| Brazil | |
|---|---|
| Directed by | Terry Gilliam |
| Produced by | Arnon Milchan Joseph P. Grace |
| Written by | Terry Gilliam Tom Stoppard Charles McKeown |
| Starring | Jonathan Pryce Kim Greist Michael Palin Robert De Niro Katherine Helmond Bob Hoskins Ian Holm |
| Music by | Michael Kamen |
| Cinematography | Roger Pratt |
| Editing by | Julian Doyle |
| Distributed by | 20th Century Fox (Europe) Universal Pictures (US) |
| Release date(s) | France: February 20, 1985 United Kingdom: February 22, 1985 United States: December 18, 1985 |
| Running time | 94 min. Television Cut 136 min. Theatrical Cut 142 min. Director's Cut |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Language | English |
| Budget | $15,000,000 (estimated) |
| Gross revenue | $9,929,000 (USA) |
Brazil is a 1985 dystopian black comedy film directed by Terry Gilliam. It was written by Gilliam, Charles McKeown, and Tom Stoppard and stars Jonathan Pryce. The film also features Robert De Niro, Kim Greist, Michael Palin, Katherine Helmond, Bob Hoskins, and Ian Holm.
Contents |
The film centers on Sam Lowry, a young man trying to find a woman who appears in his dreams while he is working in a mind-numbing job and living a life in a small apartment, set in a dystopian world in which there is an over-reliance on poorly maintained (and rather whimsical) machines. Brazil's bureaucratic, totalitarian government is reminiscent of the government depicted in George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four, except that it has a buffoonish, slap-stick quality, and lacks any kind of figurehead.
Jack Mathews, movie critic and author of The Battle of Brazil (1987), characterized the film as "satirizing the bureaucratic, largely dysfunctional industrial world that had been driving [Gilliam] crazy all his life."[1] Though a success in Europe, the film flopped upon initial release in North America, even with the extra publicity of the fight with the studio. It has since become a cult film.
Sam Lowry is a low-level government employee, often daydreaming of saving a beautiful maiden. One day he is assigned the task of trying to rectify an error created by a government mishap, causing the incarceration of a Mr. Harry Buttle instead of the known terrorist, Harry Tuttle. When Lowry visits Mr. Buttle's widow, he discovers Jill Layton, the upstairs neighbor of the Buttles who is the same woman as in his dreams. Layton is trying to help Mrs. Buttle find out what happened to her husband, but has gotten sick of dealing with the bureaucracy. When Lowry tries to approach her, she is very cautious and avoids giving Lowry full details, worried the government will track her down. During this time, Lowry comes in contact with the real Harry Tuttle, a renegade air-system specialist who once worked for the government but left due to the amount of red tape; Tuttle helps Lowry deal with two government workers who are taking their time fixing the broken air conditioning in Lowry's apartment.
Lowry determines the only way to fully learn about Layton is to transfer to "Information Retrieval" where he would have access to such records. He requests the help of his mother Ida, who has connections to high ranking officers and is able to help her son get the position. Lowry eventually obtains Layton's records and tracks her down before she gets in trouble, and then falsifies her records to make her appear deceased, allowing her to escape the bureaucracy. The two share a romantic night together before Lowry is apprehended by the government for misusing his position.
Lowry is taken to receive psychiatric help from his old friend, Jack Lint. However, before the process can start, Tuttle and other members of the resistance shoot Lint and save Lowry, blowing up the Ministry building as they flee. However, as they try to disappear into the crowds, Tuttle mysteriously disappears. Lowry runs to his mother but finds she refuses to help, and he continues to run from the police. He soon finds sanctuary in a trailer driven by Layton, and the two leave the city together. However, it is quickly revealed this happy ending is all happening inside Lowry's head after Lint has completed his operation, and Lowry is left with a smile on his face, humming "Brazil".
| Ratings | |
| Argentina | 16 |
|---|---|
| Australia | M |
| Brazil | 14 |
| Canada | 14A |
| Chile | 18 |
| France | 12 |
| United Kingdom | 15 |
| United States | R |
Gilliam sometimes refers to this film as the second of a trilogy of movies, starting with Time Bandits (1981) and ending with The Adventures of Baron Munchausen (1989).[1] All are about the "craziness of our awkwardly ordered society and the desire to escape it through whatever means possible."[1] All three movies also focus on these struggles and attempts to escape them through imagination; Time Bandits, through the eyes of a child, Brazil, through the eyes of a thirty-something year old, and Munchausen, through the eyes of an elderly man.
In Brazil, Sam is not so much beset by malicious characters as he is by a vast, impersonal, and indifferent social structure that is both hypocritical and pedantic for its own sake. Most of the individual villains are neither malicious nor sadistic, they are merely doing their jobs.
The jilted sense of priorities that adult life often entails are also another theme. The elevation of meaningless considerations of status and vanity over personal happiness and well being is continuously portrayed throughout the movie. At one point, a police officer encourages a prisoner to cooperate, not because he is about to be tortured but because prolonged imprisonment could jeopardize his credit rating.
John Scalzi's Rough Guide to Sci-Fi Movies describes the film as a dystopian satire.
Gilliam has stated that Brazil was inspired by Nineteen Eighty-Four — which he has admitted never having read [2] — but is written from today's perspective rather than looking to the future as Orwell's novel did (although it should be noted that Orwell considered Nineteen Eighty-Four to be about the year 1948). Some scenes resemble the film which had been released a year earlier. In Gilliam's words Brazil was, "the Nineteen Eighty-Four for 1984." In fact, Gilliam's working title for the movie was 1984½, which also pays tribute to the influence of Fellini's 8½.
Brazil is noteworthy for the way its strong visual imagery tends to overwhelm the plot. One visual element which figures prominently in the movie is the ducts, specifically the snakelike "flex-ducts" used in modern construction. The film opens with an advertisement for different styles of ducting available for homes, seen on a display of television sets in a shop, which is then blown up in a terrorist bombing.
Lowry's apartment is dominated by a wall consisting entirely of metal panels which conceal an incorrigible air-conditioning system, and his hero is the guerrilla mechanic Tuttle, who is the only person able to tame this monster. Later, Lowry lunches in a restaurant dominated by a giant centerpiece where the "flowers" are actually flex-ducts. After that, when Lowry makes a potentially seditious nighttime visit to his office, the emptiness of the government building's gigantic lobby is set off by maintenance men's floor buffing machines, trailing long cords of flex-duct.
In the working-class Buttle home, members of the Buttle family have to live their lives while giving way to ducts that in fact hinder their daily activities. In Sam's home, the ducts are not visible initially, but make their presence felt as an undertone, particularly when they break down. In the Department of Records, the ducts are a visible part of the environment, but above everyone's heads. Finally, in the Department of Information Retrieval, there are no ducts at all.
Ary Barroso's 1939 song "Aquarela do Brasil" (English: "Watercolor of Brazil", often simply "Brazil") is the leitmotif of the movie, although other background music is also utilized. Michael Kamen, who scored the music for the film, originally recorded "Brazil" with vocals by Kate Bush. This recording was not included in the actual film or the original soundtrack release; however, it has been subsequently released on re-pressings of the soundtrack. (Kamen also composed music for Gilliam's The Adventures of Baron Munchausen.)
|
|
Robert De Niro originally wanted to play Jack, but Gilliam had already promised the role to Michael Palin. De Niro still wanted to be in the film, and so was cast as Tuttle instead.[2]
Terry Gilliam's daughter Holly Gilliam plays Jack Lint's daughter Holly.[2]
The movie was produced by Arnon Milchan's company Embassy International Pictures (not to be confused with Joseph E. Levine's Embassy Pictures). Gilliam's original cut of the film is 142 minutes long and ends on a dark note. This version was released internationally outside the US by 20th Century Fox.
US distribution was handled by Universal. Universal executives thought the ending tested poorly, and Universal chairman Sid Sheinberg insisted on dramatically re-editing the film to give it a happy ending, a decision that Gilliam resisted vigorously. As with the cult science fiction film Blade Runner (1982), which had been released three years earlier, a version of Brazil was created by the movie studio with a more consumer-friendly ending. After a lengthy delay with no sign of the film being released, Gilliam took out a full-page ad in the trade magazine Variety urging Sheinberg to release Brazil in its intended version. Eventually, after Gilliam conducted secret private screenings (without the studio's knowledge), Brazil was awarded the Los Angeles Film Critics Association award for "Best Picture", which prompted Universal to finally agree to release a modified 131-minute version supervised by Gilliam, in 1985.[1][3]
In North America, the film was released on VHS and Laserdisc in the 131-minute US version. A slightly modified 142-minute version of the original European cut was first made available in a 5-disc Criterion Collection laserdisc box set in 1996, and is currently available on DVD (referred to in the director's commentary as the "fifth and final cut", it uses the American cloud opening instead of a stark blank screen setting the time and place).[2]
Sheinberg's edit, the 94-minute so-called "Love Conquers All" version, was shown on syndicated television and was first made available for sale to consumers as a separate disc in the Criterion laserdisc box set, and subsequent DVD three-disc set in 1999 (both of which also featured a special video documentary version of Jack Mathews' book, with new Gilliam interviews and tape-recorded interviews from Sid Sheinberg for the original book).
The box set presents the feature film in its correct aspect ratio for the first time, but the version on the original DVD release is not enhanced for newer widescreen TVs. New 16:9-enhanced editions of the film in both a complete set and separate film-only disc were re-issued on DVD by Criterion on September 5th, 2006.
The British and American versions of the film have several differences.
These are scenes missing in the UK release of the film and what Americans saw in US theaters. The reasons for excluding these scenes from the UK version and adding them to the US version are unknown.
These are scenes missing in the US release of the film and what British audiences saw in UK theaters. These scenes were edited for the US release by Sheinberg because he thought that an American audience would be highly disturbed and unsettled by their content and length.
The Sheinberg Edit also aired on syndicated TV for time restrictions on some occasions and it pleased Gilliam as it showed how bad the studio cut of the film was.
The film has a 98% on the Rotten Tomatoes Tomatometer, with 39 out of 40 reviewers giving positive reviews. It got a score of 88 on Metacritic, based on 12 reviews.[4]
Chicago Sun Times film critic Roger Ebert disliked it, giving it 2 out of 4 stars, saying it "is awash in elaborate special effects, sensational sets, apocalyptic scenes of destruction and a general lack of discipline," as well as, "The movie is very hard to follow. I have seen it twice, and am still not sure exactly who all the characters are, or how they fit."[5] Los Angeles Times critic Kenneth Turan described the film as "the most potent piece of satiric political cinema since Dr. Strangelove.[1] Janet Maslin of The New York Times was very positive towards the film upon its release. She stated, "Terry Gilliam's Brazil, a jaunty, wittily observed vision of an extremely bleak future, is a superb example of the power of comedy to underscore serious ideas, even solemn ones."
In 2004 Total Film named Brazil the 20th greatest British movie of all time. In 2005 Time film reviewers Richard Corliss and Richard Schickel named Brazil in an unordered list of the 100 best films of all time. In 2006 Channel 4 voted Brazil one of the "50 Films to See Before You Die", shortly before its broadcast on FilmFour.
Wired Magazine ranked Brazil number 5 in its list of the top 20 sci-fi movies.[6] Entertainment Weekly listed Brazil as the sixth best science-fiction piece of media released since 1982.[7]
|
|||||||||||