Nineteen Eighty-Four is a film adaption of Orwell's classic text of the same name, which was also released in the year 1984. It tells the story of Winston Smith, a worker at the Ministry of Truth who spends his days in an office rewriting newspaper articles so that historical records support the propaganda of the government party line. The language Winston must use to do this is the fictional construct of Newspeak, drawing even the use of language into the debate of oppression versus freedom. The setting is what remains of England after a global atomic war, with a strong contrast between the grit and dereliction of the city, and the potential safety to be found in nature.
This film differs from others that I have watched in that there is the constant theme of omniscient governmental surveillance. Whilst there is often the theme of oppressive governmental regimes in other dystopian narratives, Orwell's governmental system is something truly to fear - any opposition, even in regards to the private thoughts a person has, will be eradicated through torture and death. There is a constant enforcing of the idea of serving the "greater good" at the sacrifice of what constitutes a healthy society - debate, opinion, personality, creativity and innovative change.
Motifs: Trees and nature versus reality, concrete, rubble, rats, television screens with cameras, uniforms, monolithic structures, flames, helicopters
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