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1984 Production
In winter 1983, the director Michael Radford asked his producer to try to obtain the rights to Orwell’s novel, with low expectations that they were available. It turned out that the rights were held by Marvin Rosenblum, a Chicago lawyer who had been trying on his own to get such a film produced.[7] Rosenblum agreed to become an executive producer, and while producer Simon Perry raised the production money from Richard Branson, Radford wrote the script, inspired by his idea to make a “science fiction film made in 1948.”[7] The script was finished in three weeks.[7]

For the role of O’Brien, Paul Scofield was originally contracted to play the part, but had to withdraw after sustaining a broken leg while filming The Shooting Party.[7][8] Anthony Hopkins, Sean Connery and Rod Steiger were all then considered.[7] Richard Burton, who was living in Haiti, joined the production six weeks into its shooting schedule[7] and insisted on his costume of a boiler suit being hand-made for him in Savile Row.[9][10]

Some internet sources claim that principal photography began on 19 March 1984 and ended in October 1984.[6] However the film was released that same month, and a title card at the end of the film explicitly states, it “was photographed in and around London during the period April–June 1984, the exact time and setting imagined by the author.”[11] The budget was originally £2.5 million but this rose during filming and additional funds were required.[12] The opening scenes of the film showing the Two Minutes Hate were filmed in a grass-covered hangar at RAF Hullavington near Chippenham in Wiltshire.[13] Some scenes set in Victory Square were also filmed at Alexandra Palace in London.[14] Senate House (University of London) was used for exterior shots of the Ministry of Truth.

The disused Battersea Power Station in Wandsworth served as the façade for the Victory Mansions, and the Beckton Gas Works in the Docklands of Newham was used as the setting for the proletarian zones. The pawnshop exterior, a pub scene and a scene with a prostitute were filmed in Cheshire Street, in London’s East End, an area Orwell had visited and commented on in his first book, Down and Out in Paris and London. The canteen interiors were filmed in a disused grain mill at Silvertown. In contrast, the idyllic, dreamlike “Golden Country”, where Winston and Julia repair for their first tryst and which recurs in Winston’s fantasies, was filmed in the southwest county of Wiltshire at a natural circle of hills called “Roundway”, near the town of Devizes. The scenes on the train were shot on the Kent and East Sussex Railway. The film shared a number of locations with Terry Gilliam’s Brazil, which was filmed the same year.[7]

Radford and cinematographer Roger Deakins originally wanted to shoot the film in black and white, but the financial backers of the production, Virgin Films, opposed this idea. Instead, Deakins used a film processing technique called bleach bypass (originally created by Technicolor and Deluxe, but recreated for this production by Key) to create the distinctive washed-out look of the film’s colour visuals. The film is a very rare example of the technique being applied to every release print, rather than the interpositive, that was struck from the original camera negative, or the internegative (struck from the interpositive); as the silver is retained in the print and cannot be reclaimed by the lab, the cost is higher, but the retained silver gives a “depth” to the projected image.[citation needed]

Release and reception
Nineteen Eighty-Four made its theatrical debut on 10 October in London and on 14 December in New York City.[15] It was released in the United States for one week in December 1984 at the Egyptian Theatre in Los Angeles to qualify for the 1984 Academy Awards and grossed a house record $62,121, despite stormy weather.[16]

Vincent Canby of The New York Times said the film was “admirable, bleakly beautiful”, although “not an easy film to watch”.[2]

Roger Ebert awarded the film 3.5/4 stars, writing that it “penetrates much more deeply into the novel’s heart of darkness” than previous adaptations, and describing Hurt as “the perfect Winston Smith”.[17]

Review aggregation website Rotten Tomatoes has given the film a 74% approval rating, based on 27 reviews, with an average rating of 6.7/10. The site’s critical consensus states:

“1984 doesn’t fully emerge from the shadow of its source material, but still proves a solid, suitably discomfiting adaptation of a classic dystopian tale.”[18]

Metacritic has given the film a rating of 67 out of 100 based on 8 critics, indicating “generally favorable reviews”.[19]