I was thoroughly absorbed by this primer on George Orwell and the writing of his novel 1984.

For some, it may seem to be stating the obvious but I haven’t thought a lot about Orwell since reading his books in high school and although I know all of the popular beats – how 1984 seems to be telling of the times we are living in now, like Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale – there is something about hearing Orwell’s diaries spoken aloud against images of atrocities and political speak in Myanmar, France, Berlin during World War II and the USA today that brings it into sharp focus.

We start with and revisit the last few years of Orwells‘s life as he is spending extended time in a sanatorium because of tuberculosis, wishing he was back on the Scottish Inner Hebridean island of Jura on his family farm. He is writing 1984 (it was nearly called The Last Man in Europe) and we hear words from his diary and letters.

Between the autobiographical moments, we are given context for how Orwell grew up with a certain amount of privilege which he feels sharpened his interest in the relationship between the oppressor and the oppressed. We also travel through the three main mottos of 1984: War is peace. Ignorance is strength. Freedom is slavery.

There are so many contemporary examples to draw from, so many totalitarian regimes either well established, remerging, or finding their feet. We look at dictators, military forces, the role of the media, and examples of ‘newspeak’. There are some beautiful and pithy moments, one that comes to mind is Mark Zuckerberg being questioned about Meta’s relinquishing of fact checking to an independent organisation and just how un-independent that organisation is. I’m aware that it fits with my political and social beliefs, which meant it was a sobering but satisfying watch.

It could be very bleak, but I think it is saved from an ultimate sense of despondency at the end by the interweaving of static portraits of ordinary people from across the world. It’s a simple motif but it somehow grounds this awful reality in a reminder of individual lives and humanity. The message ultimately is that the only way to counter totalitarianism is to protest together.

Orwell died young, he was 46 when he finally succumbed to tuberculosis. What drove him was a need to speak up against oppressors, to point out the hypocrisies and lies in our everyday lives. Today he would’ve been a YouTuber, and probably targeted for his words.