Roger Ebert awarded the film 3.5/4 stars, writing that it “penetrates much more deeply into the novel’s heart of darkness” than previous adaptations, and describing Hurt as “the perfect Winston Smith”.
Review aggregation website Rotten Tomatoes has given the film a 75% approval rating, based on 32 reviews, with an average rating of 6.8/10. The site’s critical consensus states:
1984 doesn’t fully emerge from the shadow of its source material, but still proves a solid, suitably discomfiting adaptation of a classic dystopian tale.
Metacritic has given the film a rating of 67 out of 100 based on 8 critics, indicating “generally favorable reviews”.
Score controversy
Virgin Films (formerly part of the Virgin Group), who financed the film, commissioned the British rock/pop duo Eurythmics to produce the music for the soundtrack after initially approaching David Bowie, who demanded a fee that Virgin deemed to be too high. Radford objected to Virgin’s insistence on using the more pop-oriented electronic Eurythmics music, as the traditional orchestral score originally intended for the film had been composed entirely by Dominic Muldowney a few months earlier.
Against Radford’s wishes, Virgin exercised their right of final cut and replaced Muldowney’s musical cues with the new Eurythmics contributions. One Eurythmics song, “Julia”, was also heard in its entirety during the film’s closing credits. However, Muldowney’s main theme music (particularly the state anthem, “Oceania, ’tis for thee”) was still prominently used in the film.
In November 1984, Virgin Records released the Eurythmics soundtrack album, containing considerably altered versions of their music heard in the film, under the title 1984 (For the Love of Big Brother). The album reached number 23 on the UK Album Chart, and was later certified Gold by the BPI for sales in excess of 100,000 copies.
A song from the album, “Sexcrime (Nineteen Eighty-Four)”, was released as a single just prior to the album and became one of Eurythmics’ biggest hits, peaking at number 4 and was awarded a Silver disc for sales in excess of 200,000 copies. The music video for the single made use of clips from the film. The track “Julia” was also released as a single which peaked just outside the Top 40.
Radford disowned Virgin’s edit of the film containing the predominantly Eurythmics score and, during his acceptance speech at the Evening Standard British Film Awards, expressed his displeasure at Virgin’s “foisting” the Eurythmics music on his film. Radford withdrew the film from consideration at the BAFTA awards in protest of Virgin’s decision to change the musical score.
Eurythmics responded with a statement of their own claiming no knowledge of prior agreements between Virgin and Radford/Muldowney and that they had accepted the offer to compose music for the film in good faith.
In 1999, Muldowney’s complete orchestral score (24 tracks in total) was released on a special limited edition CD album under the title Nineteen Eighty-Four: The Music of Oceania, to commemorate the film’s 15th anniversary. The CD booklet featured previously unseen production photographs and artwork as well as liner notes by Radford.
As of today, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer owns the film’s rights worldwide since they own both the Atlantic Releasing Corporation and the Virgin Films catalogues, and on their DVD release in North America in 2003, the film’s colour is restored to a normal level of saturation and the Eurythmics contributions to the score were removed entirely and replaced with Muldowney’s musical cues as Radford had originally intended—although both Eurythmics and Muldowney are still jointly credited in the opening and closing titles.
This DVD release was quickly discontinued and currently remains out of print. This version had previously been shown by Channel 4 in the UK in the late 1980s. However, while the MGM DVD release of the film in the UK in 2004 features the desaturated visuals, it has the mixed Eurythmics/Muldowney soundtrack on the English- and French-language audio tracks, but the purely Muldowney soundtrack on the German- and Spanish-language audio tracks.
In 2013 the film was re-released on DVD in North America by TGG Direct on a double feature with Megaville (1990), under licence from MGM. This DVD release also features the original mix of Eurythmics/Muldowney soundtracks, as well as the theatrical desaturated colour palette. In 2015 the film was released on Blu-ray in North America by Twilight Time in a limited 3,000 copy run, again, licensed by MGM. This release features the Eurythmics/Muldowney Soundtrack on one audio channel and Muldowney’s orchestral score on another, as well as keeping true to the original colour scheme.
The version of the film which has been released on digital download services is the 2015 HD edition. It is available only with the original Eurythmics/Muldowney soundtrack.
The 2019 Criterion Collection release of the film features the original colour scheme (with a transfer supervised by cinematographer Roger Deakins) and includes both the Eurythmics soundtrack and the original score composed by Dominic Muldowney.
Awards
The film won the Best British Film of the Year award at the Evening Standard British Film Awards. It also won The Golden Tulip Award at the 1985 Istanbul International Film Festival.
