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Nineteen Eighty-Four (1984)

Director: Michael Radford

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From Time Out Film Guide

Sensibly realising that science fiction is always a distortion of the time at which it was written rather than a prediction of the future, Radford aligns himself with Anthony Burgess' suggestion that the book only makes sense as 1948, with its food rationing, its housing shortages, bad cigarettes and Churchillian slogans. The look of the film certainly achieves the right rubble-strewn, monochrome period feel with precision and genuinely cinematic scope. Perhaps the greatest hurdle cleared, however, is the problem of incident. Radford's achievement is to have incorporated the impossible preaching and crazed ideas into the fabric with hardly any loose threads. The locations look very like modern Britain; and Burton at last found the one serious role for which he searched all his life. CPea.

Author: CPea 0000-00-00 00:00:00

Time Out Film Guide

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Cast & crew

Director: Michael Radford

Producer: Simon Perry

Cast: John Hurt, Richard Burton, Suzanna Hamilton, Cyril Cusack, Gregor Fisher, James Walker, Andrew Wilde, Phyllis Logan, Shirley Stefox full cast

Genre(s): Science Fiction

Duration: 110 mins


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