And we are not at war with Venezuela, the War in Gaza is not a genocide, and prices in America are lower than ever. Double-speak, a term inspired by George Orwell’s terms, Newspeak and doublethink as presented in the satire “1984,” is now de rigor politicalspeak throughout the world. Are we really there? Has Orwell’s warning about authoritarianism and greedy political power become obscenely true in 2025?
Raoul Peck, writer/director/producer, has set out with filmmaker radicals like Alex Gibney, George Chignell, and Nick Shumaker to show the parallels between Orwell’s warning about authoritarianism and his experience of it in the ’30s to ’40s, and the populism extremes of our current times. This includes everything from the genocide in Myanmar of the Rohingas (“We have no Rohingas here.”) to Netanyahu’s comment at the UN during the genocide of Gaza (“Here’s the truth. Israel seeks peace.”). I add the executive control of the American Congress through threats of running well-financed campaigns against incumbents if they don’t vote the president’s way.
Peck’s task is a challenge, not because the evidence isn’t rich and available, but because he cuts his work into three-focus points. He tries to insert life events of Orwell throughout his film as he also juxtaposes historical clips of abuse of power with the resulting subjugation, oppression, and poverty of cultures throughout the world with current examples of the same today. It is a daunting task. But he short-changed the Orwell part.
I am an expert on George Orwell. I used to leave my high school class for a moment for a feigned call to the office. Then in would walk a thin man with close-cropped hair, white shirt, tie, and worn jacket. He would pull out a bottle of Whiskey and glass from under my podium. He would explain that he had heard that Dr. Questad was going to have them read “Animal Farm” and that he was the author. Then the lights would dim. “George” would light a candle as he came back from the dead. As he lit his cigarette, he had everyone’s attention.
Like Peck’s movie explains, Orwell was born in India, schooled at Eton, and worked as an officer in Burma. But Peck moves on too fast. While he gives dates, he omits the stories of how Orwell was constantly confronting forms of oppression in his own life. There is no mention of Orwell’s stint as a migrant farm-worker and why he changed his name from Eric Arthur Blair to George Orwell. And no mention that his last wife unwittingly sold the copyright of “Animal Farm” to the CIA, who made it into an anti-Russian propaganda animation.
There is so much color and calamity about Orwell that affected his writing that Peck left out. But he had to focus on his thesis, that Orwell’s warnings about authoritarianism in “1984” and “Animal Farm” have been actualized. Peck contends that the time has finally come – 1984 is now.
My slightly opposing contention is that the reality, perhaps hyperbolized, of authoritarianism described in “1984” and “Animal Farm,” is universal through time as well as in our relationships, our families, our communities, our businesses, our churches, our government, and world affairs. And that, my students, is why they are classics. Their applicability is universal and lasts through time.
Credits
Writer/Director: Raoul Peck
Producers: Alex Gibney, George Chignell, Raoul Peck, Nick Shumaker
Executive Producers: Maiken Baird, Erin Edeiken, Johnny Fewings, Jessica Grimshaw, Christian Holland, William Horberg, David Levine, Joey Marra, Dan O’Meara, Richard Perello, Tom Quinn, Courtney Sexton, and Zhang Xin
executive producer
Featuring: Damian Lewis (Narrator), Edward Snowden and archival footage of George Orwell, Ida Orwell, Richard Blair, Sonja Orwell, Eileen Blair, and others, including Franco, Orbán, Marcos, Pinochet, Putin, Stalin, and Trump.
Editing: Alexandra Strauss
Original Score: Alexei Aigui
Cinematography: Julian Schwanitz, Benjamin Bloodwell, and Stuart Luck
Release: Oct. 10, 2025
Website: https://www.neonrated.com/film/orwell
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