All language subtitles for Orwell.2.Plus.2.Equals.5.2025.

When I sit down
to write a book,

I do not say to myself,

"I'm going to produce
a work of art."

I write it because there is
some lie that I want to expose,

some fact to which
I want to draw attention,

and my initial concern
is to get a hearing.

My starting point is always
a feeling of partisanship,

a sense of injustice.

Two and two.

Four.

- Again?
- Four.

Good. There are people
who'll tell you

the answer's five.

Usually,
they're called government.

Great leaders.

It becomes very important
to them

that the people should believe
that the answer's five.

They'll tell you lies.

They'll torture you.

They'll kill you.

At the moment of death,

you must still insist
that the answer

is four.

April 18th, 1984.

Nobody keeps a diary today.

Because to do so
would be punishable by death.

I don't care anymore.

I found this old book
by chance.

I'm going to set down what
I dare not say aloud to anyone.

This, in 1984, is London,

chief city of Airstrip 1,

a province
of the state of Oceania.

From a very early age,
perhaps the age of five or six,

I knew that when I grew up,
I should be a writer.

I had the lonely child's habit

of making up stories

and holding conversations
with imaginary persons.

I knew that I had
a facility with words

and a power of facing
unpleasant facts,

and I felt that this created
a sort of private world

in which I could get
my own back

for my failure
in everyday life.

I wanted to write
enormous naturalistic novels.

I do not think one
can assess a writer's motives

without knowing something
of his early development.

His subject matter

will be determined
by the age he lives in.

At least this is true in
tumultuous, revolutionary ages

like our own.

When I was not yet 20,

I went to Burma,
in the Indian Imperial Police.

In an outpost of empire
like Burma,

the class question
appeared at first sight

to have been shelved.

Most of the white men in Burma
were not of the type

who in England
would be called gentlemen,

but they were white men
in contradistinction

to the other
and inferior class,

the natives.

In the free air of England,

that kind of thing
is not fully intelligible.

In order to hate imperialism,

you've got to be part of it.

But it is not possible
to be part of such a system

without recognizing it
as an unjustifiable tyranny.

Even the thickest-skinned
Anglo-Indian is aware of this.

Every native face
he sees in the street

brings home to him
his monstrous intrusion.

But I was in the police,

which is to say that I was part
of the actual machinery

of despotism.

When I came home
on leave in 1927,

I was already half determined
to throw up my job,

and one sniff of English air
decided me.

For five years, I have been
part of an oppressive system

and it left me
with a bad conscience.

Innumerable remembered faces,

faces of prisoners in the dark,

of men waiting
in the condemned cells,

of subordinates I had bullied

and aged peasants
I had snubbed,

of servants and coolies
I had hit with my fist

in moments of rage

haunted me intolerably.

No book is genuinely
free from political bias.

The opinion that art

should have
nothing to do with politics

is itself a political attitude.

I had reduced
everything to the simple theory

that the oppressed
are always right

and the oppressors
are always wrong,

a mistaken theory,
but the natural result

of being one
of the oppressors yourself.

A society becomes totalitarian
when its structure

becomes flagrantly artificial.
That is,

when its ruling class
has lost its function,

but succeeds in clinging
to power by force or fraud.

But to be corrupted
by totalitarianism,

one does not have to live
in a totalitarian country.

Tonight,
I wanted to take a few minutes

to discuss
a grave threat to peace.

The threat comes from Iraq.

It arises directly from the
Iraqi regime's own actions,

its history of aggression,

and its drive
toward an arsenal of terror.

We're at war
with the people of Eurasia,

the vile and ruthless
aggressors

who have committed
countless atrocities

and who are guilty
of every bestial crime

a human being can commit.

They've laid waste to our land,

destroyed our factories,
looted our homes,

massacred our children
and raped our women!

When Iraq finally admitted
having these weapons in 1995,

the quantities were vast.

Less than a teaspoon
of dry anthrax,

a little bit...
about this amount.

This kind of thing
happens everywhere,

but it is clearly likelier to
lead to outright falsification

in societies
where only one opinion

is permissible
at any given moment.

The organized lying

practiced
by totalitarian states

is not, as is sometimes
claimed,

a temporary expedient
of the same nature

as military deception.

It is something integral
to totalitarianism,

something that would
still continue

even if concentration camps
and secret police forces

had ceased to be necessary.

Totalitarianism
demands, in fact,

the continuous alteration
of the past

and, in the long run,
probably demands a disbelief

in the very existence
of objective truth.

How many fingers
am I holding up, Winston?

Four.

And if Big Brother

were to say not four but five,

then how many?

Four.

How many fingers, Winston?

Stop it! Anything! Five!

-Stop the pain!
-No, Winston.

That is no use. You are lying.
You still think you see four.

But it's five!

Two and two do not always
make four, Winston.

Sometimes they make five.

Again, how many fingers
am I holding up?

August 26, 1946.

A few showers in the afternoon.

Otherwise a beautiful day.

When the breeze drops,
the midges were so bad

as to make it almost
impossible to work.

One is actually breathing them
into one's nostrils,

and the irritation
is maddening.

I was born into
what you might describe

as the lower
upper-middle class.

People in this class
owned no land,

but they felt that they were
landowners in the sight of God

and kept up a semi-aristocratic
outlook

by going into the professions
and the fighting services

rather than into trade.

To belong to this class,

when you were
at the 400-pound-a-year level,

was a queer business,

for it meant
that your gentility

was almost purely theoretical.

Small boys used to count
the plum stones on their plates

and foretell their destiny
by chanting,

"Army, Navy, Church,
Medicine, Law."

Theoretically,
you knew all about servants

and how to tip them,

although in practice,

you had one,
at most two, resident servants.

Theoretically, you knew
how to wear your clothes

and how to order a dinner,

although in practice,

you could never afford
to go to a decent tailor

or a decent restaurant.

Theoretically,
you knew how to shoot and ride,

although in practice
you had no horses to ride

and not an inch of ground
to shoot over.

It was this that explained
the attraction of India,

more recently Kenya,
Nigeria, etc.,

for the lower upper-middle
class.

The people who went there
as soldiers and officials

did not go there to make money,

for a soldier or an official
does not want money.

They went there
because in India,

with cheap horses,
free shooting,

and hordes of black servants,

it was so easy
to play at being a gentleman.

This is your cook. Name's Eza.

Eza.

And this is Juma, houseboy.

Juma.

Come. See your house.

Under the capitalist system,

in order that England may live
in comparative comfort,

100 million Indians must live
on the verge of starvation.

The alternative is to throw
the empire overboard

and reduce England to a cold
and unimportant, little island

where we should all have
to work very hard

and live mainly on herrings
and potatoes.

The fact
that has got to be faced

is that to abolish
class distinctions

means abolishing
a part of yourself.

Here am I, a typical member
of the middle class.

All my notions,
notions of good and evil,

of pleasant and unpleasant,

of funny and serious,

of ugly and beautiful,

are essentially middle-class
notions.

Ward 3, Hairmyres Hospital,

East Kilbride, near Glasgow,

first of January, 1948.

Dear Gwen, I believe Mr. Dick
sent you a line about my case.

He said I had
a fairly extensive cavity

in the left lung

and also a small patch

at the top of the other lung.

The treatment they
are giving me

is to put the left lung
out of action,

which is supposed to give it
a better chance to heal.

For the rest, I am still
really very ill and weak.

It is a nice hospital

and everyone
is extremely kind to me,

but I have, of course,
done no work

for two or three months.

"Some Eurasian prisoners,
guilty of war crimes,

were to be hanged
in the park that evening,"

Winston remembered.

This happened
about once a month

and was a popular spectacle.

Children always clamored
to be taken to see it.

"Why can't we go
and see the hanging?"

roared the boy
in his huge voice.

"Want to see the hanging,"
chanted the little girl,

still capering 'round.

The warders had formed
in a rough circle

around the gallows.

And then,
when the noose was fixed,

the prisoner began crying out
on his god.

Minutes seemed to pass.

The steady, muffled crying
from the prisoner

went on and on.

We looked at the lashed,
hooded man on the drop

and listened to his cries,

each cry
another second of life.

Oh, kill him quickly.
Get it over.

Stop that abominable noise.

Most people approve
of capital punishment,

but most people
wouldn't do the hangman's job.

- Let us in!
- Get in there!

Are they trying
to get rid of all of us?

They were peaceful people.

These were great people.

The crowd was unbelievable,

and I mentioned
the word "love,"

the love, the love in the air,

I've never seen
anything like it.

Get in!

Go! Go! Go!

Go, go!

Oh, this is about to get
dirty, man. We gotta get back.

He's got a gun. Get down.

Hey!

Fuckin' A, man.

No! We're not putting up
with that either.

1776!

FBI operatives were organizing
the attack on the Capitol.

I don't believe
that Trump supporters did that.

I think that they were enticed
by the FBI.

Stop the steal!

A totalitarian state
is in effect a theocracy

and its ruling caste,

in order to keep its position,

has to be thought
of as infallible.

Congress
has certified the results.

I don't wanna say
the election's over.

I just wanna say--

Congress
has certified the results

without saying
the election's over, okay?

My only goal was to ensure
the integrity of the vote.

My only goal was to ensure
the integrity of the vote.

Since, in practice,
no one is infallible,

it is frequently necessary
to rearrange past events

in order to show that this
or that mistake was not made

or that this or that imaginary
triumph actually happened.

The Dominion Voting Systems,

the Smartmatic technology
software,

and the software that goes
in other computerized
voting systems here as well,

not just Dominion,
were created in Venezuela.

You can tell
he hasn't done anything wrong

just by his demeanor.

I mean, he would be trying
to hide things.

Already,
there are countless people

who'd think it scandalous to
falsify a scientific textbook,

but would see nothing wrong in
falsifying a historical fact.

Trump is blocking witnesses.

I don't care.

I'm with him to the finish.

He could stand on the front
steps of the White House

and commit murder,
and I'm with him.

How do you explain
all these charges?

Well, they're all made up.

-They're all made up?
-Yup, they're all made up.

So, the election interference
in Georgia.

Sidney Powell
and Kenneth Chesebro,

who work for Donald Trump,

they just plead guilty...

I don't believe that either.

You don't believe
they plead guilty?

Nope.

The friends of
totalitarianism in this country

usually tend to argue that,
since absolute truth

is not attainable,

a big lie is no worse
than a little lie.

The list of Trump lies
filled an entire page

of The New York Times.

It includes only
what the Times calls

"demonstrably false statements."

Second of January, 1948.

Dear Julian, thanks ever so
for sending the pen,

which, as you see, I am using.

I think I'm getting
a bit better.

I don't feel quite
so death-like

and I'm eating a lot more.

I can't show you
the part-finished novel.

I never show them to anybody
because they're just a mess

and don't have
much relationship

to the final draft.

I always say
a book doesn't exist

until it is finished.

Every major change in policy

demands a corresponding change
of doctrine

and a revelation of prominent
historical figures.

If the leader says
of such-and-such an event,

"It never happened,"

well, it never happened.

If he says
that two and two are five,

well, two and two are five.

This prospect frightens me
much more than bombs

and that is not
a frivolous statement.

The Life of Rosa Parks.

This is apparently too woke
by the Republican Party.

Song of Solomon

is unacceptable
to Republican politics.

Forty percent of banned books

reported are significantly
addressing

and specifically addressing
LGBT issues.

When we talk about
progressive values,

I can say what my progressive
value is,

and that is freedom
over fascism.

Let's say you take these books
out of the library.

What are you gonna do with them?

Are you gonna put them
in the street?

Light them on fire?
Where are they going?

I don't have a clue,
but I would burn them.

From the totalitarian
point of view,

history is something
to be created

rather than learned.

This is what I will do
to the grooming books

when I become
Secretary of State.

Ward 3, Hairmyres
Hospital, 20th of April, 1948.

Dear Julian, I am a lot better,

but I had a bad fortnight
with the secondary effects

of the streptomycin.

I am still fearfully weak
and thin,

but they seem pleased
with my case,

and I think I may get out
sometime during the summer.

I'm longing to get up to Jura
at any rate

and see how the farm work
is going,

but I should have to be careful
not to do much.

The goosestep
is one of the most horrible
sights in the world.

It is simply an affirmation
of naked power.

In it is the vision of a boot
crashing down on a face.

The goosestep
is not used in England

because the people
in the street would laugh.

First, I spent five years

in an unsuitable profession
in Burma.

This increased
my natural hatred of authority.

The Spanish war
and other events

in 1936-7 turned the scale,

and thereafter,
I knew where I stood.

31st of July, 1937.

Dear Rayner,
thanks so much for your letter.

I was glad to hear from you.

We had an interesting
but thoroughly bloody time
in Spain.

Of course, I would never
have allowed Eileen to come

nor probably gone myself

if I had foreseen
the political developments.

Especially the suppression
of the POUM,

the party in whose militia
I was serving.

It was a queer business.

We started off by being
heroic defenders of democracy

and ended by slipping
over the border

with the police
panting on our heels.

But though we ourselves
got out all right,

nearly all our friends
and acquaintances are in jail

and likely to be there
indefinitely

not actually charged
with anything,

but suspected of Trotskyism.

What I saw in Spain has
given me a horror of politics.

But what impressed me then

and has impressed me ever since

is that atrocities are
believed in or disbelieved in

solely on grounds
of political predilection.

Everyone believes
in the atrocities of the enemy

and disbelieves
in those of his own side

without ever bothering
to examine the evidence.

Every line of serious work
that I have written since 1936

has been written
directly or indirectly

against totalitarianism

and for democratic socialism
as I understand it.

Revolution!

Animal Farm was the
first book in which I tried,

with full consciousness
of what I was doing,

to fuse political purpose
and artistic purpose

into one whole.

-Read it to me.
-Hm.

"All animals are equal

but some animals
are more equal than others."

More equal than others?

♪ Praise to him
The font of all our wisdom ♪

♪ Long to live
The ruler of our farm ♪

♪ Napoleon, mighty leader ♪

♪ Mighty leader
Watching over us ♪

♪ Napoleon, mighty leader ♪

♪ Mighty leader
Watching over us ♪

♪ Shout, shout, shout out loud
Snout, snout, pink and proud ♪

♪ Perfect pig
You bless us with your beauty ♪

♪ Hallowed hod
How wondrous is your glow ♪

♪ Napoleon, mighty leader ♪

♪ Mighty leader
Watching over us ♪

♪ Napoleon, mighty leader ♪

♪ Mighty leader
Watching over us ♪

♪ Snout, snout, pink and proud
Shout, shout, shout out loud ♪

♪ Snout, snout, pink and proud
Shout, shout, shout out loud ♪

♪ Two legs better
Four legs good ♪

I decree that this farm
will now devote itself

to the making of weapons,
to the building of walls

for the protection of ourselves
and our way of life!

The revolution is over.

All animals are now free!

Take cover at once!

Take cover at once!

Winston tried to squeeze out
some childhood memory

that should tell him
whether London
had always been like this.

Were there always these vistas
of rotting 19th-century houses?

Their sides shored up
with baulks of timbers,

their windows patched
with cardboard

and their roofs
with corrugated iron,

their crazy garden walls
sagging in all directions,

and the bombed sites

where the plaster dust
swirled in the air

and the willow-herb straggled
over the heaps of rubble

and the places where the bombs
had cleared a large patch,

and there sprung up sordid
colonies of wooden dwellings

like chicken houses.

But it was no use.
He could not remember.

Nothing remained
of his childhood

except a series
of bright-lit tableaux

occurring against no background

and mostly unintelligible.

♪ Sing to the sailors
On the floating fortress ♪

♪ Sing to the soldiers
On the battlefields ♪

♪ Sing to the airmen
In the burning azure ♪

♪ Sing to the farmers
Rising yields ♪

It is not easy for me
to think of my school days

without seeming to breathe in
a whiff of something cold

and evil-smelling,

a sort of compound
of sweaty stockings,

dirty towels,

fecal smells
blowing along corridors,

forks with old food
between the prongs,

neck-of-mutton stew,

and the banging doors
of the lavatories

and the echoing chamber pots
in the dormitories.

By the social standards
that prevailed about me,

I was no good
and could not be any good,

but all the different
kinds of virtue

seemed to be
mysteriously interconnected

and to belong
to much the same people.

It was not only money
that mattered.

There were also strength,
beauty, charm,

athleticism,
and something called "guts"

or character, which in reality,

meant the power
to impose your will on others.

I did not possess
any of these qualities.

I lived in a world of boys,
gregarious animals

questioning nothing, accepting
the law of the stronger

and avenging
their own humiliations

by passing them down
to someone smaller.

There are five fingers there.

Do you see five fingers?

Yes.

This is a political age.

War, fascism,
concentration camps,

rubber truncheons, atomic bombs

are what we daily think about

and therefore, to a great
extent, what we write about,

even when we do not
name them openly.

We cannot help this.

When you are on a sinking ship,

your thoughts
will be about sinking ships.

Barnhill, Isle of Jura,
Argyllshire.

22nd of October, 1948.

Dear Fred,
I shall finish the book,

Deo Volente , early in November,

and I am rather flinching
from the job of typing it

because it is a very
awkward thing to do in bed

where I still have to spend
half the time.

I can't send it away

because it is an unbelievably
bad manuscript

and no one could make head or
tail of it without explanation.

I think it is a good idea,

but the execution
would have been better

if I had not written it under
the influence of tuberculosis.

I haven't definitely
fixed on the title,

but I am hesitating
between 1984

and The Last Man in Europe.

When I was 14 or 15,
I was an odious little snob,

but no worse than other boys
of my own age and class.

I was very young,
not much more than six,

when I first became aware
of class distinctions.

Ah, I think
you look pretty smart.

You look like a gentleman.

I despised anyone

who was not describable
as a gentleman,

but I also hated
the hoggishly rich,

especially those who had grown
rich too recently.

I look down on him
because I am upper class.

I look up to him
because he is upper class,

but I look down on him
because he is lower class.

I am middle class.

I know my place.

Hence, at the age of 17 or 18,

I was both a snob

and a revolutionary.

I was against all authority

and I loosely described myself
as a socialist,

but I had not much grasp
of what socialism meant

and no notion that the working
class were human beings.

We'll have no pissing
in the corners.

Not allowed. Frowned upon.

It's not very hygienic, is it?

It's downright filthy.

- May I ask a question?
- Fire away.

What's your views
on the ozone layer?

I'll turn a blind eye to it

as long as it doesn't interfere
with the job.

I knew nothing
about working-class conditions.

I had read
the unemployment figures,

but I had no notion
of what they implied.

♪ I'm a four-loom weaver ♪

♪ As many a one knows ♪

♪ I've not to eat
And I've worn out me clothes ♪

♪ Me clogs are both broken ♪

Above all, I did not
know the essential fact

that respectable poverty
is always the worst.

The frightful doom
of a decent working man

suddenly thrown on the streets
after a lifetime
of steady work,

his agonized struggles
against economic laws

which he does not understand,

the disintegration of families,
the corroding sense of shame,

all this was outside the range
of my experience.

When I thought of poverty,

I thought of it in terms
of brute starvation.

Therefore, my mind
turned immediately
towards the extreme cases,

the social outcasts,
tramps, beggars,

criminals, prostitutes.

These were the lowest
of the low

and these were the people
with whom I wanted
to get in contact.

What I profoundly wanted
at that time

was to find some way
of getting out of the
respectable world altogether.

I meditated upon it
a great deal.

I even planned parts of it
in detail.

How one could sell everything,
give everything away,

change one's name,
and start out with no money

and nothing but the clothes
one stood up in.

But in real life, nobody
ever does that kind of thing.

As Syme had done earlier,
Winston had taken up his spoon

and was dabbling
in the pale-colored gravy

that dribbled across the table,

drawing a long streak of it
out into a pattern.

He meditated resentfully

on the physical texture
of life.

-Mister.
-What is it, son?

Can you watch my seat and else
if I got my spoon?

I'll give you my spoon, son.
I'm finished.

You discover
what it is like to be hungry

with bread and margarine
in your belly.

You go out
and look into the shop windows.

Everywhere, there is
food insulting you

in huge, wasteful piles,

whole dead pigs,

baskets of hot loaves,

great yellow blocks of butter,
strings of sausages...

...mountains of potatoes,

vast Gruyere cheese
like grindstones.

A sniveling self-pity
comes over you

at the sight of so much food.

You plan to grab a loaf
and run,

swallowing it
before they catch you

and you refrain from pure funk.

We're sorry,

but all our
customer-service agents

are busy at the moment.

Please hold
and we will answer your call...

You discover the boredom

which is inseparable
from poverty,

the times
when you have nothing to do

and, being underfed, can
interest yourself in nothing.

For half a day at a time,
you lie on your bed,

feeling like
the jeune squelette

in Baudelaire's poem.

Only food could rouse you.

You discover that a man
who's gone even a week on bread

and margarine
is not a man any longer,

only a belly
with a few accessory organs.

The top 1%

that controlled
90% of the wealth

had two major political parties
doing their bidding for them,

and the other 99%
had no political party!

Beggars do not work,
it is said,

but then what is work?

A navvy works
by swinging a pick.

An accountant works
by adding up figures.

A beggar works
by standing out of doors

in all weathers
and getting varicose veins,

chronic bronchitis, etc.

It is a trade like any other,

quite useless, of course,

but then many reputable trades
are quite useless,

and as a social type,

a beggar compares well
with scores of others.

He is honest compared
with the sellers
of most patent medicines,

high-minded compared with
a Sunday-newspaper proprietor.

A beggar,
looked at realistically,

is simply a businessman

getting his living
like other businessmen

in the way that comes to hand.

He has not,
more than most modern people,

sold his honor.

He has merely made the mistake
of choosing a trade

at which
it is impossible to grow rich.

♪ Three ♪

♪ Two, one ♪

The underlying fact
was that the whole position
of the moneyed class

had long ceased
to be justifiable.

The existence of these people

was by any standard
unjustifiable.

They were simply parasites,
less useful to society

than his fleas are to a dog.

Oh, that's great!

Can you move your head a little?

The British ruling class
could not admit to themselves

that their usefulness
was at an end.

It was not possible for them
to turn themselves
into mere bandits

like the American millionaires.

Clearly, there was only one
escape for them:

into stupidity.

The Ministry
of Peace is happy to report

that thanks to the vigilance
of our gallant interceptors,

no Eurasian rocket bomb
was able to reach targets

of any importance.

We continue now
with our regular broadcast.

There are parts in southern
China where smart cameras

placed around the intersection
will recognize who you are.

You could have your face covered
or you could be obscured.

These systems
are very, very smart.

They can recognize you by gait,

by posture,
by how you're walking,

and so if you've caused
an infraction,

your face gets thrown up
on a digital billboard
at that intersection

along with your name
and where you work,

and that information
is transmitted to your employers

and to your family members.

Much of the technology
that threatens our freedom

and our dignity
in the near-term future

is being developed by companies
in the business of capturing

and selling our data
and our attention

to advertisers and others.

Smith,
outer-party members

have to wear
their identification badges
in the evening.

Don't forget again!

If the people in power
are using these algorithms

to quietly watch us,

to judge us and to nudge us,

to predict and identify the
troublemakers and the rebels,

that authoritarianism will
envelop us like a spider's web,

and we may not even know
we're in it.

The surveillance capitalists
have tried to get us to believe

that their practices
are the inevitable outgrowth

of digital technologies.

So, that's why I believe
that the future is private.

This is the next chapter
for our services.

What do you prefer?

Being safer when you wake up
in the morning
and go to the street

or not being, you know,
analyzed by AI systems?

I wanna be safer.

♪ What do you prefer? ♪

What do you prefer?

♪ Safer when you stir? ♪

What do you prefer?

♪ Or not be scared by AI? ♪

-♪ Tell me no lies
I wanna be safer ♪

- I wanna be safer.
- ♪ ♪ I wanna be safer ♪

Safer. Safer. Safer.

♪ I wanna be safer ♪

Surveillance
is okay if you don't mind.

I wanna be... I wanna surveil.

I want surveillance of these
people that are coming in.

The Trojan horse, I wanna know
who the hell they are.

You don't have
to have done anything wrong.

You simply have to eventually
fall under suspicion
from somebody,

even by a wrong call,

and then they can use the system
to go back in time

and scrutinize every decision
you've ever made,

every friend you've ever
discussed something with

and attack you on that basis

to sort of derive suspicion
from an innocent life

and paint anyone
in the context of a wrongdoer.

It should be that when
we make things more productive,

when we greatly
increase productivity,
it helps everybody,

but there's the worry that
it might just help the rich.

The new,
model-three generative android

from Funky is a fully
autonomous humanoid robot

with features never before seen
in the consumer market.

We are increasingly
trapped in a world of no escape

and even if we want
to make a choice, we can't.

It would probably not
be beyond human ingenuity

to write books by machinery,

but a sort of
mechanizing process

can already be seen at work
in the film and radio,

in publicity and propaganda,

and in the lower reaches
of journalism.

Even so, what they write is
merely a kind of raw material

to be chopped into shape
by producers and censors.

Books would be planned in their
broad lines by bureaucrats

and would pass through so many
hands that when finished,

they would be no more
an individual product

than a Ford car at the end
of the assembly line.

It goes without saying

that anything so produced
would be rubbish.

At present, we know only that
the imagination,

like certain wild animals,

will not breed in captivity.

Every hour of the day,

the voice of London
goes around...

Second of December, 1942.

Dear George Woodcock,

as to the ethics
of broadcasting

and in general
letting oneself be used

by the British governing class,

it's of little value
to argue about it,

but for heaven's sake,
don't think I don't see
how they are using me.

I doubt whether I shall stay
in this job very much longer,

but while here, I consider
I have kept our propaganda

slightly less disgusting

than it might otherwise
have been.

The Tribune ,
222 London Western Central 2,

14th of July, 1944.

Dear John Murry,
I am smothered under work,

and also I've been bombed out

and we have a very young baby
we adopted,

a three-week-old boy

who Eileen and I christened
Richard Horatio Blair,

all of which
adds to one's work.

Life is pretty full now.

What a wonderful thing
to have a kid of one's own.

I've always wanted one so.

The Pacific service from London
is sending you all greetings

and wishing the best of luck
to those of you listening

who are serving
in our armed forces on sea,

land or in the air
and in the merchant navy...

BBC, 24th of September, 1943,

Dear Mr. Rushbrook-Williams,

in confirmation of what I said
to you earlier in private,

I want to tender my resignation
from the BBC.

I am not leaving because of any
disagreement with BBC policy.

On the contrary,
I feel that I have been treated

with the greatest generosity

and allowed
very great latitude.

I am tendering my resignation
because for some time past,

I have been conscious
that I was wasting my own time

and the public money.

I feel that by going back
to my normal work

of writing and journalism,
I could be more useful

than I am at present.

Hotel Scribe, Rue Scribe,

Paris 9th, 13th of April, 1945.

Dear Tony,

I don't know whether
you will have heard

from some other source
about what has happened.

Eileen is dead.

It was a most horrible
thing to happen

because she had had
five really miserable years

of bad health and overwork,

and things were just beginning
to get better,

but it was terribly sad
that she should die

when she had become
so devoted to Richard

and was making such a good job
of his upbringing.

Richard, I am glad to say,
is very well,

and for the moment
is provided for.

Look.

- It's a dream.
- But for a moment,

he did not look at her body.

His eyes were anchored
by the freckled face

with its faint, bold smile.

He knelt down before her
and took her hands in his.

Have you done this before?

Of course!

Hundreds of times.

-With party members?
-Yes.

Inner-party members?

Not with those bastards,
though there's plenty who would.

His heart leapt.

"In the old days," he thought,

"a man looked at a girl's body

and saw that it was desirable,

and that was the end
of the story.

But you could not have
pure love

or pure lust nowadays.

No emotion was pure

because everything was mixed up
with fear and hatred.

Their embrace
had been a battle,

the climax a victory.

It was a blow struck
against the party.

It was a political act."

In the past, at any rate,

throughout
the Protestant centuries,

the idea of rebellion

and the idea
of intellectual integrity

were mixed up.

A heretic, political,
moral, religious,

or esthetic was one who refused

to outrage his own conscience.

His outlook was summed up

in the words
of the revivalist hymn,

"Dare to be a Daniel

Dare to stand alone

Dare to have a purpose firm

Dare to make it known."

To bring this hymn up to date,
one would have to add a don't

at the beginning of each line.

Daring to stand alone
is ideologically criminal

as well as practically
dangerous.

The idea
of intellectual liberty

is under attack
from two directions.

On the one side
are its theoretical enemies,

the apologists
of totalitarianism...

Jamal Khashoggi
was a Saudi journalist

and an outspoken critic
of his country's government.

CNN can now confirm
Jamal Khashoggi's last words,

"I can't breathe.
I can't breathe."

The transcript records
many voices and noises,

then says, "Scream from Jamal."

Again, "Scream," then "Gasping."

Noises are identified as "saw"

and "cutting."

And on the other, its
immediate, practical enemies

monopoly and bureaucracy,

which are actively interested
in maintaining the status quo

and therefore
in preventing the common man

from becoming too intelligent.

The independence
of the writer and the artist

is eaten away
by vague economic forces

and at the same time,
it is undermined

by those
who should be its defenders.

We falsely think of our country

as a democracy when it has
evolved into a media-ocracy,

where a media that is supposed
to check political abuse

is part of political abuse.

This is extremely dangerous
to our democracy.

This is extremely dangerous
to our democracy.

This is extremely dangerous
to our democracy.

This is extremely dangerous
to our democracy.

This is extremely dangerous
to our democracy.

Political writing in our time

consists almost entirely
of prefabricated phrases

bolted together like the pieces
of a child's mechano set.

This is extremely dangerous.

This is extremely dangerous.

This is extremely dangerous.

-Dangerous.
-Democracy.

We live in the greatest country.

The greatest nation
in the history of mankind.

The strongest, freest,
greatest country.

The greatest healthcare.

The greatest universities,

the greatest schools.

The greatest rise

of freedom and opportunity.

The single greatest nation

in the history of all mankind.

The greatest country ever.

If we're gonna talk about
the elite-medias debate,

then it is still controlled
by the corporate owners

and the corporate sponsors,

who, after all,
provide the revenue

to keep those machines going,

to keep those TV shows
on the air

and those radio shows
and those papers.

The journalist is unfree

and is conscious of unfreedom

when he forced to write lies

or suppress what seems to him
important news.

What have you got there, Smith?

This photograph was between
the pages of the gazette.

-What photograph?
-Jones and Rutherford.

They confessed to aiding
the underground

and being in Eurasia
during Hate Week.

-But here it says--
-What are you talking about?

I don't see any photograph.

I think it's very difficult
to avoid

going to that pre-prepared thing
that you've got

that's got a quote in it,
that's got a name in it,

that's got background
information in it.

It's fed to you to make easy
for you to tell it that way.

So, what we really require
is something countervailing,

something on the other side
to dig out just that information

that that powerful entity,
that might be the state

or might be a private
corporation

that they don't
want you to hear.

We start with that search,
the race to save five people

who are onboard a submersible.

On board is believed to be

the British billionaire,
Hamish...

Everything in our age

conspires to turn the writer

and every other kind
of artist as well

into a minor official
working on themes

handed down from above

and never telling
what seems to him

the whole of the truth.

What the media does
is trivialize what goes on

sensationalizes it,
makes it entertainment,

rather than saying, "Look,

the function of the media
is to educate you

to live in a democracy,
which is pretty serious stuff."

There are 741 no-go zones
throughout France

and they're located
in the ghettos

that are called les banlieues .

I've been to Afghanistan,

Iraq, and Kashmir, India,

and at times,
it felt like, like that.

-François Macron...
-Emmanuel.

Emmanuel, François, it seems
like every French person

I think their name is François.

-Who knows?
-Maybe he'll change his name.

François.

To write in plain,
vigorous language,

one has to think fearlessly,

and if one thinks fearlessly,

one cannot be politically
orthodox.

- It was you! It was you...
- Good lying.

That privatized a large chunk
of the health service

and you're lying,
and you're lying.

I think your fake lashes are
messing up what you're reading.

We have a situation

in which a significant
percentage of the population

doesn't vote,
doesn't care about the issues,

is tuned out entirely,
is what we call depoliticized.

Uh, in fact, we have
a rate of depoliticization

in the United States
that must make a tyrant

like in, you know,
Indonesia envious.

"How can I get one of these
vegged-out populations?"

I say the fact is I've done more
for the Black community

than any president
since Abraham Lincoln.

- I say it,
nobody can dispute it.

People listen when I speak.
Black people.

♪ Black ♪

Believe me, I've studied it,
I've seen it,

and it's incredible.

♪ Black ♪

Black, your physical strength
is unmatched.

♪ Black ♪

You have this charm,
Black people, believe me.

Jazz, soul, Rosa Parks,

Cassius Clay,
legends, winners, the best!

And you know what?
Black women...

♪ I love Black ♪

Black women,
they make me so hungry.

People listen when I speak,
hungry for gumbo and cornbread.

Nobody does it better.

The mugshot, we've all seen
the mugshot, and...

And you know who embraced it
more than anybody else?

The Black population,
it's incredible.

You see Black people
walking around with my mugshot.

This kind of thing
is frightening to me

because it often gives me the
feeling that the very concept

of objective truth
is fading out of this world.

An atom bomb exploded
in our information ecosystem

because social media
turned our world upside down

spreading lies faster than facts

while amplifying fear and anger,

fueling hatred by design

for profit.

Do you affirm the
testimony you are about to give

will be the truth,
the whole truth,

and nothing but the truth,
so help you God?

We very much believe
that this content is disgusting

and that, um...

Senator, that behavior
is disgusting and reprehensible.

We provide in-app
reporting tools

so that people
who are being harassed

or people who have been shared
inappropriate sexual content

can report it in the case
of harassment or sexual content.

You announced recently that
the official policy of Facebook

now allows politicians to pay
to spread disinformation.

Well, could I pay to target
predominantly Black zip codes

and advertise them
the incorrect election date?

No, congresswoman, you couldn't.

We have, even for these policies

the newsworthiness of content
that politicians say

and the general principle
that I believe that...

But you said you're not
going to fact-check my ads.

We have, if anyone,

including a politician
is saying things

that can cause,
that is calling for violence,

or could risk imminent,
physical harm,

or voter or census suppression

when we roll out
the census suppression po...

policy, um,
we will take that content down.

So, would I be able
to run advertisements

on Facebook targeting
Republicans in primaries

saying that they voted
for the Green New Deal?

If you're not fact-checking
political advertisements,

I'm just trying
to understand the bounds here.

-What's fair game.
-Congresswoman, I, uh...

I don't know the answer to that
off the top of my head.

You don't know
if I'll be able to do that.

Can you explain why you've named
the Daily Caller

a publication well documented
with ties to white supremacists

as an official fact checker
for Facebook?

Congresswoman, sure,
we actually don't appoint

the independent fact checkers.

They go through
an independent organization

called the Independent
Fact Checking Network

that has a rigorous standard

for who they allow
to serve as a fact checker.

So...

You would say that
white-supremacist-tied
publications

meet a rigorous standard
for fact checking?

Because of deep fakes,

you can't trust
your eyes and ears.

Instead of the facts,

the enshittification,
enshittification
of the Internet,

is in full bloom.

More trash, more propaganda,

more information operations

that push our emotional buttons.

We will have to struggle harder

for agency,
for independent thought,

and it's not just
the tech companies

that abdicated responsibility
for protecting us.

It's also democratic governments
like the United States.

Tech is the least-regulated
industry around the world.

USA! USA! USA! USA! USA!

Barnhill, Isle of Jura,
Argyllshire,

28th of November, 1948.

Dear Gwen, all is well here

and Richard
is bursting with energy.

He goes out fishing
with the others now

and sometimes catches
quite a lot of fish.

The weather just lately
has been very nice,

beautiful, still, sunny days,
and not at all cold,

but I hardly ever
go out of doors

because the smallest exertion
upsets me.

The pig has grown
to a stupendous size

and goes to the butcher
next week.

We are all longing
to get rid of him,

as he is so destructive
and greedy.

Even gets
into the kitchen sometimes.

I have finished my book,

which I'd been
messing about with

since some time in 1947.

Yours, George.

Death!

Brothers and sisters,
one week from now

in this very square,

we shall, as a demonstration...

Eurasian prisoners

will be passing
through Victory Square!

These are the evil men

whose ruthless lust for power...

Let me have the fight!

The mother is a woman,
the father is a man.

April 4th, 1984.

Last night to the flicks,
all war films.

One a very good one of a ship

full of refugees being bombed
somewhere in the Mediterranean.

Audience much amused by shots
of a great, huge, fat man

trying to swim away
with a helicopter after him.

Then you saw a lifeboat
full of children

with a helicopter
hovering over it.

There was a middle-aged woman,
might have been a Jewess,

sitting up in the bow
with a little boy

about three years old
in her arms.

Then the helicopter

planted a 20-kilo bomb
in among them.

Terrific flash and the boat
went all to matchwood.

Then there was a wonderful shot
of a child's arm

going up, up, up,

right up into the air.

A helicopter with a camera
in its nose

must have followed it up.

There was a lot of applause
from the party seats.

Winston stops writing

partly because he was suffering
from cramp.

Oh, what a piece of work
is the pursuit of truth.

Don't be a writer, Richard,
whatever you do.

Be a farmer.

And grow things.

Keep goats.

Our civilization is decadent

and our language,
so the argument runs,

must inevitably share
in the general collapse.

The words, democracy,
socialism,

freedom, patriotic...

...realistic, justice,

have each of them
several different meanings

which cannot be reconciled
with one another.

But if thought
corrupts language,

language can also
corrupt thought.

And here's the truth,

Israel seeks peace.

Israel yearns for peace.

Israel has made peace
and will make peace again.

Political language
is designed

to make lies sound truthful

and murder respectable.

Barnhill, Isle of Jura,
22nd of October, 1948.

Dear Fred, I have just read
Sartre's book on antisemitism,

which you published, to review.

I think Sartre is a bag of wind

and I'm going to give
him a good boot.

The less talk there is about
"the" Jew or "the" anti-Semite

as a species of animal
different from ourselves,
the better.

At the start of 2024,
Google cut 1,000 jobs.

Why? Pichai says it's about

"removing layers
to simplify execution."

Tesla, we're told
the company will lay off

over ten percent
of its workforce.

UPS announced it will lay off

12,000 employees.

The practice
of staff ranking employees

might be making a comeback
in Silicon Valley.

The lay-offs are
already piling up this year.

The lay-offs
in technology just keep coming.

The latest, Google
cutting hundreds of jobs.

Okay,
it's one thing to do that,

to, like, decide that
at a high level.

How do you execute that
as compassionately as possible?

And there's no good way, um...

There's no perfect way,
for sure,

and it's gonna be tough
no matter what,

but as a leadership team here,

we've certainly spent
a lot of time just thinking,

"What is the most compassionate
way that we can do this?"

From where Winston stood,

it was just possible to read,

picked out on its white face
in elegant lettering,

the three slogans of the party,

Freedom is Slavery,

War is Peace,

Ignorance is Strength.

Again, how many fingers?

I don't know.

I don't know.

Four, five, six?

In all honesty, I don't know.

The Cotswold Sanatorium,

Cranham, Gloucestershire,
the 2nd of February, 1949.

Dear Julian, I wonder how you
and your family are getting on.

I have been in this place
about a month.

I think I told you
last time I wrote

that I had been feeling
very bad again.

Richard is getting
on for five now

and is enormous
and very healthy,

though still not interested
in learning his letters.

I suppose this coming winter

he will have to start
going to school,

which he is certain to enjoy,
as he is very gregarious.

Cranham, 8th of April, 1949.

Dear Richard, don't depress
the others too much with this,

but the fact is
I am in a bad way at present.

They are going
to try streptomycin again.

If things go badly...

Of course we'll hope
they won't,

but one must be prepared
for the worst.

...I'll ask you to bring
little Richard to see me

before I get too frightening
in appearance.

Cranham, Gloucester,
22nd of August, 1949.

Dear Fred, could you please
send one copy each

of Burmese Days
and Coming up for Air

to Sonia Brownell
care of Horizon ?

As I warned you I might do,

I intend getting married again,

to Sonia.

When I am once again
in the land of the living,

if I ever am,

I suppose everyone
will be horrified,

but apart from other
considerations,

I really think
I should stay alive longer

if I were married.

One, two!

One, two!

One, two!

One, two!

Smith?

6079 Smith, W.?

Yes, you. Bend lower.

Winston wrenched
his body out of bed, naked.

The physical jerks
would begin in three minutes.

The next moment, he was doubled
up by a violent coughing fit,

which nearly always attacked
him soon after waking up.

It emptied his lungs
so completely

that he could only begin
breathing again

by lying on his back

and taking a series
of deep gasps.

Dear Francis A. Henson

of the United Automobile
Workers.

My recent novel
is not intended

as an attack on socialism

or on the British Labour Party,

of which I am a supporter,

but as a show-up
of the perversions

to which a centralized economy
is liable

and which have
already been partly realized

in communism and fascism.

I do not believe that the kind
of society I describe

necessarily will arrive,

but I believe
that something resembling it

could arrive.

And I have tried
to draw these ideas out

to their logical consequences.

The scene of the book
is laid in Britain

in order to emphasize
that the English-speaking races

are not innately better
than anyone else.

And that totalitarianism,

if not fought against,
could triumph anywhere.

We are the dead.

We are the dead.

You are the dead.

Remain exactly where you are.

Make no move
until you are ordered.

Don't resist.

Stand in the middle of the room!

Do not touch one another.

Take the woman!

No, don't let them take me!

No, no, no!

I warned you it wouldn't be
as peaceful here
as you would like.

Nothing is hidden
from the Thought Police.

"How does one man
assert his power

over another, Winston?"

Winston thought.

"By making him suffer,"
he said.

"Exactly.
By making him suffer."

Obedience is not enough.

Unless he is suffering,

how can you be sure
that he is obeying your will

and not his own?

Power is in inflicting pain
and humiliation.

Power is in tearing human minds
to pieces

and putting them together again
in new shapes

of your own choosing.

Not to me.

Not to me.

If you want a vision
of the future, Winston,

imagine a boot stamping
on a human face forever.

Please.

Do it to her. To Julia.

I don't care what you do to her,
but do it to her.

Tear her face off.
Do it to Julia and not to me!

Do it to Julia!

Do it to Julia!

Not me!

Do you begin to see, then

what kind of world
we are creating?

All we have done
is to advance to a point

at which we could make a real
improvement in human life,

but we shan't do it
without the recognition

that common decency
is necessary.

My chief hope for the future

is that the common people

have never parted company
with their moral code.

I betrayed you.

I betrayed you.

I told them all about you.

Yes, I told them about you too.

I ask only...

for you to accept my love
of our leader.

I love Big Brother.

Long live Big Brother.

Long live Big Brother!
Long live Big Brother!

Long live Big Brother!
Long live Big Brother!

Long live Big Brother!
Long live Big Brother!

Long live Big Brother!

Ladies and gentlemen,

please welcome the next
president of the United States,

President Donald J. Trump.

The greatest fear that I have

regarding the outcome

for America of these disclosures

is that nothing will change.

People will see in the media,
all of these disclosures.

They'll know the lengths
the government is going to

to grant themselves
powers unilaterally

um, to create greater control
over American society

and global society,

but they won't be willing

to take the risks
necessary to stand up

and fight to change things,

to force their representatives

to actually take a stand
in their interests.

In four years,
you won't have to vote again.

We'll have it fixed so good,
you're not gonna have to vote.

How do we solve
collective-action problems?

We solve them with democracy.

So, there is one thing that
surveillance capitalists fear.

It may not be me
as an individual

or you as an individual

or your son or daughter
as an individual,

but what they fear is all of us
mobilized together now.

"If there is hope,"

wrote Winston,
"it lies in the proles.

If there was hope,
it must lie in the proles

because only there,
in those swarming,

disregarded masses,

85% of the population
of Oceania,

could the force to
destroy the party

ever be generated.

The party could not
be overthrown from within."

Daily routine

at University College Hospital.

"How did you sleep?"

7 to 7:30 a.m.

Temperature taken.

7:30 to 8.

Blanket bath.

Back rubbed.

10:30.

Ward maid comes to sweep room.

6:45, dinner.

10, temperature taken.

A drink of some sort.

10:30 about.

Bed tipped

and light put out

shortly after.