Blu-ray Review: Michael Radford’s 1984 on the Criterion Collection

Criterion’s Blu-ray elegantly showcases the spartan beauty of Michael Radford’s chilling adaptation of 1984.

1984Released in the year for which George Orwell’s dystopian novel was named, Michael Radford’s 1984 could easily have been a gimmicky adaptation capitalizing on a marketing hook. But for all of the continued relevance of the novel as a commentary on the abuses of state power, it’s nonetheless disturbing how easily much of the film’s dystopian production design could be imperceptibly placed among contemporary realist dramas about the failures of Margaret Thatcher’s Britain. Even the crucial subplot from the novel involving the government’s manufactured, endless war with a rival power as a means of inspiring nationalist loyalty has echoes in Britain’s last imperial war in the Falklands.

Elsewhere, Radford’s realization of Orwell’s bleak prose is more ambitiously presented. Colossal TV screens broadcasting an endless stream of propaganda and the static, all-seeing gaze of Big Brother loom over citizens gathered at mandatory rallies. The film’s sense of Oceania as a de-individualized, de-sexualized, anhedonic society is enhanced by Roger Deakins’s use of the bleach-bypass process, emphasizing the darkness of decrepit and underlit buildings and the cold, pale silver of overcast light. Other forms of bleaching are even more subtle, such as the flag of the ruling Ingsoc Party that depicts a white hand and black hand clasped together in fraternity, a sick joke of pretending at racial harmony given that this is a nation that appears to have thoroughly purged its non-white citizens.

The film’s fealty to its source material is evident even in the performances. As Winston Smith, John Hurt uses his frail body and shaky voice to give perfect expression to the man’s introversion and the way that his rebellion is both unintentional and inevitable to his habit of idle daydreaming. Love interest Julia retains the dated chauvinism with which Orwell wrote her, as Suzanna Hamilton spends a significant portion of her scenes fully nude, but the actress fascinatingly plays up the way that the character masks her own treasonous individualism with exaggerated displays of loyalty. Julia’s face contorts into grotesque grimaces as she peers at propagandistic images of Oceania’s enemies, and she delivers her salutes to the flag with a rapturous ecstasy. But finest of all is Richard Burton in his final role as O’Brien, the Thought Police torturer who hunts down and punishes Winston and Julia for their thoughtcrimes. Burton succinctly embodies all of the cold, precise illogic of the state’s weaponized contradictions and falsehoods, his O’Brien calmly scrambling Winston’s head as he brutally conditions the man to accept the ultimate truth: that truth is whatever the Party says it is.

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“Orwellian” has long been a shorthand for social control maintained by omniscient surveillance and official disinformation. But the true horror of Orwell’s novel has always been its depiction of how quickly the average person can be conditioned into complacency by a totalitarian system like Oceania’s. Before they’re seized by the police, Julia reassures Winston that “they can make you say anything, but they can’t make you believe it.” The purpose, though, of O’Brien’s torture isn’t to extract confessions from his prisoners, but to so completely break them down that they come to believe their brainwashing. The film never more horrifically illustrates this principle than when another of O’Brien’s prisoners is prepped for another round of punishment despite having confessed to all of his accused crimes, and in his utter terror he can only desperately beg: “What is it that you want me to know?”

Image/Sound

Criterion’s Blu-ray, sourced from a 4K restoration, showcases the film in all its brutal beauty. The rich silvers of Roger Deakins’s bleach-bypassed cinematography positively sparkles on this new transfer, and texture is so fine that you can trace minuscule strains of mold and filth arcing over rotting building walls and the wrinkles of Oceania’s joyless citizens. The film’s rich use of shadow also looks exquisite, with detail visible even in the dimmest light. This release includes two audio tracks, one with the moody score by Dominic Muldowney and one with the electronic score by the Eurythmics. Both tracks boast excellent balance between the dialogue and score, though the track featuring Muldowney’s orchestration sounds slightly fuller.

Extras

Interviews with Michael Radford and Roger Deakins delve into the ups and downs of the film’s production and the clever ways in which the filmmakers had to maximized their lack of resources. Particularly interesting is Deakins’s observation that the torture chamber Room 101 had to be filmed in a bare, dark room because the production ran out of money, though the room’s lack of visible objects only makes it seem so much more fearsome. A behind-the-scenes documentary for British television includes on-set footage and red-carpet interviews from the film’s premiere, and Orwell scholar David Ryan contributes a lengthy interview in which he details the various adaptations of 1984 and why Radford’s version is the definitive one to date. An essay by writer A.L. Kennedy thoughtfully traces how faithful the film is to the novel.

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Overall

Criterion’s Blu-ray elegantly showcases the spartan beauty of Michael Radford’s chilling adaptation of 1984.

Score: 
 Cast: Richard Burton, Suzanna Hamilton, Cyril Cusack, Gregor Fisher  Director: Michael Radford  Screenwriter: Michael Radford  Distributor: The Criterion Collection  Running Time: 113 min  Rating: R  Year: 1984  Release Date: July 23, 2019  Buy: Video, Soundtrack

Jake Cole

Jake Cole is an Atlanta-based film critic whose work has appeared in MTV News and Little White Lies. He is a member of the Atlanta Film Critics Circle and the Online Film Critics Society.

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