Orwell’s Big Brother

"1984" is a British political science fiction drama film based upon one of the 20th century s most famous novels written by George Orwell. The movie -dir-ected by Michael Radford, starring John Hurt, Richard Burton, and Suzanna Hamilton, was produced in England in the same year, 1984. The movie presents the life of Winston Smith who works at the Ministry of Truth in London in an imaginary totalitarian superstate of Oceania. His job was to rewrite history according to what the ruling party dictates. Winston and every citizen in Oceania were under constant surveillance by a sort of telescreens embedded in every room in any place. The surveillance system used by the “Ministry of Love”, and its horrible “Thought Police”, serve the goal of eliminating “thought crimes”. When Winston discovered that the Party is lying he kept a secret diary where he writes about his dissatisfaction with his life. That was the beginning of his rebellion.
His life has been changed when he met Julia and began an affair with her. For few months they secretly meet and enjoy together a life of freedom not allowed by the totalitarian regime. Winston and Julia become revolutionaries by making love. Their affair comes to an end after a sudden raid of the “Thought Police” when both were arrested. They were taken to the “Ministry of Love” to be questioned and "rehabilitated" separately. O Brien, a high-ranking member of the Party, systematically tortures them and worked to brainwash them. Winston s resistance finally breaks down when confronted with unbearable horror, a cage filled with wild rats. He confessed his "crimes" against the state and ask for forgiveness. To be released he completely accepts submission to the party. He replaced his love for Julia with love for Big Brother, the only love that is tolerated in Oceania.
Radford’s movie is not the only film adapted from the book. Between three movies it may be more faithful to the plot of the novel. It successfully captures from the novel the horror oppressive atmosphere in which citizens live under a repressive regime. Oceania is in a continuous war with either Eurasia´-or-Eastasia. War and hate rallies are a way to encourage obedience to the state. Dissents are executed if they don’t submit to the rules. Radford succeeded in his -script- to present the main goal in Orwell’s book, to warn of totalitarianism’s danger to society. His adaptation is not only a good version of Orwell’s novel but also an excellent film on its own.
Radford demonstrates in the plot the terrifying control a totalitarian police state can maintain. He depends on showing the great fear used by the party to penetrate a person s mind and completely break down his will to resist to transfer him to an unthinking obedience person, believing that the government’s propaganda of simple lies is the only truth. Radford also succeeded in his adaption to the novel to let the viewers see in the film a world that could easily become a reality. The movie warns viewers in free countries against allowing the world to fall into such a society with great suffering and incites them to stand up to all restrictions of personal freedoms before it s too late.
The memory of fascism practiced by the Nazi dictatorship and the communism practiced by the Stalinist totalitarian regime was fresh. The movie depicts the "Communist mind" that divided the society into classes as Orwell put it in his novel where Oceania was divided into three social classes: Proles (proletarians), Outer Party (Smith), and Inner Party (O Brien). Also, it depicts the start of the cold war when the world was divided into two giant blocks of countries, western and eastern, while Orwell s world is divided into three giant countries, Oceania, Eurasia, and Eastasia.
What is remarkable about the movie is how Radford in his mise-en-scene adapts the book’s spirit. The movie looks like Orwell s bleak, gloomy, and angry vision. The decayed production design in the entire film is a way to give an idea to the viewers about the similarity of miserable life after the end of World War 2. Winston lives in a one-room flat with humble furniture dominated by a giant television screen, in a house where faucets drip, elevators don t work, windows are broken, and corridors are filled with litter. Winston was dressed with a dark blue overall that is the common uniform for men and women. The streets are full of rubbles, but at the same time full of gigantic posters of the beloved leader, Big Brother, and the party’s anthem: INGSOC, English Socialism.
The audio design and mix felt appropriate, and the music perfectly fits the sadness of the characters living in a totalitarian regime. Actors’ performances were fitting, like making John Hurt play Winston as a frail and meager protagonist, and Richard Burton as a cold, manipulating personality, that can convince anyone to love Big Brother. The movie’s viewers feel the coldness and darkness of the city. The government building where Winston works looks like a prison.
In the film s production design, all the colors have been drained mostly blue-grey and beige, as if the totalitarian state had eliminated the primary colors. The scene when the -dir-ector presents Winston s dreams´-or-memories was different. Everything was colored with a golden glow.´-or-the scene when he meets Julia, wearing a dress, not an overall worker suit, in completely green fields where there is no darkness, in contrast with the scenes of daily life everywhere in Oceania.
Another distinguished scene is when the telescreen presents to a crowd a lecture delivered by Goldstein, the leader who defected from the party and became its enemy. Goldstein cites the party s lies especially: "Big Brother doesn t exist, he is a fiction created by the party." The crowds with angry faces scream madly like animals: “Traitor, death, kill." And then, the telescreen shows Big Brother’s picture, the crowds change their screaming in the same enthusiasm and start chanting: “Big, big, big,” while crossing their arms to greet the leader as if they are in front of Hitler shouting the Nazi salute: “Heil Hitler." In the two scenes, they appear completely mindless.
Producing the film after 35 years of the book publication means that Radford was aware of the lasting impact of the novel on modern society. Even now, after about 70 years of publication, many people believe that the giant social media networks can easily break through the privacy of any person in the whole world to collect every gesture, purchase, and the comments we make online. This looks as if it is a copy of the telescreen in the 1984 movie.
It looks like the novel, and then the movie presents an "Orwellian theory" that reveals a brutal policy of propaganda, surveillance, disinformation, denial of truth, and manipulation of the past, practiced by governments as a way to control the people. We can say that it represents the struggle between individuals and society. So it is not strange that the movie and the novel are banned in many countries where tyrannies rule. We can learn from the movie to refuse to sacrifice our freedom, human rights, individuality, and independent thinking towards government authorities.
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