Nearly 200 independent movie theaters across the United States on Tuesday (April 4) will screen the 1984 film adaptation of George Orwell’s “1984” novel about a dystopian future in what organizers say is a stand against U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration.
The 1949 book, which returned to the U.S. best-seller list in January, features a “Big Brother” government that spies on its citizens and forces them into “doublethink,” or simultaneously accepting contradictory versions of the truth.
The movie, made in 1984 and starring John Hurt and Richard Burton, will be screened in 44 states. It will also be shown at five locations in Canada, one in England, one in Sweden and one in Croatia.
“This screening is part of a nationwide series of screenings that was actually organized by Dylan Skolnick of the Cinema Arts Centre. So the Film Society of Lincoln Center is participating in it. And they’re occurring today, April 4th, because that’s the day in 1984 when Winston the main character starts his diary, that is his first act of rebellion against the authoritarian, or rather totalitarian state,” said Nicolas Rapold, editor of Film Comment, which is published by the Film Society of Lincoln Center.
The British novel was reprinted in January, decades after it was written, following the Trump administration’s defense of “alternative facts,” a term White House official Kellyanne Conway used during a dispute over the size of the crowd at Trump’s inauguration.
