1985 Responses to:
1984

This page contains responses to my original Usenet posting in 1985.

From neal@fear.UUCP (Neal Bedard) Mon Jun 17 17:17:17 1985
Subject: Re: _1984_, ut-sally rides again
Organization: Weitek Corp. Sunnyvale Ca.

I couldn't let this go by:

In article <2107@ut-sally.UUCP>, kelvin@ut-sally.UUCP (Kelvin Thompson) writes:
>
>                                _1984_
>
>                           by Kelvin Thompson
>
>  _1984_ is a bad, utterly depressing, anti-humanist movie.  The producer
>  of the movie has claimed that at its heart the movie is a love story, but
>  in truth it is a relentless attack on the nobility of the human
>  condition.

Mr. Thompson probably never read Eric Blair's original text, `1984' (Before
the flames start, George Orwell was a pseudonym.) The *book* is depressing
too. I haven't seen the movie yet, but I am told it very closely follows the
book in plot, character, and general tone. It is, as he asserts, a
relentless attack on the human condition. It is brutal, cold, inhumane, and
much, much more.

`1984' is a warning, not a prediction. Even if one is depressed by its
content (I refer to both the film and the text here) it does show some very
important trends in our current society to be wary of.

Sometimes learning via film (or any medium) is a bitter pill to swallow, but
Real Life ain't all cotton candy, either. If you want to be entertained, go
see `GOONIES', etc. and put your brain on hold.

By the way, `1984' was written in 1948. The last two digits are transposed,
hence the title. The actual date has absolutely *nothing* to do with what
`1984' is about.

My most recent pick as a must-see: `MASK'. Trust me. Take your SO.

-Neal B.
--
"mynd you, m00se bytes kann be pretti nasti"

Date: Sat, 15 Jun 85 13:58:45 CDT
From: Danny Gonzalez 
To: kelvin@ut-sally
Subject: Your review of _1984_ in net.movies (NOT A FLAME!)

Hello Kelvin,
        I just read your review of _1984_ and it sounds to me like you
may not know that the movie is based on a book by the same name written
by George Orwell.  I don't remember the publication date, but I think it
was written back in the 1950's.  I read the book in a high school english
class and we went into a little depth on how some of Orwell's book were
his reactions to and impressions of the communist revolutions in Russia
and China.  Maybe this will help you understand the movie a little more.
        I whole heartedly agree that the story is depressing, but just
from your review, it sounds like a faithful adaptation (I haven't seen
the movie yet.)  I just thought you might not know about the book, and
you might get A LOT of flames about this from the net.  Net-ers seem
to like to flame others as often as possible.  My apologies if you DO
know about the book, and I just didn't read your review carefully.

                                -- Danny Gonzalez
                                   (gonzalez@ut-ngp)

Date: Sat, 15 Jun 85 11:18:46 edt
From: Colin Biggin 
To: ut-sally!kelvin
Subject: Re: _1984_  (spoiler)
Organization: U of Waterloo, Ontario

How can you call _1984_ a spoiler.  I think anybody under the age of
fifty has read the book.  Have you???
                                        cheers,


                                        Colin Biggin
                                        Univperversity of Wonderloo
                                        Waterloo, Ontario

"They were the best of times, they were the worst of times.
 No, I think they were probably the New York Times."

Date: Sun, 16 Jun 85 16:58:40 edt
To: ut-sally!kelvin
Subject: Re: _1984_  (spoiler)

I didn't have the heart to post this, so here goes:

1984, the movie, is based on 1984, THE book, by George Orwell. It was
written in 1948 as a view of a world which could be.

My God, what do they teach you at U of T? How did you make it through last
year without listening to every news commentator go on about how 1984, the
year, was or was not like 1984, the book? Didn't you at least see the
Macintosh ad during the Super Bowl? :-)

Forgive my tone. I just assumed everyone knew this.

<<>>

Date: Mon, 17 Jun 85 09:15:13 edt
To: ut-sally!kelvin
Subject: Re: _1984_  (spoiler)

the reason the movie is named "1984" even though it is set in the future
is because it is based on a book by George Orwell titled "1984",  didn't
you ever read this book in high school or college????  this book is a
classic that everyone has read at some point in life.   maybe you should
read the book before you shoot your mouth off at how bad the movie was!!

Date: 17 Jun 85 13:50:28 CDT (Mon)
From: ihnp4!wjvax!ron (Ron Christian)
To: ut-sally!kelvin
Subject: Re: _1984_  (spoiler)

Re:  Your review to 1984.  I haven't seen the movie, and I must
say it's rather low on my priorities.  It was a depressing book.

Your review suggests that you haven't read the book.  It was indeed
dehuminizing.  The hero indeed goes through the experiances you
describe and ends up renouncing his love in favor of big brother.
But, I was under the impression that Orwell was trying to make us
think 'I don't want that to happen' rather than take a defeatist
attitude.  Orwell was trying to show what *could* happen with enough
apathy on the part of the great majority, and given the present skill
level of the art of propaganda.

The hero loses every verbal battle with his captor in the book too.
Perhaps this was played too simplistically in the movie, but remember
that the hero is thinking along new (for him) lines, where his captor
has had a lifetime to develop skill in defeating these views.

A small point:  Sure, 1984 has come and gone, and the movie takes
place in the future (or a parallel time track -- but that's a cop out).
But Orwell makes the point in the book that the proles don't *really*
know what year it is for certain!  They are presented the 'history' that
the 'Ministry of Truth' is continually re-writing, and not even the
correct date is safe from editing.

BTW, I remember that Oceanea was at war with, urr, Eastasia (or was
it Eurasia?) and during a huge rally someone from the Ministry of
Truth makes the casual statement that we were at war with Eurasia
(or whatever -- the other one).  When this penetrates, the populance
goes wild, tearing down posters and placards that the villainous
Eurasian spies had put up to slander our faithful Eastasian allies.
I guess you had to be there.  It was a strong image, and I was wondering
if it made it into the film.

BTW again, propaganda was handled by the Ministry of Truth, war by the
Ministry of Peace, and so on.  Can't you see parallels in creative naming
in our present administration?
__
        Ron Christian  (Watkins-Johnson Co.  San Jose, Calif.)

Date: 18 Jun 85 03:12:20 CDT (Tue)
To:ut-sally!kelvin
Subject: _1984_  (spoiler)

Is this a joke?

Do you really know so little about Nineteen Eighty-Four ... one of the
best-known novels of the 20th Century?

No doubt other netters will enlighten you in some detail, but (partly
because I hope that you were putting us on and merely forgot the ":-)"),
I'll just comment on a few points.

>  _1984_ is a bad, utterly depressing, anti-humanist movie.  The producer

It's SUPPOSED to be depressing and anti-humanist.

>  of the movie has claimed that at its heart the movie is a love story, but

This claim is quite a surprise.  The story is an anti-utopian fantasy,
or science fiction if you prefer.  How can a story that ends as this one
does claim to be a love story?

>  in truth it is a relentless attack on the nobility of the human
>  condition.

Let's say an exercise in pessimism.
>
>  ...  Unfortunately, the "difficulty" in their
>  relationship is that they live in a futuristic, totalitarian society
>  which forbids love.

And the depiction of that society is what the story -- novel and movie --
is in fact about.

> (It is unfathomable why the movie is entitled
>  _1984_, when it is so obviously set in the future.)

Because it was written in 1948, and the author just reversed the last two
digits.  The story was an extrapolation of the conditions prevailing AT
THAT TIME.  You will notice that there is very little actual post-1948
technology depicted, for instance.

By "the author" I mean of course the author of the novel, George Orwell.
Unlike the previous film of the story made about 1953, this one is a
pretty faithful adaptation of the story in both spirit and plot.

>  Certainly there is nothing wrong with telling a story about forbidden
>  love (consider Zeffirelli's _Romeo_and_Juliet_), but _1984_ relegates the
>  love story to a secondary status, spending more time depicting the
>

Yes, that's the idea.  Your remarks "are on a par with the penetrating
observation sometimes heard in lunatic asylums, that the beef doesn't
taste very much like mutton today".  Please don't criticize it for being
what it wasn't trying to be.

And once again: if you meant all this as a spoof, you should have said so.

Mark Brader
"1984" fan

Date:    Thu, 20 Jun 85 10:57:20 PDT
From: Peter Reiher 
Subject: Re: _1984_  (spoiler)
Organization: UCLA Computer Science Dept.
To: kelvin@ut-sally

As to why it is titled "1984", either you're kidding or you're one of those
who hasn't heard of George Orwell.  If the latter is the case, let me edify
you.  Orwell was a great English author of the post-WWII period.  He wrote
many good books, but is best remembered for "1984" and "Animal Farm", the
former a political allegory, the latter a political satire.  "1984" was written
in 1948, and the original title was to be "1948".  The book and film are not to
be viewed so much as predictions as extrapolations of the tendencies of
authoritarian states.

You seem to have missed the entire point of the film, unless you're kidding
there, too.  "1984" isn't a conventional love story by any stretch of the
imagination.  The love affair is a device used by Orwell and the filmmakers
to depict the full horror of totalitarianism carried to its logical conclusions.
The fact that "1984" is about totalitarianism, not love, is the reason so much
time and effort is spent on the society.  On the other hand, the feelings "1984"
engendered in you are pretty close to what was intended, except that you have
directed your disgust and anger at the filmmakers, rather than at the targets
they so accurately aimed at.
--
                                Peter Reiher

Date: Mon, 17 Jun 85 18:16:24 edt
From: ihnp4!osu-eddie!bgsuvax!newman (Tim Newman)
To: ut-sally!kelvin
Subject: Re: _1984_  (spoiler)

To understand 1984, one must read the book by George Orwell.  The book is
the story of a government gone mad.  It is in no way a romance, but instead
is a grim political commentary.  You really should find the time to read it.
Orwell's style is boring, but the book is short and well worth the time
invested to understand just what he's trying to say.  If you are at all
interested in the subject that Orwell discusses, you should read Aldous
Huxley's Brave New World.  This is much more readable yet nevertheless a
political masterpiece.  It's a shame you never got the opportunity to
read these gems, but perhaps now you will !


                                Tim Newman

From sas@leadsv.UUCP (Scott Stewart) Mon Jun 24 10:51:51 1985
Subject: Re: _1984_  (spoiler)
Organization: LMSC-LEADS, Sunnyvale, Ca.
Summary: Mild flame and comment

In article <2107@ut-sally.UUCP>, kelvin@ut-sally.UUCP (Kelvin Thompson) writes:
>
>
>                                _1984_
>
>                           by Kelvin Thompson
>

Having not seen the movie, I will not argue you opinion of it. But, from
those comments I've extracted below and capitalized, I get the feeling you
don't even know the literary source of thsi movie. If you don't, I'll kindly
inform you that it is George Orwell's classic novel "1984", written in
1948 (last two digits of the year the story was written were reversed to
arrive at the title of the book).

>  To be sure, the plot of the movie does have the broad outline of a love
>  story.  A man, John Hurt (_The_Elephant_Man_, _A_Man_for_All_Seasons_),
>  meets a woman, played by an unknown British actress, and they embark on a
>  difficult relationship.  Unfortunately, the "difficulty" in their
>  relationship is that they live in a futuristic, totalitarian society
>  which forbids love.  (IT IS UNFATHOMABLE WHY THE MOVIE IS ENTITLED
>  _1984_, WHEN IT IS SO OBVIOUSLY SET IN THE FUTURE.)
>
>
>  THESE PRISON SCENES ALSO GIVE THE WRITERS A CHANCE TO REALLY CUT LOOSE
>  WITH THEIR ANTI-HUMANIST, SKINNERIAN PHILOSOPHY.  Between tortures Hurt
>  and his jailer, the late Richard Burton (_The_Wild_Geese_), talk about
>  the society they live in, and Hurt loses every debate. Time and time
>  again Hurt raises a point about love or kindness or hope, Burton bats it
>  down, AND WRITERS CHOOSE NOT TO HAVE HURT RAISE A COUNTER POINT.
>  Finally, after a particularly brutal torture (which the viewer is all but
>  forced to look away from) Hurt gives in and truly renounces his love for
>  the girl.
>

You are correct in feeling that the movie shouldn't be billed as a love
story, it's not. It's a story about a society and the love story is used as
a foil to fully illustrate the societies evil, by our standards. As mentioned
above, Richard Burton's character manages to defend every evil of the
society as being the good of the society. It depends on your point of view
and personal morals. What's so depressing about the scene above is that, as
a reader, you find it hard to battle the arguments also. You don't want to
believe any thing the "Torturer" tells you, but you are unable to not
believe it. The novel is a very depressing and frightening story, and
this is what makes it endure so well. It captures much truth of social
systems and their capabilities and possibilities. (An aside, I heard
that the U.S.S.R. has finally recognized this book, stating that it is
a statement against the evils of Capitalim. )

Your review makes it appear that the movie follows the book very well,
conveying much of the same emotions the book expresses. "1984" is a classic
novel, and very depressing and frightening view of our possible future.
It is book based much on ideas, and because of this, I don't feel any
movie could do it real justice. But, please, when you criticize any
movie, get your information straight and assign your criticism to those
wh deserve it, whether good or bad.


                                Scott A. Stewart
                                LMSC

From nunes@utai.UUCP (Joe Nunes) Tue Jun 18 09:52:20 1985
Subject: Re: _1984_
Organization: CSRI, University of Toronto


   Before anyone gets too carried away, it is just possible that the original
posting was an elaborate joke.

From csdf@mit-vax.UUCP (csdf) Sun Jun 16 18:24:23 1985
Subject: Re: _1984_  Critique of Critique (spoiler)
Organization: MIT, Cambridge, MA

In article <2107@ut-sally.UUCP> kelvin@ut-sally.UUCP (Kelvin Thompson) writes:
>
>
>                               _1984_
>
>                          by Kelvin Thompson
>
> _1984_ is a bad, utterly depressing, anti-humanist movie.  The producer
> of the movie has claimed that at its heart the movie is a love story, but
> in truth it is a relentless attack on the nobility of the human
> condition.
>
> To be sure, the plot of the movie does have the broad outline of a love
> story.  A man, John Hurt (_The_Elephant_Man_, _A_Man_for_All_Seasons_),
> meets a woman, played by an unknown British actress, and they embark on a
> difficult relationship.  Unfortunately, the "difficulty" in their
> relationship is that they live in a futuristic, totalitarian society
> which forbids love.  (It is unfathomable why the movie is entitled
> _1984_, when it is so obviously set in the future.)
> Certainly there is nothing wrong with telling a story about forbidden
> love (consider Zeffirelli's _Romeo_and_Juliet_), but _1984_ relegates the
> love story to a secondary status, spending more time depicting the
> dehumanizing influences of the society.  The viewer can take only so many
> of these scenes -- involving dingy surroundings, tired, gray workers, and
> discussions of the decimation of history and language -- before he gets
> bogged down in a sense of utter despair, hardly the mood a romance is
> supposed to engender.

This is what the movie is about, nitwit. The book by George Orwell is a
comment on the human condition and how society can dehumanize it. It is
also a comment on the way he percieved Russian society after the
revolution. The movie is an amazing and captavating conversion of the
book capturing all the moods and subtlties amazingly. The book, and the
movie, point out that nobody is really sure what year it is anymore. You
are right that it's not really a love story, but it wasn't supposed to
be. I also thought you might be interested to know that Shakespeare
wrote Romeo and Juliet.

> And all that is before the movie gets *really* depressing.  Eventually
> the lovers are caught and carted off to prison (ironically called the
> "Ministry of Love").  The audience never finds out exactly what happens
> to the woman, but we see all too clearly what Hurt undergoes.  It turns
> out that the authorities don't merely want to make Hurt pay for his "sex
> crime," or to make him publicly repudiate it, they want him to actually
> loathe the love he felt for the woman.  This calls for especially extreme
> torture, and the audience sees every second of it.

The torture scenes are picnics compares to "Rambo". The point that
Orwell makes here is really amazing: Hurt's character believes that he
will always be free as long as he can control his feelings, but Orwell
shows how society can change even those.

> These prison scenes also give the writers a chance to really cut loose
> with their anti-humanist, Skinnerian philosophy.  Between tortures Hurt
> and his jailer, the late Richard Burton (_The_Wild_Geese_), talk about
> the society they live in, and Hurt loses every debate. Time and time
> again Hurt raises a point about love or kindness or hope, Burton bats it
> down, and writers choose not to have Hurt raise a counter point.
> Finally, after a particularly brutal torture (which the viewer is all but
> forced to look away from) Hurt gives in and truly renounces his love for
> the girl.
>
> The final scene removes any remaining doubt that this might be even a
> tragic romance.  The two former lovers, freed after their
> "rehabilitation," meet.  They are distant, indifferent to one another,
> and after trading inanities they go their separate ways.  Finally, in his
> closing lines, Hurt proclaims that his love has shifted to Big Brother,
> the leader of the entirely un-romantic society he lives in.  The final
> hope for tenderness has received its final kick in the face.

You hit the nail on the head, didn't you? Too bad they didn't get Brooke
Shields (_Endless_Love_, _The_Blue_Lagoon_) to play the woman. That
would have made it more spicy. Perhaps a wet-T-shirt contest scene is
called for to save this "un-romantic" film.

1984 was a brilliant, well-directed film and food for thought. Read a
book, Thompson!
--
Charles Forsythe
"Safe for now...."

From csdf@mit-vax.UUCP (csdf) Wed Jun 19 02:17:20 1985
Subject: Re: _1984_  (spoiler)
Organization: MIT, Cambridge, MA

In article <799@oddjob.UUCP> cs1@oddjob.UUCP (Cheryl Stewart) writes:
>                 _1984_
>
>           The book vs. the film
>     The film _1984_ has an unfortunate difference in emphasis from the book.

I didn't find it unfortunate. The movie was great.

>There are strong hints throughout the book that the affair with the girl
>was set up merely to destroy his capacity to figure out when he was being
>lied to.  (It worked.)

Maybe I should read it again, but I didn't perceive these "strong hints"
in that way, the film seemed accurate.

>left out is Orwell's
>story of a man struggling to articulate his own ideas while being bombarded
>with flashy rhetoric intended to dupe him otherwise.
> I came away from the book convinced that Madison Avenue was just a
>candy-coated version of IngSoc. I came away from the movie relieved that
>I'd never been tortured here in wonderful democratic America.
> Has anyone else noticed this difference?
> Cheryl
Stewart
I don't think this is left out at all. The scenes in the Ministry of
Love contain a lot of dialogue that brings this subjecct to the
forefront. Also, you should consider that a movie is an interpretation
of a book, not a copy of it.
I didn't notice the difference you mention. (also, I think you are
putting a little too much faith in the American Government, but that's
another flame :-)
--
Charles Forsythe
"The Church of Fred has yet to come under attack.
    No one knows about it."
        -Rev. Wang Zeep

From jeff@rtech.UUCP (Jeff Lichtman) Thu Jun 20 01:14:47 1985
Subject: Re: _1984_  (spoiler)
Organization: Relational Technology, Alameda CA

>
>                                _1984_
>
>                           by Kelvin Thompson
>
>  _1984_ is a bad, utterly depressing, anti-humanist movie.  The producer
>  of the movie has claimed that at its heart the movie is a love story, but
>  in truth it is a relentless attack on the nobility of the human
>  condition.
>

This review makes me wonder whether Mr. Thompson ever read the book "1984" by
George Orwell.  "1984" is one of the most important books of this century, and
from everything I have heard, the latest movie version of it is pretty true to
the book.

The book "1984" is definitely pro-humanist.  George Orwell intended it as a
satire of the trend toward totalitarianism that existed in the year he wrote
it, 1948, and still exists today.  The point is that totaliarianism destroys
love and everything else that is noble about humanity.  The depressing tone
of the book and the movie, and the fact that Winston Smith completely loses
his humanity in the end, are intended to make you feel the hopelessness that
living under totalitarianism must bring.

I'm really surprised that someone posted a "spoiler" of 1984.  I thought just
about everyone had read the book.  I was required to read it in High School
English.  If the review to which I am responding was a joke, sorry for boring
you by not getting it.
--
Jeff Lichtman at rtech (Relational Technology, Inc.)
aka Swazoo Koolak

From cramer@kontron.UUCP (Clayton Cramer) Fri Jun 28 19:36:20 1985
Subject: Re: _1984_  (spoiler)
Organization: Kontron Electronics, Irvine, CA

>
>
>                  _1984_
>
>            The book vs. the film
>
>
>
>      The film _1984_ has an unfortunate difference in emphasis from the book.
> Orwell stressed the intellectual brutality of IngSoc and its language,
> how the main character fought that brutality by simply (and illegally) main-
> taining his diary, and through that diary the integrity of his own mind.
> There are strong hints throughout the book that the affair with the girl
> was set up merely to destroy his capacity to figure out when he was being
> lied to.  (It worked.)
>       The film, on the other hand, stresses the physical and psychological
> brutality of of the system.  They won't let him shave or make love.  They
> torture him because he asks questions and thinks for himself.  The film is
> very true to the book in many details, but what's left out is Orwell's
> story of a man struggling to articulate his own ideas while being bombarded
> with flashy rhetoric intended to dupe him otherwise.

I agree there is a difference in emphasis between book and movie --- I
think because it is much easier to show physical and psychological brutality
in film than to explore the intellectual destruction.

>       I came away from the book convinced that Madison Avenue was just a
> candy-coated version of IngSoc. I came away from the movie relieved that
> I'd never been tortured here in wonderful democratic America.
>

I think you trivialize the nature of Newspeak when you compare it to
advertising.

If the only relief you felt after the movie was that you'd never been
tortued, I think you may have missed something in the depiction of how
boring and dull life under IngSoc was.

And your apparent sarcasm "wonderful democratic America" suggests that you
need to spend more time studying totalitarian regiemes around the world.

>                                                   Cheryl Stewart

From jla@usl.UUCP (Joe Arceneaux) Sun Jun 30 16:55:26 1985
Subject: Re: _1984_  (spoiler)
Organization: University of (SW) Louisiana

In article <485@leadsv.UUCP> sas@leadsv.UUCP (Scott Stewart) writes:
>
> Your review makes it appear that the movie follows the book very well,
> conveying much of the same emotions the book expresses. "1984" is a classic
> novel, and very depressing and frightening view of our possible future.
> It is book based much on ideas, and because of this, I don't feel any
> movie could do it real justice. But, please, when you criticize any

I thought that this was an OUTSTANDING movie which really did justice to
the novel.
--
Joe Arceneaux
Lafayette, LA

Date: 9 Jul 85 07:38:26 CDT (Tue)
To: ut-sally!kelvin
Subject: Re: _1984_  (spoiler)
Organization: Pertec Computer Corp., Irvine, CA

I just borrowed the tape of this and watched it this morning.  Before reading
your review.  I agree.  WHAT A DEPRESSING MOVIE!  I was already depressed
before I started watching it.  What a way to start a day.  I'm sorry I hadn't
read your review before.
--
        roger long

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