A word on the Brave New 1984 project from the director, Magnus Isaccson

I first read Brave New World and Nineteen Eighty-four, as a teenager in Sweden in the late sixties, and they had a huge impact on my political consciousness. Dickens, Faulkner, Dostoyevsky and other authors I was reading certainly had social content, but nothing which spoke to my own concerns and fears the way these two novels did.  For me – as for so many young readers today – the two nightmarish visions seemed to blur together into one, a world where there is no room for the individual and where dark powers rule on behalf of an elite.

Telling a  dramatically engaging and thought-provoking story which would add fuel to social and political debat- this has been my objective  since I started making films. Thus, I expected more thoughtul exchanges about social and political issues to occur after the screenings rather than in the body of the film. It is well known in our profession that  films about ideas easily become didactic and uncinematic.

However, by the summer of 2002 I was feeling somewhat frustrated by what seemed to be a growing dichotomy between what I was filming and what I was thinking about. That’s when I came upon a newspaper story about the centennary of Orwell’s birth asking, in a cursory manner, that same old question:  who was right, Orwell or Huxley? An unresolved issue in my own mind, and a fascinating one to work on.

To move forward on this idea, I needed the help of someone  who has broad and deep knowledge of a wide range of social, political, scientific and cultural issues.  My old friend Varda Burstyn, who has written widely on all these subjects, was the obvious choice. Her response to the idea was enthusiastic. We haven‘t looked back since.

Together, we faced an obvious challenge: to take a debate which essentially encompasses all facets of modern life, and boil it down to a limited number of cinematic stories. Our problem was not one of scarcity, but rather an embarassment of riches. Almost two years later, we think we have found a dramatically, intellectually and  aesthetically satisfying solution.

One thing in particular has fortified our resolve to make this web project: the enthusiasm of young people about the project. These novels still resonate with young audiences, on the high school and college levels. Young people still use them to make some sense of a bewildering world.  For Varda and myself, that speaks volumes both about the relevancy of literature and art, and about the consciousness of young people today. That, in spite of what’s on the daily news, inspires hope. 


- M.I

Montreal