In 1984, Winston Smith is quite fatalistic, right from the get-go. In a world where thoughts can be severely punishable crimes, Winston has thoughts of these nature very early on in the film, fully knowing the extent of their consequences. For his story, even though subject to dictatorship the likes of which a prison would be envious, it seems the events that transpire were caused under his own volition. In a world more visually similar, and rather technologically comparable to ours, most of the warfare in this film takes place in the mind. The ruling government, under the control of the elusive Big Brother, seeks to have absolute control of the thoughts in the mind's of the citizens. Instead of banning books completely, like in Fahrenheit 451, they just alter the books to say what they'd like. Winston himself works for the Ministry of Propaganda, where he modifies history books to the liking of his superior. Although his problems begin with his problematic thoughts against Big Brother's regime, things take a turn for the worse when he begins an illegal affair with his love interest, Julia. They rent a space from a man at which to conduct their secret rendezvous, who turns out to be working for Big Brother the whole time. After their imminent capture, things take a peculiar turn. Both films being analysed this week contain violence against the main character after their abduction, like with most films that contain a similar type of situation, however 1984 takes a more sinister route here. Pain and violence are certainly effective tools in getting what you want from somebody on their own, even looking at real life situations like Guantanamo Bay way people are reported to be water-boarded and tortured. But instead of physical pain and punishment alone, Winston's greatest fear is uprooted and used against him. He has a ghastly fear of rats, and is put in a cage in which rats will be able to chew through his face. This provides a much more mental kind of torture, which eventually does break Winston, even bringing him to cry for his punishment to be given to his love Julia instead of himself. Obviously an effective method. Stripped of everything, leaving nothing but a shell of what had once been Winston Smith, he finally seems to accept his grim fate, and even saying "I Love You" to the ever-present image of Big Brother.
The main character in THX1138, whose name is that of the films' title, doesn't have as much control over his own fate. The world that he inhabits has become a lot less human. Technology has gone in a direction that completely enslaves the public, and computers control virtually everything. As opposed to 1984, the character in this film isn't granted the blessing of choosing to rebel against the ruling class on his own. Instead, his mathematically assigned roommate LUH decides for him. She begins to lessen THX's doses of medication, unbeknownst to him. He is obviously very confused when his mood and behavior start to radically shift because as far as he knows, nothing has changed. This is a very interesting dynamic between this film and 1984, because this spark to the powder-keg is completely out of the hands of the main character. It happens outside of his control, and in this case, he doesn't even know that it happened (at first). Instead of having thoughts outside of the desires of the government being the crime, here it's taking a dosage of medication any lesser than prescribed by the government. For this crime, and the consequent love affair it caused between THX and LUH, the two are more closely monitored for their crimes. This part stood out to me as rather strange. It seemed by this point in the film and THX and LUH were completely akin to the level at which the ruling class was monitoring the public, and their abilities to do so. At one point LUH expresses concerns that she believes they're being watched, and THX assures her that they're not. They were, however, being observed. The one doing the observing also happened to be LUH's superior, SEN. After transferring LUH, THX grows restless and is eventually captured by the government and charged with his crimes. It is at this point that a fork splits between 1984 and THX1138. THX is able to actually escape his torturous punishment, and instead of being driven to curse her name, actually tries to find the woman he's in love with. His search ends up with some grim results, though. The other difference here is the ending of each film, as they are complete polar opposites. Whereas Winston in 1984 was left with nothing, admitting defeat and awaiting death, THX is able to escape the underground settlement, and the last shots we see of him are his first triumphant steps into the outside world.
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