1984 [HD]

Get Your Boot Off Of My Face!
Attention: For those who did not read George Orwell's classic dystopian novel "1984" in high school, college, or through personal initiative, please take the time to do so before diving into the soul shattering experience of the film version of this book, aptly titled "1984." I imagine that many viewers could experience lapses of extreme boredom if they do not have a sufficient understanding of newspeak, thoughtcrime, and the political dynamics of Oceania/Eastasia/Eurasia before experiencing this soul shattering film. You might even want to read a few items about communism and fascism before watching the movie. In any event, the book and film are chilling in their presentation of a world in the grip of pure totalitarianism.

Originally released in 1984, "1984" tells the story of Winston Smith. Smith lives and works in what used to be the city of London, before an atomic war swept away the world as we know it and ushered in the dark gloom of Big Brother. Smith spends his days working...

One of the best book adaptations ever
"Nineteen Eighty-Four" (the actual on-screen title) is a rare example of a film adaptation of a book that faithfully transfers the visions and theme of the book's author, right down to even filming on the dates that the author specified (April-June 1984). George Orwell's frightening, hellish novel of a future where freedom has vanished, even from the minds of human beings, has been turned into an equally frightening film version. Its tale of a government that seeks to utterly crush the human spirit through propaganda, language, and fear, turning human beings into programmed machines, has never been more frightening than today. It is a book and movie for all times, as long as governments lie, tyrannies exist, and people surrender their freedoms in the name of fears, both real and imagined.

The casting couldn't be more perfect. John Hurt, looking worn and stretched past his years, is the ideal actor to play "little rebel" Winston Smith, who dares to think against the mysterious Big...

"We shall meet in the place where there is no darkness..."
Michael Radford's film of George Orwell's novel is perhaps the greatest cinematic adaptation ever made from a well-known literary source, and it stands out as one of the most memorable and underrated British films of the past thirty years. Radford treats the book neither as grim political prophecy nor as Wellsian flight of sci-fi futurist speculation. Instead, we are presented with the ruined world of 1948 as seen through a glass darkly - NINETEEN EIGHTY-FOUR done straight as a kind of medieval morality play for the post-totalitarian age. The end credits inform us, with but a modest air of self-importance, that the picture was shot "in and around London, April-June 1984, at the exact place and time imagined by the author." And the uncanny meta-fictional parallels don't stop there: the actors are so close to Orwell's descriptions, they practically seem born for their roles.

Resembling a gaunt, ashen-faced figure out of Egon Schiele, John Hurt is ideally cast as Winston Smith...

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