1984 (1984)

Directed by Michael Radford. Starring John Hurt, Richard Burton, Suzanna Hamilton, Gregor Fisher, Cyril Cusack, James Walker, Andrew Wilde, John Boswall, Merelina Kendall, (voice) Phyllis Logan. [R]

George Orwell’s classic dystopian novel gets an impressive if relentlessly bleak translation; it never fully emerges from the shadow of its source, but since it’s a book that put numerous “buzzwords” into the contemporary lexicon (thought police, groupthink, Big Brother, etc.), the narrative can’t really provide too many surprises anymore. In a grubby, deteriorating London under totalitarian control, a meek office drone working at the Ministry of Truth is awakened to pleasures and passions, but there’s always someone watching… Hurt is effectively cast as worker Winston Smith, matched (even exceeded) by haggard Burton as the morosely cynical torturer, O’Brien. Bleached photography by Roger Deakins, memorable production design, grueling torture scenes are the stuff of nightmares; the film achieves its purpose, but it’s slow-moving at times, and all the discomfiting oppressiveness becomes a drag before the end. Burton’s final film; he earned a posthumous Oscar nomination, the seventh of a career in which he never won. Onscreen title is spelled out as Nineteen Eighty-Four.

76/100