1984 john hurt richard burton movie poster

It is Hurt though, in the central role of Winston Smith, who, frankly, amazes. While there are no bad performances with Richard Burton in particular, in his last role, standing out as Inner Party member O’Brien and Suzanna Hamilton doing all she can with the remarkably sparse but powerful Julia. Radford does a terrific job in translating Orwell’s book for the screen, capturing the essence of the language and downtrodden feel of the world, so much so that we don’t have to be told about the poor quality of the food, the ‘greasiness’ of the gin or the shabbiness of the cigarettes, we see it in situ and it’s used to emphasise points just as in the original text.Īlong with this come a couple of stand out performances. Into this are occasional flashes of bright colour the greens and blues of a countryside that, as the film goes on, it becomes increasingly clear are but a dream of a memory for protagonist Winston Smith (John Hurt) and hammer home the film’s own nightmarish quality to a tee. Shot, appropriately, between March and May 1984 in London from the opening scene of the ‘two minutes hate’ onwards the mix of the visual design and Deakin’s spectacular camera work utterly drain the life out the world we are seeing.Īll but the strongest of colours are sucked out of the images and the entire environment is a shadow of what once was filled with shambling or raging figures in identikit boiler suits looked over by the ever seeing face of the somewhat Mosley-like Big Brother while the tanks and helicopters of the Thought Police constantly hover in the background.

Watching it tonight however was like watching it again for the first time as there were scenes, sections and images I had entirely forgotten while others remained seared in the mind and, above all, I’d forgotten quite how far into the visual grimness Radford, along with cinematographer Roger Deakins and designer Allan Cameron, delved. The film is an odd one for me, I have in the past referenced how much Orwell’s book means to me and I’ve seen various versions on screen, including this one, in the past.

This screening was a slightly different to normal one as it came as part of a small season of events commemorating Orwell at Guernsey’s Guille-Allès Library organised by Thinking On Your Feet. 48 hours after revelling in the sheer and utter dreamlike silliness of Monty Python And The Holy Grail my viewing went about as far in the opposing direction as possible with the sheer and unrelenting nightmarish grimness of Michael Radford’s adaptation of George Orwell’s 1984.

1984 john hurt richard burton movie poster