George Orwell: A Life in Pictures (UK)

(88 min; 2003; English)
Director: Christopher Dulacher

Recipient of Emmy Award for Arts Programming, International Emmy Awards 2004

George Orwell (1903-1950) is the pseudonym of Eric Arthur Blair, an English novelist. He is best known for the allegorical novella Animal Farm (1945) and his dystopian novel Nineteen Eighty-Four (1949), two books which at one point held a record for selling more copies than any two books by any other 20th-century writer. His work is said to be marked by clarity, intelligence, wit, as well opposition to totalitarianism and social injustice, and belief in democratic socialism.

Although no audio or video recording of Orwell exists, this “documentary” from the BBC uses Orwell’s own words spoken by actor Chris Langham, placed in historical context, along with other vintage materials, to vividly depict his life.