Plot: It's 1984 in the Territory of Oceania, formerly England. It is ruled by a totalitarian regime led by Big Brother espousing an ideology called Ingsoc. Big Brother is ever seeing through a two-way camera system, which not only broadcasts continually about the regime and its fight against enemies, especially the resistance led by Emmanuel Goldstein, but has eyes on the populace, who are referred to as brothers and sisters. When not broadcasting, a still photograph of Big Brother is on the screen representing his omnipresence. Individual freedoms are seen as the cause of all society's problems, hence Big Brother's control over what everyone says and does, which includes a move to end not only the thought and practice but also the need for love and sex. Anyone breaking the rules, in action or thought - the latter called ThoughtCrimes - are dealt with by the Thought Police. Winston Smith is a seemingly faithful low level bureaucrat for the Party, his job to rewrite history to the Party's guidelines, in the process he destroying any hard evidence of the reality of actual history. However if the Party knew, Winston would be considered a criminal as he has been keeping a diary of his individual thoughts, he writing out of sight of the cameras, and has been clandestinely purchasing banned items from a black marketeer, Charrington. Although suspect of her at first, Winston discovers another subversive working inside the bureaucracy, a young woman named Julia, the two who fall in love in their shared pro-freedom values. If they are caught by the Thought Police, they will discover the lengths Big Brother takes to control brothers and sisters, and in the process learn what is reality and what is manufactured by the Party for its own end.
Alternative Plot: A man loses his identity while living under a repressive regime. In a story based on George Orwell's classic novel, Winston Smith (John Hurt) is a government employee whose job involves the rewriting of history in a manner that casts his fictional country's leaders in a charitable light. His trysts with Julia (Suzanna Hamilton) provide his only measure of enjoyment, but lawmakers frown on the relationship -- and in this closely monitored society, there is no escape from Big Brother.
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