Nineteen Eighty-Four

A closing card on Michael Radford’s film states that it was shot in and around London between April and June 1984, the exact time and setting Orwell imagined. Paul Scofield, contracted to play O’Brien, withdrew after breaking a leg on another production. Richard Burton, living in Haiti, took the part and joined six weeks into the shoot, insisting his boiler suit be hand made in Savile Row. It was his last screen appearance; the film opened two months after his death, dedicated to him. Radford and cinematographer Roger Deakins wanted black and white. Virgin, who put up the money, refused, so Deakins drained the colour with bleach bypass. Virgin took the score too: Dominic Muldowney had already written an orchestral one, and his cues were swapped for Eurythmics tracks. Radford attacked that in an awards acceptance speech. That ceremony was the Evening Standard British Film Awards, where it was named Best Film; John Hurt’s Best Actor prize covered three of his films that year. BAFTA nominated Allan Cameron for production design. In Istanbul in 1985 it took the festival’s first Golden Tulip. A good fit if you want an adaptation pinned to the novel’s own calendar and want to see what that does on screen. Not for viewers who find the interrogation section heavy; the torture is shown directly.