Since George Orwell published his groundbreaking political fable 1984every generation has found enough reasons to point to the bleak near future projected in the novel. Whether Orwell had a prophetic vision or was simply a very astute reader of the institutions of his time – all of which still exist in mutated form today – hardly matters. His book set the tone for the next 70-plus years of dystopian literature and film.
Orwell’s own political activities – his time as a colonial policeman or his denunciation of several colleagues and friends in the British secret service – may make him suspect in some circles. But his nightmarish fictional projections of totalitarian rule strike a nerve in almost every political camp, because, as in the speculative future created by Aldous Huxley, no one wants to live in such a world. Or at least no one will admit it if they do.
Even the institutions that came closest to realizing Orwell’s vision have appropriated his work for their own ends. The CIA has adapted the animated version of Animal Farm. And if you’re from a certain vintage, you’ll remember Apple’s appropriation of 1984 in Ridley Scott’s Super Bowl commercial for the Macintosh computer that same year. But of course not every Orwell adaptation was made in the service of political or commercial opportunism. Long before the Apple commercial and Michael Radford’s 1984 film adaptation Nineteen hundred and eighty-fourthere was the above-mentioned radio play from 1949. With the British star David Niven in the leading role and a commentary by the author James Hilton, the program was broadcast in the educational radio series NBC University Theatre.
This radio play, the “first audio production of 1949’s most challenging novel,” begins with a sort of trigger warning, preparing us for a “disturbing broadcast.” For an audience fresh from the Nazi atrocities and the atomic bombing of Japan, and then faced with the threat of Soviet communism, Orwell’s dystopian fiction must have seemed grim and disturbing indeed.
Any adaptation of a literary work is inevitably also an interpretation, subject to the ideas and ideologies of its time. The Niven broadcast has the same historical concerns as Orwell’s novel. Recently, this 70-year-old audio recording itself was adopted by a podcast called Great Speeches and Interviews, which edited the broadcast together with a bewildering selection of popular songs and an interview between journalists Glenn Greenwald and Dylan Ratigan. Whatever we make of these developments, one thing seems certain. We will not be finished with Orwell’s novel yet. 1984 for some time, and it will not be over with us yet.
See also:
George Orwell explains in an insightful letter from 1944 why he wrote 1984
The cover of George Orwell’s 1984 Less censored due to wear and tear
Listen to George Orwell’s 1984 Adapted as a radio play at the height of the McCarthy era and the Red Scare (1953)
Free download: A knitting pattern for a sweater with the iconic cover of George Orwell’s “1984”
Josh Jones is a writer and musician from Durham, NC. Follow him on @jdmagness
