1984 is the ultimate story of a repressive society. The book is phenomenal in describing the dangers of a totalitarian society. There is something lacking in the movie. I think there are too many scenes from the book cut from the movie. Despite some problens with the translation to the silver screen, it's an incredibly depressing and terrifying movie. The movie does stay true to the original gist of the book.
Click here to see the rest of this review...
The review of this Movie prepared by trotsky
Winston Smith works at rewriting news and history in London, the capital of Oceania, which is perpetually at war with Eastasia or some other power bloc. He catches sight of a young woman named Julia and eventually begins meeting her secretly for sex and love -- strictly forbidden in this sort of alternate universe story of how the world might have been in 1984 if it had progressed beyond World War II in a drab and dark state of continual war and privation. Eventually he runs afoul of top administrator O'Brien (Burton) and the dreaded Room 101. Co-scenarist and director Michael Radford and cinematographer Roger Deakins brought Orwell's famous novel to the screen with grainy, washed-out greys and browns. The sets resemble Gothic-Victorian facades in a Soviet city after the Luftwaffe have pulverized it for many years. Hurt is magnificently bleak in the lead role, Hamilton a bittersweet delight, and Burton coolly yet ominously magisterial in his final role (the film was shot during the exact same spring months of 1984 in which Orwell set his novel, and Burton died that August). Grim and well cast, but the unremitting gloominess of the last half can get to be a little much.
The review of this Movie prepared by David Loftus