The year 1984—and, even more precisely, the summer of that year—marked a fascinating, unprecedented moment in our culture. It’s always impossible to reconstruct history with any real sense of accuracy, but as great as the music and performances in Purple Rain would have been at any time, it seems reasonable to conclude that the film would not have had the same impact had it been released even a year, maybe even a few months, earlier or later. Especially for those of us in the class of ’84, the year had always loomed large, and somewhat ominously, because of the dystopian warnings in George Orwell’s visionary novel: the distant future invoked by his words in Nineteen Eighty-Four came speeding at us through our school years. Winston Smith’s battles with Big Brother may not have come to pass in full, but as Ronald Reagan’s first term came to a close and it became clear that his victory over Walter Mondale would be a history-making rout, many young people certainly experienced a strong sense of alienation and despair.
