1984 is without doubt one of the most influential books ever written. Its dystopian portrayal of totalitarianism has inspired all manner of novels, films, plays, graphic novels and other art of all descriptions. Its impact on our language has been greater than that of any other modern novel, indeed it is difficult to think of any other work of fiction that has left such a lasting linguistic legacy. Big Brother, Thought Police, Room 101, Newspeak and Orwellian have become part of our every day parlance. Its true impact though, the making less likely of the very future it describes, is impossible to measure.
I will assume you are familiar with the story and characters (if not you should be reading it rather than wasting your time with this piffle). I shall not waffle on about censorship, personality cults, behaviour and thought modification or mass surveillance, nor about Oceania, Victory Gin or Ministries of Truth, Peace and Plenty. Nor will I compare and contrast with Brave New World, Blade Runner or Children of Men. You can do all that perfectly well of your own accord over a cup of tea and a Kipling (I’d go for a Lemon Slice if I were you).
1984 is a novel that lends itself to visualisation. The 1954 BBC adaptation is one of the most faithful and by far the most successful. It was performed live, bar a few pre-recorded inserts. The recording, not of its original performance but a second one shortly afterwards, only exists at all as someone at the BBC chose to point a camera at a monitor as it went out. This was in the days before videotape and the ‘telerecording’ technique of the day was expensive and used very sparingly. The poor quality of the recording, grainy and occasionally jerky, only adds to the overwhelming atmosphere of grim claustrophobia that pervades every second.
It is this grimness, this early 1950s Britain, still visibly scarred by war and drudging poverty, that, besides providing the perfect visual background, makes flesh the sterility and ugliness of life under the Party. It is this very state of desperation, this sense of powerlessness and conformity, that the regime seeks to maintain. It has no interest in building utopia but simply in maintaining itself in power. The never ending war Oceania is engaged in is not fought for victory but to destroy the output of its own people, to keep them in a state of never ending poverty. It is only those that have a certain level of prosperity that have the potential to question, educate themselves and rebel, not those pre-occupied with their own survival. It is no coincidence that all so-called revolutionary movements have been led not by the toiling masses but by a small educated middle class element that has enjoyed the material security needed to have such aspirations, and the time on its hands to do something about it. The regime’s role is to prevent prosperity and keep everyone firmly towards the bottom of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs.
The proles, some 85% of the populace, are treated as little more than animals, confined to their squalid vermin ridden sectors and kept sedate with cheap beer, pornography and a national lottery that appears to provide their only hope of escape. At the same time, they are, in one sense, freer than Party members, subject to much less control and far less intimidated by the apparatus of the state. In part this is because they have nothing to lose, but the reality is that the Party hierarchy is content to leave them to their own devices as they pose no threat. Those that could, the rebellious ‘middle class’ outer party members, are simply eliminated.
As we move, slowly and fictitiously, towards a post-totalitarian world in which Orwell’s dystopia ceases to have the direct resonance it used to, it is what he has to say about conformity and apathy that begins to chime more loudly. It is clear that the Proles could easily rise up and destroy the party and state. So why don’t they? It is here that 1984 is at its most disturbing, in its portrait of the mundane realities of all societies. Do they hold back out of fear? There is little evidence of this. They hold back because the very idea of choice has been destroyed, the very idea of rebellion has (almost) ceased to exist.
Seligman described this as ‘learned helplessness’. In his most oft cited experiment he gave electric shocks to a dog, which it could stop by pressing a lever. Another dog was similarly electrocuted but its lever did nothing to stop it when pressed, it seemed to end randomly whatever action the dog took. The second dog learnt to be helpless, even when the mechanism was adjusted so that the shock would be stopped by the lever it did not try and activate it. Despite being able to easily escape electrocution, it didn’t even try. Once the futility of its actions had been demonstrated, once hope had been taken away, it simply lay down and accepted it. The Proles are much the same, so used to being helpless that they have lost even the idea of trying to do anything about it. They grumble about the beer that the Party supplies, get excited about the illicit pornography they’ve managed to get their hands on (which in fact is written by a machine in the Ministry of Truth) but they do not question and they do not act.
This is the very society we have become. The tragedy is that it does not take force and state control to achieve this. We have embraced consumerism, indifference and inaction, a holy trinity for a civilisation that no longer believes in determining its own future. Believing in anything is not cool, buying it is. Our society is one of passive acceptance, we would rather complain about it down the pub than even think about doing anything to change it. Politics is for someone else, taking to the streets is what they do abroad, we are more civilised, refined and tolerant. We observe, not live. We drink, not act. Our schools do not teach us about politics, philosophy or our own history. Our media only reports it if ‘our’ people are involved, if there is footage, if its in english. We are insular, badly informed and have next to no influence on the decisions that shape our lives. They are for politicians, or have been outsourced to private companies to make for us. We are the voters, the market, the consumer. Passively accepting that freedom of choice is the same as the choice of freedom.
Anyway. The 1954 BBC production is also notable for staring a young Peter Cushing as Winston, in one of his first major roles, not to mention Donald Pleasance. Cushing is something of a revelation if all you’ve previously seen of him is his Hammer Horror persona. He is perfect as the repressed yet rebellious Englishman, rebelling not so much out of ideology (he actually quite likes his job rewriting history) but out of a sense that things aren’t quite cricket and out of a boredom with the sterility of his existence. The key role of boredom in shaping historical and political events has been much overlooked. Indeed it is the mundanity, the politeness, the very englishness of the production that makes it all the more disturbing. This is brought home so forcibly by its understated acting and by its sheer roughness, at one point the whole wall wobbles when a door is closed, Ed Wood style. Its budgetary and technological limitations, alongside the restrictions caused by live performance, force everything down on to the actors, script and the ideas themselves. Cushing’s presence in almost every frame simply adds to the sense that he is constantly being watched, never free to be himself. Indeed it is when Winston returns home after work and we see that the in-home CCTV means he cannot relax, cannot be himself even there, that he has no space, no time where he can escape except in his own head, that the true horrific nature of his predicament becomes most disturbing. The fact that what is in his head itself can be deleted, edited and reprogrammed seems almost a relief from this torture.
The original screening resulted in rival Early Day Motions in the House condemning and applauding it in equal measure, and the Daily Express headline of “Wife dies as she watches”, following the tragic demise of Beryl Merfin (now there’s a name) of Herne Bay during its screening. Nothing quite so dramatic happened at the BFI on Thursday, but as we sat out on a bench by the river afterwards, looking out over the London whose alternative future we had just seen, we felt profoundly uncomfortable.
