We take a look at the various times the work of George Orwell has been adapted for the big screen – as well as the novels that have never been committed to film…
This article first appeared in Film Stories issue 43 in July 2023.
The 2019 film Mr Jones opens with a shot of pigs in a sty, before showing a farmhouse. A voice is heard narrating over the sound of a typewriter, giving a speech that culminates in the line, “Mr Jones, of the Manor Farm, had locked the hen-houses for the night.”
Mr Jones tells the story of Gareth Jones, a Welsh journalist investigating famine in Ukraine, then part of the Soviet Union, in the 1930s. His journey from England over to the East leads him to encounter many larger-than-life characters, with portrayals of real people who would inspire the novel Animal Farm.
Joseph Mawle portrays George Orwell in a film that depicts the real-life events that inspired Orwell’s novel. Mr Jones is played by James Norton and we are shown his journey while cutting to scenes of Orwell writing the novel as a result of Mr Jones’s investigation, with references to Animal Farm throughout.
To this day, this is the only major film in which Orwell is a character, which is rather surprising. If Rasputin can be a villain in both Hellboy and The King’s Man, surely we can get a decent biopic of one of Britain’s most beloved authors?
Orwell had insisted that no biography be written about him after his death. This desire was executed by his wife Sonia, who became more flexible on the idea as she got older. After she died in 1980, more Orwell biographies hit the market, but still, there has been a lack of an Orwell biopic.
Orwell has been hugely influential across all other forms. David Bowie’s album Diamond Dogs included tracks that were originally intended to be included in his planned musical adaptation of 1984, with the tracks ‘1984’ and ‘Big Brother’ quite clearly having references to Orwell’s classic. Filmgoers can speculate on whether the line in Arctic Monkeys’ I Bet You Look Good On The Dancefloor, “like a robot from 1984,” is a reference to his most famous novel or a slightly misdated shout-out to the Robot in Rocky IV.
Despite being one of Britain’s most celebrated authors, his work and life story have not been transferred to the big screen quite as much as most would have thought. Orwell has a large body of work including essays and non-fiction, but out of his six works of fiction, not all of them have been adapted.
Burmese Days
In 2010 it was reported that Ralph Fiennes was set to play John Flory in an adaptation of Orwell’s first novel, Burmese Days, with Morning Glory director Roger Michell at the helm. Fiennes would have been perfect in the casting of Flory, a British ex-pat in Burma who is alone from his fellow Brits in not harbouring racist views towards the native people. Fiennes referred to Orwell in his second James Bond film Spectre, describing the government’s new surveillance system as “George Orwell’s worst nightmare.” The film was never made and to this day, this line in Spectre is the closest we have got to seeing Fiennes in an Orwell role.
A Clergyman’s Daughter
Orwell’s second novel, A Clergyman’s Daughter, is generally considered his worst book. While that seems like a very underbaked and sour sentence to write, Orwell himself had stated that upon his death the book was not to be reprinted. It was a much more experimental style of writing for Orwell, with the book being written entirely in prose. He would later allow the printing of cheap copies of the book, admittedly in order to produce money for his heirs. The frosty reception of the novel is a big factor in it never being adapted to the big screen.
Keep The Aspidistra Flying
It’s not until we get to Orwell’s third novel that we find one that has been adapted to the screen. His novel Keep The Aspidistra Flying was adapted into a film in 1997, starring Richard E Grant and Helena Bonham Carter. The movie was released in the US as A Merry War. The title change is something we can be sure Orwell would not have condoned, with references to the aspidistra plant being a key motif throughout the film. Despite the title change, the film proved to be popular. Grant gives an engaging performance as Gordon Comstock, a struggling writer whose complicated relationship with money and success causes obstacles in his personal and professional life. Some could read it and see a love story, and a struggling writer may think that they are reading a horror story. But the film is an honest and entertaining adaptation of his book with great performances.
The novel is often billed as Orwell’s only comedy. The comedic aspects are something that is leaned on in the movie, with the light-hearted US title A Merry War making it clear that this film is a romantic comedy. It serves as the only adaptation of the story, but proof that a solid film version of Orwell’s work is very possible.
Coming Up For Air
Orwell’s fourth novel joins the same club as his first two. That club is Orwell books that haven’t been adapted to the big screen. However, the story did find itself adapted in a season three episode of Theatre 625, with the episode titled ‘The World of George Orwell: Coming Up For Air’. It’s the story of George Bowling, a husband and father who foresees the impending Second World War and returns to his childhood home, hoping to recapture the nostalgia of his youth. It didn’t reach the same level of fame for the author, who was preparing to release the two biggest books of his career.
Animal Farm
Animal Farm has been adapted to the big screen twice. However, both made many changes from the original novel. The 1954 version was an animated adaptation, which was partly funded by the CIA. Despite having no intentions of giving over the rights to the film, Orwell’s widow was approached by the CIA to make the film in a bid to combat communism. It took 15 years to turn a profit and became a classic to stick on at school.
The next adaptation came in 1999 – a live-action film featuring the voices of Kelsey Grammar, Patrick Stewart and Julia Louis-Dreyfus. This movie did not manage to have the longevity of the previous adaptation, with large creative steps away from the source material not serving in its favour.
While the 1954 version is animated and the 1999 film is live-action with voice-overs, Andy Serkis looks to add a new method of filmmaking in his upcoming adaptation of the novel. Serkis had first discussed his plans to create a motion-capture version of Animal Farm in 2012. Since then, the film has undergone some creative changes, with it then being considered to be made using stop-motion animation, before supposedly settling on traditional animation. However, with the direction of Serkis, one would imagine that performance capture will factor into the film in some manner.
Nineteen Eighty-Four
Orwell’s final novel is perhaps his most famous, most quoted and certainly the most adapted. Nineteen Eighty-Four. A 1953 episode of the television series Westinghouse Studio One became the first ever adaptation, with significant cutting and changing of the story to condense it into a 50-minute running time. It was adapted by the BBC the following year with Peter Cushing starring as Winston Smith. This version was shocking to audiences at the time, who were particularly horrified by the scenes that took place in ‘Room 101’, resulting in 27 years before it would next be shown. However, it has since had a bit of a resurgence, with viewings at BFI Southbank giving it further attention.
1956 was the year that the first feature-length adaptation was released – the film 1984 starring Edmond O’Brien in the lead role. Of course, no one would have missed the trick of releasing the film in its titular year, with the John Hurt-starring adaptation being released (unsurprisingly) in 1984. This version would also feature the talents of Richard Burton. Apple had the same idea, releasing its famous 1984-inspired advert directed by Ridley Scott in the same year.
Director Paul Greengrass has long had trouble in getting his planned adaptation of the story off the ground, with rumoured reworks believed to have inclusions about Donald Trump’s presidency. But it appears that this project is unlikely to materialise. While the Greengrass film couldn’t reach the finish line, we will have to settle for the upcoming Finnish version of the film to satisfy any big-screen Orwell needs.
Missed opportunities
It’s surprising that there aren’t more films based on Orwell’s works and life. Maybe this will change in the future and we’ll see an influx of adaptations – or perhaps years of the reality show Big Brother has spoiled it for everyone else.
But until then, fans will have to be satisfied with Mr Jones for any film portraying Orwell. Towards the end of the film, Mr Jones meets George Orwell, who’s introduced using his real name, Eric Blair. This encounter takes a similar amount of artistic licence as seen in many of the adaptations of his work. Jones and Orwell never really met. But the inclusion of Orwell in this film provides a lease of energy in the story and an interesting method to highlight the historical significance of Gareth Jones.
As the film gets closer to its conclusion it becomes increasingly clear that it is a depiction of the real events that inspired Animal Farm, with Orwell giving a voice-over of the closing line of the book, and perhaps his most famous, “the creatures outside looked from pig to man, and from man to pig, and from pig to man again; but already it was impossible to say which was which.”
To date, it’s the only live-action portrayal of Orwell. But with a body of work that grows increasingly adored and relevant today, will it stay that way forever?
