"Filmmaker Raoul Peck uses George Orwell's writings to weave together a biographical portrait of the author and a dispiriting picture of power and truth in the modern world in Orwell: 2+2=5. The film is packed with clips from film adaptations of 1984, including Michael Anderson's black and white version from 1956, and Michael Radford's, released in 1984, documentaries, like Robert Kane Pappas's 2003 warning Orwell Rolls in His Grave, and news footage from World War II through Gaza."
"There's a purposefully disorienting effect to the film's editing, blending past, present, fiction and reality in such a way that it all begins to blur together. By the time we're hearing Lewis utter Orwell's famous phrase "the very concept of objective truth is fading out of the world" while AI images pollute the screen, it's easy to forget that the quote is seven decades old."
Raoul Peck assembles George Orwell's words, archival footage, film clips and news imagery to create a biographical portrait entwined with a critique of contemporary truth erosion. The documentary juxtaposes adaptations of 1984, wartime newsreels and modern footage, including scenes from Gaza, to argue that propaganda, media manipulation and technological imagery worsen the climate for objective truth. Purposefully disorienting editing blends past, present, fiction and reality until historical quotations resonate as current warnings. Peck compresses extensive biographical detail about Orwell's experiences, from the Spanish Civil War to BBC work, into under two hours while maintaining a forceful emotional impact.
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