Given that everything from major political scandals to minor cultural war skirmishes is declared Orwellian, it’s remarkable that we haven’t had a major adaptation of 1984 since its title year. Maybe that’s just because references to the work wildly outpace our collective understanding of it. But it also might also be tricky to top the John Hurt-led film. Celebrating its 40th anniversary today, it remains an effective telling that shows why Orwell’s story remains memorable, even as so many other dystopian sagas have fallen into the memory hole.
Releasing 1984 in 1984 must have made the good people at Virgin Films hurt themselves from all the high-fiving; it’s such a marketing slam dunk that the movie brags about it in the credits. The story is timeless, but the release date becomes self-evident when you hear the Eurythmics’ soundtrack kick in, or when you watch the trailer and hear the words “sex crime” being remixed like the opening of an Ibiza club hit.
