Has any author been so sorely abused as George Orwell? Reduced to merely Nineteen Eighty-Four and co-opted by conservatives who he would have despised, his work has been misinterpreted in a way that would make Big Brother proud. Raoul Peck’s new documentary untwists that legacy, showing the author of Animal Farm and Homage to Catalonia as the rebel and radical he was. By placing him in the context of his life during the death knell of the British Empire and the rise of autocracies, Peck reminds us of Orwell’s fight against class and colonialism, and how deeply they were intertwined in the poet, novelist, and broadcaster. – Richard Whittaker
