Search - Famous Authors - George Orwell on DVD

Succinctness Approved

Jeffery Mingo | Homewood, IL USA | 02/12/2007

(3 out of 5 stars)

"Most documentaries are an hour long, but sometimes that's too long. I like learning the basic skeleton of Orwell's life. The thirty minutes here did it all for me. The brevity would make it easier to show this during one high school class period.

I hate cheesy reenactments, which History Channel does often. This has no such reenactments. However, seeing one black-and-white photo after the other seemed slow too. They show moving footage of modern times, but little of Orwell's times which had moving recordings.

Orwell worked as a police officer in Burma (now Myanmar). I knew of British imperialism in India and Africa, but not Southeast Asia. The work describes Orwell as incredibly solitary, but it sounds like he was a successful husband, father, and employee. Even though married, he went to fight fascism in Spain. This fact makes me rethink the details behind Nicole Kidman's "The Others" as being realistic.

The narrator says Orwell and his first wife couldn't have biological children. I wonder who was fertile. Much discussion is written and filmed about the infertility of Marilyn Monroe, Frida Kahlo, and Josephine Baker. I would love to know how famous men deal with that issue. It's implied that Orwell and his first wife died of cancer. Perhaps his fans may learn an anti-smoking lesson from their struggle.

This work says little about "1984" and "Animal Farm" besides describing under what conditions a publisher was willing to produce them. I think the work supposes you read both texts and want to know more only about the author. So students think this can be their Cliffnotes should beware."