George Orwell on Screen: Adaptations, Documentaries and Docudramas on Film and Television

Last updated

George Orwell on Screen: Adaptations, Documentaries and Docudramas on Film and Television
AuthorDavid Ryan
Subject History of literature
Publication date
Pages255
ISBN 9781476673691

George Orwell on Screen: Adaptations, Documentaries and Docudramas on Film and Television is a book-length comprehensive exploration written by British writer and journalist David Ryan, delving into the cinematic and televisual adaptations of the works of British author and essayist George Orwell. It was published by McFarland & Company in 2018. Ryan's analysis is supported by interviews with key industry figures, including actors, writers, directors, and producers, providing a perspective on the evolution of Orwellian themes in visual media.

The book was one of the Times Literary Supplement's books of the year in 2018. On the strength of this book, The Criterion Collection interviewed David Ryan for its Blu-ray of Michael Radford's film 1984. [2] Reviewer Scott Stalcup wrote that Ryan's book "very well may be the most important contribution to the field since Michael Shelden's authorized literary biography". [3]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">George Orwell</span> English author and journalist (1903–1950)

Eric Arthur Blair, better known by his pen name George Orwell, was an English novelist, essayist, journalist, and critic. His work is characterised by lucid prose, social criticism, opposition to totalitarianism, and support of democratic socialism.

H. G. Wells English writer (1866–1946)

Herbert George Wells was an English writer. Prolific in many genres, he wrote more than fifty novels and dozens of short stories. His non-fiction output included works of social commentary, politics, history, popular science, satire, biography, and autobiography. Wells' science fiction novels are so well regarded that he has been called the "father of science fiction".

There have been many books published about Stephen King and his works.

Docudrama is a genre of television and film, which features dramatized re-enactments of actual events. It is described as a hybrid of documentary and drama and "a fact-based representation of real event".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Brian Sibley</span> English writer

Brian David Sibley is an English writer. He is author of over 100 hours of radio drama and has written and presented hundreds of radio documentaries, features and weekly programmes. He is widely known as the author of many film "making of" books, including those for the Harry Potter series and The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit trilogies.

<i>Nineteen Eighty-Four</i> (British TV programme) British TV series or programme

Nineteen Eighty-Four is a British television adaptation of the 1949 novel of the same name by George Orwell, originally broadcast on BBC Television in December 1954. The production proved to be hugely controversial, with questions asked in Parliament and many viewer complaints over its supposed subversive nature and horrific content. It starred Peter Cushing, Yvonne Mitchell, Donald Pleasence and André Morell.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Yvonne Mitchell</span> English actress (1915–1979)

Yvonne Mitchell was an English actress and author. After beginning her acting career in theatre, Mitchell progressed to films in the late 1940s. Her roles include Julia in the 1954 BBC adaptation of George Orwell's novel Nineteen Eighty-Four. She retired from acting in 1977.

Roy Oxley was a production designer at BBC Television who became famous after the BBC chose him to model for a photograph to be shown during their adaptation of George Orwell's novel Nineteen Eighty-Four.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jay McInerney</span> American writer

John Barrett "Jay" McInerney Jr. is an American novelist, screenwriter, editor, and columnist. His novels include Bright Lights, Big City, Ransom, Story of My Life, Brightness Falls, and The Last of the Savages. He edited The Penguin Book of New American Voices, wrote the screenplay for the 1988 film adaptation of Bright Lights, Big City, and co-wrote the screenplay for the television film Gia, which starred Angelina Jolie. He was the wine columnist for House & Garden magazine, and his essays on wine have been collected in Bacchus & Me (2000) and A Hedonist in the Cellar (2006). His most recent novel is titled Bright, Precious Days, published in 2016. From April 2010 he was a wine columnist for The Wall Street Journal. In 2009, he published a book of short stories which spanned his entire career, titled How It Ended, which was named one of the 10 best books of the year by Janet Maslin of The New York Times.

Suzanna Hamilton is an English actress, notable for playing the role of Julia in the 1984 film adaptation of George Orwell's classic novel, Nineteen Eighty-Four, as well as other film roles including Tess (1979), Brimstone and Treacle (1982), Wetherby (1985), and Out of Africa (1985). She has had numerous television roles such as the ITV drama Wish Me Luck (1988), the BBC medical drama Casualty (1993–94), and the STV drama McCallum (1995–97).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Shane Salerno</span> American filmmaker

Shane Salerno is an American screenwriter, producer, director, and Chief Creative Officer of The Story Factory. His writing credits include the films Avatar: The Way of Water, Armageddon, Savages,Shaft, and the TV series Hawaii Five-0. He was chosen by director James Cameron to co-write the four sequels to Avatar,Avatar: The Way of Water,Avatar: The Seed Bearer (2025), Avatar: The Tulkun Rider (2029), and Avatar: The Quest for Eywa (2031). He spent ten years writing, producing, financing, and directing the documentary Salinger, and co-writing with David Shields the companion book which became a New York Times bestseller.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Tom Burke (actor)</span> English actor

Tom Burke is an English actor. He is best known for his roles as Athos in the 2014–2016 BBC series The Musketeers, Dolokhov in the 2016 BBC literary-adaptation miniseries War & Peace, the eponymous character Cormoran Strike in the BBC series Strike and Orson Welles in the 2020 film Mank.

George Orwell's 1949 dystopian political novel Nineteen Eighty-Four, has been adapted for the cinema, radio, television, theatre, opera and ballet.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Martyn Burke</span> Canadian writer and director

Martyn Burke is a Canadian director, novelist and screenwriter from Toronto, Ontario.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">David Chariandy</span> Canadian writer (born 1969)

David John Chariandy is a Canadian writer and academic, presently working as a professor of English literature at Simon Fraser University. His 2017 novel Brother won the Rogers Writers' Trust Fiction Prize, Ethel Wilson Fiction Prize, and Toronto Book Award.

Michael Shelden is an American biographer and teacher, notable for his authorized biography of George Orwell, his history of Cyril Connolly's Horizon magazine, his controversial biography of Graham Greene, and his study of the last years of Mark Twain, Man in White. In March 2013 his Young Titan: The Making of Winston Churchill was published. In 2016 his biography of Herman Melville, Melville in Love, was published by Ecco/HarperCollins.

Sarah Bartlett Churchwell is a professor of American Literature and Public Understanding of the Humanities at the School of Advanced Study, University of London, UK. Her expertise is in 20th- and 21st-century American literature and cultural history, especially the 1920s and 1930s. She has appeared on British television and radio and has been a judge for the Booker Prize, the Baillie Gifford Prize, the Women's Prize for Fiction, and the David Cohen Prize for Literature. She is the director of the Being Human festival and the author of three books: The Many Lives of Marilyn Monroe; Careless People: Murder, Mayhem and the Invention of The Great Gatsby; and Behold America: A History of America First and the American Dream. In April 2021, she was long listed for the Orwell Prize for Journalism.

<i>The 50 Year Argument</i> 2014 film directed by Martin Scorsese

The 50 Year Argument is a documentary film by Martin Scorsese and co-directed by David Tedeschi about the history and influence of the New York Review of Books, which marked its 50th anniversary in 2013. The documentary premiered in June 2014 at the Sheffield Doc/Fest and was soon screened in Oslo and Jerusalem before airing on the British Arena television series in July. It was also screened at the Telluride Film Festival and the Toronto International Film Festival and was seen at the New York Film Festival, in September, and at other film festivals. It first aired on HBO in September 2014 and was given other national broadcasts. It had a limited theatrical release in Toronto in 2015.

Scott Allen Nollen is an American author known for writing about the history of film, music, literature and African American studies. He was born on April 2, 1963, in Harlan, Iowa. His father, Harold N. Nollen, served in the United States Coast Guard prior to running a successful petroleum distribution business, to which his mother, Shirley A. (Stoltz) Nollen, also contributed. Nollen was educated at the University of Iowa (1984-1989), where he received Bachelor's Degrees in Broadcasting and Film and Honors History, Phi Beta Kappa, and a Master's Degree in U.S., Modern European and African-American History. From 1991 to 2001, he served as an archivist and historian for the National Archives and Records Administration.

References

  1. "George Orwell on Screen: Adaptations, Documentaries and Docudramas on Film and Television". Goodreads.
  2. David Ryan. "Interview with Diana Ringo by David Ryan -author of "George Orwell on Screen"". Indie Cinema Magazine.
  3. Stalcup, Scott (2019). "George Orwell on Screen: Adaptations, Documentaries, and Docudramas on Film and Television. David Ryan. McFarland & Company, 2018". Journal of American Culture. Malden, Mass. 42 (4): 348–349. doi:10.1111/jacc.13100.