Podcast Summary: "Orwell: 2+2=5 on the Author's Lessons for 2025"

Podcast: All Of It
Host: Alison Stewart, WNYC
Date: October 3, 2025
Guest: Raoul Peck, Director of "Orwell: 2+2=5"

Episode Overview

This episode explores director Raoul Peck's new documentary, Orwell: 2+2=5, which reinterprets George Orwell's life and work for the present moment. Rather than a traditional biography, Peck crafts a collage of Orwell’s writings, personal history, and contemporary events, revealing how Orwell’s insights on authoritarianism, surveillance, and propaganda continue to resonate amid today’s global politics. Through the film and this conversation, Peck and Stewart examine the persistent impact of Orwell’s themes and the real dangers faced by democracies in 2025.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

Why "The Scariest Movie of 2025"?

[02:11] Raoul Peck reacts to Rolling Stone's headline:

"Well, I'm afraid that it's true... Orwell, you know, have been considered dystopian writer, but in fact, he's a man who have gone to war... he was talking about very fundamental patterns... a playbook to disaggregate democracy."

• Peck sees Orwell not primarily as a futurist or dystopian author, but as an analyst of the real mechanics of authoritarianism: how regimes destroy institutions, attack academia, the press, and the justice system.

Crafting a Documentary Without Talking Heads

[03:33] Host: Why use a collage structure instead of a standard biography?
[03:37] Raoul Peck:

"Once I decided that I was going to tell a story and not make a biography... Orwell was going to tell his own story with his own voice and his own writing... So the story I built was him in the last year of his life, struggling to write and finish 1984..."

• Peck had unprecedented access to Orwell's complete works, enabling the film to be driven almost entirely by Orwell’s own words, read by Damian Lewis.

Orwell and Colonialism: A Personal Resonance

[05:00] Peck describes deep surprise at Orwell’s proximity to his own experiences as someone from Haiti and Congo:

"He became very trustful for me because somehow he visited my world. He lived there. ...he basically went on the other side, being the bully, being the colonialist. And he wrote about it because he felt that deeply as one of the worst things he had to do in his life."

• The discussion highlights Orwell’s autobiographical honesty and his wrestling with his own complicity in empire and oppression.

The Paradox of Intimacy and Power

[06:29] On a famous photo of Orwell with his Black nanny:

"...white parents would give their most precious being to somebody they probably totally disgrace, that don't respect...and then, later, that same baby would forget that that person really cared for him or her...That's the total contradiction of life and racism."
[07:31] Alison Stewart adds:
"Yeah, you can be close, but not powerful. But you can be powerful but not close."

• The dialogue explores the human contradictions at the heart of both colonial and contemporary societies.

Moving Past Seeing Orwell as a Distant "British White Guy"

[08:52] Peck on connecting with Orwell:

"...at one point, you forget that they are white or anything else because they travel the world...you're not just in your own little world and think that you're the center of the planet. And that changed everything."

• Peck emphasizes that true empathy and perspective transcend national or ethnic origins.

Parallels to Modern Authoritarian Tactics

[10:23] Peck on motifs both in Orwell and modern politics:

"...there are similarities with Colin Powell at the UN preparing the attack on Iraq, or George W. Bush in his discourse about those Arabs and savages...That's the playbook that have been used again and again...when we hear it [“we’re going to save American lives”], we know something bad is going to happen...It's like dog whistle..."

• Orwell’s "newspeak" is alive in geopolitical language justifying intervention and violence.

Orwell’s Class Awareness and the Contradiction Within

[11:44] Orwell's awareness of his own class background:

"Well, it shows that he has a very clear class analysis and that he understood what part of the society he was classified, basically..."

• Peck details how Orwell's background both provided access and made him a perennial outsider; he was, as the host quotes, "a snob and a revolutionary".

The Pain of Complicity – “Shooting an Elephant”

[13:18] Orwell on imperial service:

"All I knew was that I was stuck between my hatred of the empire I served and my rage against the evil-spirited little beasts who tried to make my job impossible."

Peck responds:

"...he's exactly in the belly of the beast. That's a rare position and to be able to write about it ...you think they're not aware of what they're doing. Some of the people they are arresting could have been their own family and they are very clear about that..."

• The relevance of Orwell’s writings to questions of migration, policing, and individual agency today is underscored with analogies to ICE and the National Guard.

Collage as Contemporary Mirror

[15:23] Peck on matching Orwell’s text to modern images:

"...sometimes the image would come immediately...you are reading that and you seeing those real image of today of a large boat or small boat with 500 refugees trying to reach the European shore...and Orwell is commenting that as if he's a newscaster in the moment today..."

• The film’s structure reveals the uncanny continuity between Orwell’s observations and today’s crises: refugees, authoritarianism, propaganda.

Action and Responsibility for Today’s Youth

[18:14] Stewart asks if Peck has hope for 18-year-olds today:
[18:20] Peck:

"Hope is not the word I would use, but I would say, like Orwell say...the degradation of language is the condition for the degradation of democracy...the film clarified what is at stake today. And the decision is the decision of everybody, individual and collectively."

• The film’s purpose is not to offer hope, but to demand clear-eyed responsibility and agency.

Damian Lewis as Orwell’s Voice

[19:19] Peck chose Damian Lewis for his ability to 'embody' rather than simply narrate Orwell:

"...I had to stick to the idea I'm making a film. It's not...an analysis... I needed an actor that, if possible, had stage experience, somebody who could really make the text himself and not, you know, with the distance of a narrator."

Most Important Next Step for Reading Orwell

[21:20] Peck’s guidance:

"...why I write these incredible essays about the very candid and humble analysis of who he is as a writer and what is his...task as a writer, what are his responsibilities..."

• Beyond the famous novels, Peck recommends Orwell's essays as the real entry into his worldview.

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• "It's a playbook to disaggregate democracy."
    [02:11] Raoul Peck
• "You can be close, but not powerful. But you can be powerful but not close."
    [07:31] Alison Stewart
• "He was talking about very fundamental patterns...the way authoritarian regime establish themselves, how they start destroying institution..."
    [02:11] Raoul Peck
• "The degradation of language is the condition for the degradation of democracy."
    [18:20] Quoting Orwell, echoed by Peck
• "Sometimes you're in a position where you are aggressing your own class."
    [14:47] Raoul Peck
• "Orwell is commenting that as if he's a newscaster in the moment today."
    [15:23] Raoul Peck
• On Damian Lewis narrating:
    "I needed an actor...somebody who could really make the text himself and not...with the distance of a narrator."
    [19:19] Raoul Peck

Noteworthy Segments & Timestamps

• [02:11] – Peck on the film’s frightening relevance to 2025
• [03:37] – On the unique documentary structure, letting Orwell "tell his own story"
• [05:00] – Personal identification with Orwell’s colonial past
• [07:31] – The contradiction of intimacy and power in colonial settings
• [08:52] – How Peck came to see Orwell as personally relatable, not just a remote figure
• [10:23] – Parallels between Orwell’s account and modern US/Western foreign policy rhetoric
• [13:18] – Discussing "Shooting an Elephant" and complicity in oppression
• [15:23] – How Orwell’s text maps onto footage of the Mediterranean refugee crisis
• [18:14] – The question of hope and agency for young people
• [19:19] – The importance of Damian Lewis as a voice that “embodies” Orwell
• [21:20] – Peck advising readers to start with Orwell’s essays

Conclusion

Raoul Peck’s Orwell: 2+2=5 is more than a film about a famous author: it’s a warning, a mirror, and a provocation. Peck and Stewart’s conversation makes clear that Orwell’s work is not just about the past or some imagined future, but about the urgent choices everyone faces in maintaining the health of democracy amid manipulation, repression, and indifference. For those unfamiliar with Orwell’s full range, Peck stresses the essays as essential reading. This episode is a rich resource for understanding Orwell’s ongoing relevance, especially in an age teetering between freedom and fear.