1984 (1984)

[Akijama]

https://www.criterion.com/films/29140-1984

DIRECTOR-APPROVED SPECIAL EDITION FEATURES
New 4K digital restoration, supervised by cinematographer Roger Deakins, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack on the Blu-ray
New interviews with director Michael Radford and cinematographer Roger Deakins
New interview with David Ryan, author of George Orwell on Screen
Behind-the-scenes footage
Trailer
PLUS: An essay by writer and performer A. L. Kennedy
New cover by Fred Davis

This masterly adaptation of George Orwell’s chilling parable about totalitarian oppression gives harrowing cinematic expression to the book’s bleak prophetic vision. In a rubble-strewn surveillance state where an endless overseas war props up the repressive regime of the all-seeing Big Brother, and all dissent is promptly squashed, a profoundly alienated citizen, Winston Smith (thrillingly played by John Hurt), risks everything for an illicit affair with the rebellious Julia (Suzanna Hamilton) in a defiant assertion of humanity in the face of soul-crushing conformity. Through vividly grim production design and expressionistically desaturated cinematography by Roger Deakins, Michael Radford’s 1984 conjures a dystopian vision of postwar Britain as fascistic nightmare—a world all too recognizable as our own.