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AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. I’m Amy Goodman, with Nermeen Shaikh.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: In the days after President Donald Trump took office in 2017 during his first term, George Orwell’s 1984 came a best-seller in the U.S. The classic 1949 dystopian work introduced the world to the terms “Big Brother,” “thought police,” “newspeak” and “doublethink.” Orwell wrote 1984 as a cautionary tale more than 75 years ago, and some say it has even greater relevance now in Trump’s second term and around the world.
Now a new film by the Oscar-nominated director Raoul Peck is opening Friday in theaters, that explores the life and legacy of George Orwell. It’s called Orwell: 2+2=5. This is the trailer.
GEORGE ORWELL: [voiced by Damian Lewis] When I sit down to write a book, I write it because there is some lie that I want to expose.
O’CONNOR: [played by Michael Redgrave] Again, how many fingers?
GEORGE ORWELL: My starting point is always a feeling of injustice. The very concept of objective truth is fading out of this world.
WINSTON SMITH: [played by Edmond O’Brien] I’m going to set down what I dare not say aloud to anyone.
GEORGE ORWELL: This prospect frightens me much more than bombs. The words “democracy,” “freedom,” “justice” have, each of them, several different meanings, which cannot be reconciled with one another. Political language is designed to make lies sound truthful.
PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: The love in the air, I’ve never seen anything like it.
GEORGE ORWELL: And murder respectable. Freedom is slavery. War is peace. Ignorance is strength. Totalitarianism, if not fought against, could triumph anywhere. Do you begin to see, then, what kind of world we are creating?
NERMEEN SHAIKH: That’s the trailer for the new film, Orwell: 2+2=5. And this is a clip that features the voices of President George W. Bush’s Secretary of State General Colin Powell and Russian President Vladimir Putin. It begins with the words of Orwell as read in a 1956 British film adaptation of his novel 1984.
BIG BROTHER: [voiced by John Vernon] 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 waster our land, destroyed our factories, looted our homes, massacred our children and raped our women!
SECRETARY OF STATE COLIN POWELL: 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 is just about…
GEORGE ORWELL: [voiced by Damian Lewis] This kind of thing happens everywhere.