics' incidental electronica seems to work, for some reason. Not a very fun film, but a good one.

Bobbins
Rubbish. Boring.

Watched this straight after reading the book. The book is a masterpiece of British literature. The film sent me to sleep.

Dial This
If you're in the UK, and you have a telephone landline, dial: 1984

You should get an INSTANT reply 'Specialist Services' ?

???

Anyway - this is a deep portrayal of the not so distant fate of humanity's hope, severely condensed into a theatre-bite-sized exposure.

A great film either way.