This page is part of the website

Mathematics Goes to the Movies

by Burkard Polster and Marty Ross

1984 (1984)

46:00
WINSTON SMITH (John Hurt) writes in his secret diary: Freedom is the freedom to say “two plus two equals four”. If that is granted, all else follows.

1:20:00
O’BRIEN (Richard Burton) is torturing Winston: Do you remember writing in your diary ‘two plus two equals four’?.

1:26:00
After reprogramming, O’Brien holds up four fingers, and Winston says, truthfully, that he believes there are five fingers.

1:40:00
At the end of the movie we see Winston, broken and believing, writing in the dust of a table:
2+2=