Throughout the book, characters called each other ‘comrade’ (8), however, in the movie, the main characters called each other ‘brother’ or ‘sister’ as done during the Hitler regime. The director of the movie opted out of using the ‘Soviet’ type-casted comrade as the cold war was winding down and did not need any more fuel for the fire as well as capitalizing on the fact that ‘1984’ is about any totalitarianism and not just or specifically the Soviet flavor of totalitarianism.
Comparison between 1984 the movie (John Hurt) and 1984
Seeing newsreels of wheat fields yielding abundantly and great war victories accompanied with a propaganda-filled sound track crafted with surgical precision instantly leads viewers to think they are about to experience a totally new, adulterated version of George Orwell’s classic novel ‘1984’, but this is not the case. The movie almost entirely portrays what the reader of the book experiences except for a few scenes that are shuffled around in the film and a few new scenes for cinematic affect. The opening scene although not showing the bleak entrance of ‘a bright, cold day in April and the clocks were striking 13 ( Orwell 1) shows the same ‘no-hope’ of not only being long past 5 to 12, but now striking 13 o’clock as society settles in on being told what is expected of it and what to hope for.
Cover of The Movie Cover of Nineteen Eighty-Four
All the main elements of the book remain intact, such as the two minutes hate (3), diary writing (3), fixing the production headline (11), razorblade issue (3, 13), “You’re a spy” role-of-the-children (9), message from O’Brian (6), chocolate increase (16), Charrington’s store (21), Julia’s note (26) and the food she brought (28-9), meeting and brotherhood initiation at O’Brian’s flat (36-8), ‘The Book’ (40-41), the capture (44-7) and confinement (49), torture (50-54), betrayal of Julia (66) and the final scene in The Chestnut Tree Café (66-8).
Even though all the elements were covered in the book, sometimes they were different than in the book, for instance the first time we see Winston collecting the diary in the movie, we see an elaborate hiding place behind a false brick where the diary is hidden, bringing a sense of how horrible an act this is to warrant such a hiding place.
What was not in the book, such as the two way communication with telescreens during exercising, was explained in the book using different means such as “It was a good idea to look happy when you were facing the telescreen (3)” and “He went back to the living room and sat down at a small table to the left of the telescreen. It was the only place in the room where the telescreen could not see him (3).” This dialogue left the reader understanding the telescreens could see you and even hear you as it was later apparent “‘Now they can see us,’ said Julia. ‘Now we can see you,’ said the voice (45).” There is no doubt that the telescreens can see, hear and communicate with people close to the telescreen.
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