3: Homage to Catalonia
'I remember saying once to Arthur Koestler "history stopped in 1936", at which he nodded in immediate understanding. We were both thinking of totalitarianism in general, but more particularly of the Spanish Civil War ... I know it is the fashion to say that most of recorded history is lies anyway but what is peculiar to our own age is the abandonment of the idea that history could be truthfully written.'
Orwell, like many of his generation, enlisted to fight on the Republican side in the Spanish Civil War. Filmed in Barcelona and on the Huesca front, where he fought, tonight's film tells the story of Orwell's war. It begins as a heroic crusade for a beleaguered socialist state, and ends with disillusion and betrayal, with Orwell fleeing across the Spanish frontier, a wounded and wanted man. Among those appearing are
Stafford Cottman, Victor Alba
Enrique Ardroer , Ramon Jurado and Professor Bernard Crick
Research DIANA MANSFIELD
Associate producer CHARLES CHABOT Producer ALAN YENTOB Director NIGEL Williams An Arena production