Criticism > Twentieth-Century Literary Criticism > Special Commissioned Entry on George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four, W. Scott Lucas - Adaptations

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ADAPTATIONS

Commenting on the first film adaptation of Nineteen Eighty-Four, the reviewer for The Times noted incisively, “From the point of view of the conventional film-maker, the two least important factors in George Orwell's 1984 are the most attractive. They are the love affair between Winston Smith and Julia and the physical torments suffered by Winston in the cellars of the Ministry of Love, while the best things in the novel—indeed perhaps the best pieces of satirical writing Orwell ever accomplished—[the] Goldstein treatise and the appendix called “The Principles of Newspeak,” are obviously unfilmable.”¹

While one might question the reviewer's judgement of the “best things in the novel,” his assessment of the difficulties of converting Orwell's literature into film has proven to be applicable not only in 1956 but in the subsequent 45 years. There is always the temptation to convert Nineteen...

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1. Introduction
2. Evolution Of Nineteen Eighty-Four
3. On Nineteen Eighty-Four
4. Themes
5. Critical Summary
6. Nineteen Eighty-Four In History
7. Adaptations
8. Nineteen Eighty-Four As Studied
9. Further Reading
10. Copyright