Nineteen Eighty-Four (1984 film)

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Nineteen Eighty-Four
British theatrical release poster.
Directed byMichael Radford
Written byMichael Radford
Based onNineteen Eighty-Four
by George Orwell
Produced bySimon Perry
Starring
CinematographyRoger Deakins
Edited byTom Priestley
Music by
Production
companies
Distributed byVirgin Films[a] (United Kingdom)
Release date
  • 10 October 1984 (1984-10-10) (United Kingdom)
Running time
110 minutes[1][b]
Countries
LanguageEnglish
Budget£5.5 million[4]
Box office$8.4 million (United States)[5]

Nineteen Eighty-Four, also known as 1984, is a 1984

totalitarian superstate.[6] Smith struggles to maintain his sanity and his grip on reality as the regime's overwhelming power and influence persecutes individualism
and individual thinking on both a political and personal level.

Nineteen Eighty-Four, which was Burton's last screen appearance, is dedicated to him.

BAFTA Award for Best Art Direction, and won two Evening Standard British Film Awards
for Best Film and Best Actor.

Plot

In a dystopian 1984, Winston Smith endures a squalid existence in the

the Party and its supreme leader, Big Brother, who never appears publicly but instead appears only on propaganda posters, advertising billboards, and television monitors. He also occasionally attends public rallies at Victory Square where the citizens are shown propaganda films of the current war situation as well as contradictory and false news stories about Oceania's war effort to unite the civilized world under Big Brother's rule. While his co-worker and neighbor, Parsons, seems content to follow the state's laws, Winston, haunted by painful childhood memories and restless carnal desires, keeps a secret diary of his private thoughts, thus creating evidence of his thoughtcrime
. However, he tries to do it out of sight of the telescreens, to maintain his safety.

His life greatly changes when he is accosted by fellow Outer Party worker

pawn shop in the less restrictive proletarian area where they continue their liaison. Julia procures contraband
food and clothing on the black market, and for a brief few months they secretly meet and enjoy an idyllic life of relative freedom and contentment together.

Their affair comes to an end one evening, when the Thought Police suddenly raid the flat and arrest them both. It is later revealed that a

Ministry of Love to be detained, questioned and "rehabilitated" separately. There O'Brien, a high-ranking member of the Inner Party whom Winston had previously believed to be a fellow thoughtcriminal and agent of the resistance movement led by the Party's archenemy, Emmanuel Goldstein
, systematically tortures him.

O'Brien instructs Winston about the state's true purpose and schools him in a kind of

Room 101
, where O'Brien tells him he will be subjected to the "worst thing in the world", designed specifically around Smith's personal phobias. When confronted with this unbearable horror – a cage filled with wild rats – Winston's psychological resistance finally and irretrievably breaks down, and he hysterically repudiates his allegiance to Julia. Now seemingly completely subjugated and purged of any rebellious thoughts, impulses, or personal attachments, Winston is restored to physical health and released.

Winston returns to the Chestnut Tree Café, where he had previously seen the rehabilitated thoughtcriminals Jones, Aaronson and Rutherford (themselves once prominent but later disgraced members of the Inner Party) who have since been "vaporized" and rendered

unpersons
. While sitting at the chess table, Winston is approached by Julia, who was similarly "rehabilitated". They share a bottle of Victory Gin and impassively exchange a few words about how they have betrayed each other. In spite of everything they have gone through, they still reaffirm their bond and express desire to see each other again. After she leaves, Winston watches a broadcast of himself on the large telescreen humbly and remorsefully confessing his "crimes" against the state and imploring forgiveness from the populace.

Upon hearing a news report declaring the Oceanian army's utter rout of Eurasia's forces in North Africa, Winston, appearing to have been deprived of his freedom to think and feel for himself and reduced to a mere shell of a man, and soon to be deprived of his very physical existence as well, looks at the still image of Big Brother that appears on the telescreen; but then quickly turns away from it and looks in the direction Julia went with tears in his eyes as the words "I love you" are heard whispered in his voice.

Cast

Production

In winter 1983, the director Michael Radford asked his producer to try to obtain the rights to Orwell's novel, with low expectations that they were available. It turned out that the rights were held by Marvin Rosenblum, a Chicago lawyer who had been trying on his own to get such a film produced.[8] Rosenblum agreed to become an executive producer, and while producer Simon Perry raised the production money from Richard Branson, Radford wrote the script, inspired by his idea to make a "science fiction film made in 1948".[8] The script was finished in three weeks.[8]

For the role of

boiler suit being hand-made for him in Savile Row.[10][11]

Some sources claim that

Ministry of Truth.[citation needed
]

The disused Battersea Power Station in Wandsworth served as the façade for the Victory Mansions, and the Beckton Gas Works in the Docklands of Newham was used as the setting for the proletarian zones. The pawnshop exterior, a pub scene and a scene with a prostitute were filmed in Cheshire Street, in London's East End, an area Orwell had visited and commented on in his first book, Down and Out in Paris and London. The canteen interiors were filmed in a disused grain mill at Silvertown. In contrast, the idyllic, dreamlike "Golden Country", where Winston and Julia repair for their first tryst and which recurs in Winston's fantasies, was filmed in the southwest county of Wiltshire at a natural circle of hills called "Roundway", near the town of Devizes. The scenes on the train were shot on the Kent and East Sussex Railway. The film shared a number of locations with Terry Gilliam's Brazil, which was filmed the same year.[8]

Radford and

processing technique called bleach bypass (originally created by Technicolor and Deluxe, but recreated for this production by Key) to create the distinctive washed-out look of the film's colour visuals. The film is a very rare example of the technique being applied to every release print, rather than the interpositive, that was struck from the original camera negative, or the internegative (struck from the interpositive); as the silver is retained in the print and cannot be reclaimed by the lab, the cost is higher, but the retained silver gives a "depth" to the projected image.[citation needed
]

Release and reception

Nineteen Eighty-Four made its theatrical debut on 10 October in London and on 14 December in New York City.[16] It was released in the United States for one week in December 1984 at the Egyptian Theatre in Los Angeles to qualify for the 1985 Academy Awards and grossed a house record $62,121, despite stormy weather.[17]

Vincent Canby of The New York Times said the film was "admirable, bleakly beautiful", although "not an easy film to watch".[2]

Roger Ebert awarded the film 3.5/4 stars, writing that it "penetrates much more deeply into the novel's heart of darkness" than previous adaptations, and describing Hurt as "the perfect Winston Smith".[18]

Review aggregation website Rotten Tomatoes has given the film a 74% approval rating, based on 31 reviews, with an average rating of 6.7/10. The site's critical consensus states:

1984 doesn't fully emerge from the shadow of its source material, but still proves a solid, suitably discomfiting adaptation of a classic dystopian tale.[19]

Metacritic has given the film a rating of 67 out of 100 based on 8 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews".[20]

Score controversy

Virgin Films (formerly part of the

orchestral score originally intended for the film had been composed entirely by Dominic Muldowney
a few months earlier.

Against Radford's wishes, Virgin exercised their right of final cut and replaced Muldowney's musical cues with the new Eurythmics contributions. One Eurythmics song, "Julia", was also heard in its entirety during the film's closing credits. However, Muldowney's main theme music (particularly the state anthem, "Oceania, 'tis for thee") was still prominently used in the film.

In November 1984, Virgin Records released the Eurythmics soundtrack album, containing considerably altered versions of their music heard in the film, under the title

Sexcrime (Nineteen Eighty-Four)", was released as a single just prior to the album and became one of Eurythmics' biggest hits, peaking at number 4 and was awarded a Silver disc for sales in excess of 200,000 copies.[22]
The music video for the single made use of clips from the film. The track "Julia" was also released as a single which peaked just outside the Top 40.

Radford disowned Virgin's edit of the film containing the mixed Eurythmics/Muldowney score and, during his acceptance speech at the

BAFTA awards
in protest of Virgin's decision to change the musical score. Eurythmics responded with a statement of their own claiming no knowledge of prior agreements between Virgin and Radford/Muldowney and that they had accepted the offer to compose music for the film in good faith.

In 1999, Muldowney's complete orchestral score (24 tracks in total) was released on a special limited edition

CD
album under the title Nineteen Eighty-Four: The Music of Oceania, to commemorate the film's 15th anniversary. The CD booklet featured previously unseen production photographs and artwork as well as liner notes by Radford.

As of today,

Spanish-language
audio tracks.

In 2013 the film was re-released on DVD in North America by TGG Direct on a double feature with Megaville (1990), under licence from MGM. This DVD release also features the original mix of Eurythmics/Muldowney soundtracks, as well as the theatrical desaturated colour palette. In 2015 the film was released on Blu-ray in North America by Twilight Time in a limited 3,000 copy run, again, licensed by MGM. This release features the Eurythmics/Muldowney Soundtrack on one audio channel and Muldowney's orchestral score on another, as well as keeping true to the original colour scheme.

The version of the film which has been released on digital download services is the 2015 HD edition. It is available only with the original Eurythmics/Muldowney soundtrack.

The 2019

Criterion Collection
release of the film contains both the Eurythmics soundtrack and the original score composed by Dominic Muldowney.

Awards

The film won the Best British Film of the Year award at the Evening Standard British Film Awards. It also won The

Istanbul International Film Festival.[citation needed
]

Home media

International Video Entertainment paid $2 million for North American home video rights, the fifth biggest deal ever at the time.[17]
Their VHS release came out in 1985. Polygram Video later released the film on VHS in the mid-1990s. In 2003, MGM Home Entertainment released the film on DVD in North America and in the UK a year later, the American DVD only contains Muldowney's score while the UK DVD contains the mix of his and Eurythmics' soundtrack. TGG Direct re-released the movie on DVD in 2013 as a double feature with Megaville. The film has been released on Blu-ray twice, first by Twilight Time in 2015 as a limited 3,000 copy run and by The Criterion Collection in 2019. Both of these editions contain both the original theatrical Eurythmics score and the alternate Muldowney score.

See also

Notes

  1. 20th Century Fox
    through UK Film Distributors Ltd.
  2. ^ Canby's New York Times review lists the film's running time as 117 minutes.[2]

References

  1. ^ "Nineteen Eighty-Four". British Board of Film Classification. Archived from the original on 14 January 2015. Retrieved 6 August 2013.
  2. ^ a b Canby, Vincent (18 January 1985). "The Screen: John Hurt in 1984, Adaptation of Orwell Novel". The New York Times. Archived from the original on 8 March 2018. Retrieved 5 August 2014.
  3. ^ a b c "Nineteen-Eighty Four (1984)". British Film Institute. Archived from the original on 3 June 2019. Retrieved 3 June 2019.
  4. ^ Alexander Walker, National Heroes: British Cinema in the Seventies and Eighties, Harrap 1986 p257
  5. ^ Nineteen Eighty-Four at Box Office Mojo
  6. ^ Kieni, Fiona. "John Hurt on Nineteen Eighty-Four". Metro Magazine: Media & Education Magazine.
  7. ^ a b "MISCELLANEOUS NOTES". Turner Classic Movies. Retrieved 5 August 2014.
  8. ^ a b c d e f g Brew, Simon (8 April 2008). "The Den of Geek interview: Michael Radford". Den of Geek. Archived from the original on 11 August 2014. Retrieved 5 August 2014.
  9. ^ "Obituary: Paul Scofield". BBC News. 20 March 2008. Archived from the original on 2 August 2014. Retrieved 5 August 2014. He was to have been in The Shooting Party in 1983, but broke a leg and a couple of ribs in an accident on the first day of filming...
  10. ^ 'In Conversation with Michael Radford', Sky Arts 18 October 2013
  11. ^ Andrew L Urban (22 December 2005). "CLARK, AL – NINETEEN EIGHTY-FOUR". Urban Cinefile. Archived from the original on 30 December 2012. Retrieved 11 November 2012.
  12. ^ "Nineteen Eighty-Four turns sixty". Inside Story. 9 June 2009. Archived from the original on 18 April 2021. Retrieved 10 March 2021.
  13. ^ Park, James. "Orwell that ends well." London: The Sunday Times 7 October 1984: 55.
  14. ^ "Swindon Connection | Nineteen Eighty-Four 1984 starring Richard Burton | SwindonWeb". Archived from the original on 30 August 2011. Retrieved 9 May 2011.
  15. ^ Pirani, Adam (November 1984). "Welcome to 1984". Starlog. p. 78.
  16. ^ a b "1984". 22 March 1985. Archived from the original on 9 July 2018. Retrieved 28 June 2018 – via IMDb.
  17. ^
    Daily Variety
    . p. 1.
  18. ^ Ebert, Roger (1 February 1985). "1984 (1984)". rogerebert.com. Archived from the original on 9 August 2014. Retrieved 5 August 2014.
  19. ^ "1984 (1984)". Rotten Tomatoes. Archived from the original on 12 December 2016. Retrieved 28 April 2023.
  20. ^ Nineteen Eighty-Four at Metacritic Edit this at Wikidata
  21. ^ "1984 (1984) - IMDb". Archived from the original on 3 September 2013. Retrieved 19 March 2013 – via www.imdb.com.
  22. ^ a b "British Phonographic Industry online database". Archived from the original on 24 January 2013. Retrieved 11 May 2013.

External links

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