| Brazil | |
|---|---|
_poster.jpg) UK theatrical release poster by Bill Garland | |
| Directed by | Terry Gilliam |
| Screenplay by |
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| Produced by | Arnon Milchan |
| Starring | |
| Cinematography | Roger Pratt |
| Edited by | Julian Doyle |
| Music by | Michael Kamen |
Production companies |
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| Distributed by |
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Release dates |
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Running time | 142 minutes[5] |
| Countries | |
| Languages | English French German |
| Budget | $15 million[7] |
| Box office | $9.9 million (US)[nb 1][8] |
Brazil is a 1985dystopianscience fictionblack comedy film[9][10] directed byTerry Gilliam and written by Gilliam,Charles McKeown, andTom Stoppard. A co-production between theUnited Kingdom and theUnited States, the film starsJonathan Pryce,Robert De Niro,Katherine Helmond,Ian Holm,Bob Hoskins,Michael Palin,Ian Richardson,Peter Vaughan, andKim Greist.
The film centres on Sam Lowry, a low-rankingbureaucrat trying to find a woman who appears in his dreams while he is working in a mind-numbing job and living in a small flat, set in a dystopian world in which there is an over-reliance on poorly maintained (and rather whimsical) machines and where people found guilty of crimes are liable for the costs of their interrogation bytorture.Brazil's satire oftechnocracy,bureaucracy,hyper-surveillance,corporate statism, andstate capitalism is reminiscent ofGeorge Orwell's 1949 novelNineteen Eighty-Four,[11][12][13] and it has been called "Kafkaesque"[14] as well asabsurdist.[13]
Sarah Street'sBritish National Cinema (1997) described the film as a "fantasy/satire on bureaucratic society", andJohn Scalzi'sRough Guide to Sci-Fi Movies (2005) described it as a "dystopian satire". Jack Mathews, a film critic and the author ofThe Battle of Brazil (1987), described the film as "satirizing the bureaucratic, largely dysfunctional industrial world that had been driving Gilliam crazy all his life".[15] Despite its title, the film is not about the countryBrazil nor does it take place there; it is named after the recurrent theme song,Ary Barroso's "Aquarela do Brasil", known simply as "Brazil" to British audiences, as performed byGeoff Muldaur.[16]
Although a success in Europe, the film was unsuccessful in its initial North American release. It has since become acult film. In 1999, theBritish Film Institute votedBrazil the54th greatest British film of all time. In 2017, a poll of 150 actors, directors, writers, producers and critics forTime Out magazine saw it ranked the 24th best British film ever.[17]
In a dystopian,polluted, hyper-consumerist, overbearing, bureaucratic,totalitarian future based on elements of the20th century, Sam Lowry is a low-level government employee who frequently dreams of himself as a winged warrior saving adamsel in distress. One day, shortly beforeChristmas, an insect becomes jammed in ateleprinter, which misprints a copy of an arrest warrant it was receiving. This leads to the arrest and death during interrogation of cobbler Archibald Buttle instead of suspected terrorist Archibald Tuttle.
Sam discovers the mistake when he finds that the wrong bank account has been debited for the arrest. He visits Buttle's widow to give her the refund where he catches a glimpse of her upstairs neighbour Jill Layton, a truck driver, and is astonished to discover that she resembles the woman from his dreams. He frantically tries to approach Jill, but she disappears before he can find her. Jill has been trying to help Mrs Buttle establish what happened to her husband, but her efforts have been obstructed by bureaucracy. Unbeknownst to her, she is now considered a terrorist accomplice of Tuttle for attempting to report the wrongful arrest of Buttle.
Meanwhile, Sam reports a fault in his apartment's air conditioning. Central Services are uncooperative, but Tuttle unexpectedly comes to his assistance. Tuttle explains that he used to work for Central Services but left because of his dislike of the tedious and repetitive paperwork, and now illegally works as afreelanceheating engineer. Tuttle repairs Sam's air conditioning, but when two Central Services workers, Spoor and Dowser, arrive, Sam has to stall to let Tuttle escape.
Sam discovers that Jill's records have been classified and the only way to access them is to be promoted to Information Retrieval. He had previously turned down a promotion arranged by his high-ranking mother Ida, who is obsessed with the rejuvenatingplastic surgery of cosmetic surgeon Dr Jaffe. Sam retracts his refusal by speaking with Deputy Minister Mr Helpmann at a party hosted by Ida. After obtaining Jill's records, Sam tracks her down before she can be arrested. Sam clumsily confesses his love to Jill, and they cause mayhem as they escape government agents. They stop at a mall and are frightened by a terrorist bombing (part of a campaign that has been occurring around the city), then government agents arrive and take Sam. He awakens briefly detained in police custody.
At work, Sam is chastised by his new boss Mr Warrenn for his lack of productivity. He returns home to find that Spoor and Dowser have repossessed his apartment. Tuttle appears in secret and helps him exact revenge on the two Central Services workers by filling their environment suits with raw sewage. Jill finds him outside his apartment, and the two take refuge in Ida's unoccupied home, where they share their first kiss. He falsifies government records to indicate her death, allowing her to escape pursuit. The two spend the night together, but in the morning are apprehended by the government at gunpoint.
Sam learns that Jill was killed during his arrest. Charged with treason for abusing his new position, he is restrained in a chair in a large, empty cylindrical room, to be tortured by his old friend Jack Lint. As Jack is about to start the torture, Tuttle and other members of the resistance break into the Ministry, shooting him, rescuing Sam and blowing up the Ministry building. Sam and Tuttle flee together, but Tuttle mysteriously disappears amid a mass of scraps of paperwork from the destroyed building.
Sam stumbles into the funeral of Ida's friend, who has died following botched cosmetic surgery. He discovers that his mother now resembles Jill and is too busy being fawned over by young men to care about her son's plight. Government agents disrupt the funeral, and he falls into the open casket. Through a black void, he lands in a street from his daydreams and tries to escape police and monsters by climbing a pile offlex-ducts. Opening a door, he passes through it and is surprised to be in a truck driven by Jill. The two leave the city together.
However, this "happy ending" is a delusion: it is revealed that Sam is still strapped to the torture chair. Realising that he has been permanently driven insane, Jack and Mr Helpmann declare him a lost cause and leave the room. He remains in the chair, smiling and humming "Aquarela do Brasil" to himself.
Gilliam developed the story and wrote the first draft of the screenplay withCharles Alverson, who was paid for his work but was ultimately uncredited in the final film.
I had this pile of idea ... which was a loose collection of scenes running to about a hundred pages. First, I started writing with Chuck Alverson ... but within a couple of weeks it was clear that we were going in slightly different directions. This led to a break in our relationship and a messy situation. In the end, a deal was done – the scene in the restaurant is the only one that's still close to what he'd written.
— Terry Gilliam[24]
At this point, the script had several elements in place but lacked structure. "The character of Buttle was called Timms and had no connection with Tuttle.... Jill was still the Timms' upstairs neighbour, but was a childrens' social worker and no relation to Sam's fantasy figure."[25]
Gilliam next went toTom Stoppard for script revisions which, according to Gilliam, "made sense of it all". For example, it's Stoppard who invented the confusion between Tuttle and Buttle that starts the whole plot.[26] But then Gilliam felt that Stoppard "wasn't getting some of the characters right; he was losing their humanity.... So I broughtCharles McKeown ... and we started reworking it."[24] The final script is therefore credited to Gilliam, Stoppard and McKeown.
Brazil was developed under the titlesThe Ministry and1984 ½, the latter a nod to not only Orwell's originalNineteen Eighty-Four but also to8½ directed byFederico Fellini; Gilliam often cited Fellini as one of the defining influences on his visual style.[27] During the film's production, other working titles floated about, includingThe Ministry of Torture,How I Learned to Live with the System—So Far,[28] andSo That's Why the Bourgeoisie Sucks,[29] before settling onBrazil, relating to the name of its escapistsignature tune.
In an interview withSalman Rushdie, Gilliam stated:
Brazil came specifically from the time, from the approaching of 1984. It was looming. In fact, the original title ofBrazil was1984 ½. Fellini was one of my great gods and it was 1984, so let's put them together. Unfortunately, that bastardMichael Radford dida version of1984 and he called it1984, so I was blown.[30]
Gilliam sometimes refers to this film as the second in his "Trilogy of Imagination" films, starting withTime Bandits (1981) and ending withThe Adventures of Baron Munchausen (1988).[15] All are about the "craziness of our awkwardly ordered society and the desire to escape it through whatever means possible".[15] All three movies 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 man in his thirties; andMunchausen, through the eyes of an elderly man. In 2013, Gilliam also calledBrazil the first installment of adystopian satire trilogy, preceding12 Monkeys (1995) andThe Zero Theorem (2013),[31] although he later denied having said this.[32]
Gilliam has stated thatBrazil was inspired byGeorge Orwell'sNineteen Eighty-Four—which he has admitted never having read[21]—but is written from a contemporary perspective rather than looking to the future as Orwell had. In Gilliam's words, his film was "theNineteen Eighty-Four for 1984". Critics and analysts have pointed to many similarities and differences between the two,[13] an example being that contrary toWinston Smith, Sam Lowry's spirit did not capitulate as he sank into completecatatonia.[11][33]
The film's ending bears a strong similarity to the short story "An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge" byAmbrose Bierce.[34] Thetragicomic tone and philosophy of the film bear many resemblances toabsurdist drama, a genre for whichBrazil co-writerTom Stoppard is widely acclaimed.[13]
Gilliam tried to get finance for the film fromHandmade Films afterMonty Python's Life of Brian (1979). It was rejected but the studio agreed to financeTime Bandits. The success of that movie enabled Gilliam to obtain finance forBrazil from Universal.[35]
Michael Atkinson ofThe Village Voice wrote, "Gilliam understood that all futuristic films end up quaintly evoking the naïve past in which they were made, and turned the principle into a coherent comic aesthetic."[36]
In the second version of the script, Gilliam and Alverson described the film's setting: "It is neither future nor past, and yet a bit of each. It is neither East nor West, but could beBelgrade orScunthorpe on a drizzly day in February. OrCicero, Illinois, seen through the bottom of a beer bottle."[37] In the 1988 documentaryThe Birth of Brazil, Gilliam said that he always explained the film as taking place "everywhere in the 20th century, whatever that means, on the Los Angeles/Belfast border, whatever that means".[38]Pneumatic tubes are a frequent sight throughout the film.[39]
The result is ananachronistic technology, "a view of what the 1980s might have looked like as viewed from the perspective of a 1940s filmmaker"[40] that has been dubbed "retro-futurism" by fellow filmmakersJean-Pierre Jeunet andMarc Caro.[36] It is a mixture of styles and production designs derived fromFritz Lang's films (particularlyMetropolis andM) orfilm noir pictures starringHumphrey Bogart: "On the other hand, Sam's reality has a '40s noir feel. Some sequences are shot to recall images of Humphrey Bogart on the hunt and one character (Harvey Lime) may be named as an homage toThe Third Man'sHarry Lime."[40]
A number of reviewers also saw a distinct influence ofGerman Expressionism, as the 1920s seminal, more nightmarish, predecessor to 1940s film noir, in general in how Gilliam made use of lighting and set designs.[41] A brief sequence towards the end, in which resistance fighters flee from government soldiers on the steps of the Ministry, pays homage to theOdessa Steps sequence inSergei Eisenstein'sBattleship Potemkin (1925).[21] Strong references exist to the overcomplicated humoristic machinery of British illustratorW. Heath Robinson, published between 1915 and 1942.[42] The grotesque sets were based onGeorge Grosz's paintings of 1920sBerlin.[43]
The lighting and set design was coupled with Gilliam's trademark obsession for very wide lenses and tilted camera angles; going unusually wide for an audience familiar with mainstream Hollywood productions, Gilliam made the film's wide-angle shots with 14mm (Zeiss), 11mm and 9.8mm (Kinoptik) lenses, the latter being a recent technological innovation as one of the first lenses of that short a focal length that did notfisheye.[44] In fact, over the years, the 14mm lens has become informally known as "The Gilliam" among filmmakers due to the director's frequent use of it sinceBrazil.[45]
Many of the film's exterior scenes were filmed inLes Espaces d'Abraxas inNoisy-le-Grand nearParis, a monumental apartment complex designed byRicardo Bofill Taller de Arquitectura.[46][47]
The numbering of form27B/6, without which no work can be performed by repairmen with the Department of Central Services, is an allusion toGeorge Orwell's flat at 27BCanonbury Square, London (up six half-flights of stairs), where he lived while writing parts ofNineteen Eighty-Four.[48][49]
Geoff Muldaur performed a version ofAry Barroso's most famous 1939 song "Aquarela do Brasil" ("Watercolor of Brazil", often simply called "Brazil" in English). The song is a musical ode to the Brazilian motherland.Michael Kamen uses the song as aleitmotif in the film, although other background music is also used. Kamen's arrangement and orchestration of Barroso's song forBrazil made it more pliable to late 20th-century tastes, to the extent that film trailer composers often used it in contexts that had little to do with Brazil and more to do with Gilliam's dystopian vision.[50]
Kamen, who scored the film, originally recorded "Brazil" with vocals byKate Bush. This recording was not included in the film nor on the original soundtrack release. However, it has been subsequently released on re-releases of the soundtrack. Gilliam recalls drawing the inspiration to use the song while inPort Talbot,Wales in 1977:[51]
This place was a métallurgie city, where everything was covered by a gray metallic dust... Even the beach was completely covered by dust, it was really dusky. The sun was going down and was very beautiful. The contrast was extraordinary. I had this image of a man sitting there in this sordid beach with a portable radio, tuned in those strange escapist Latin songs like Brazil. The music took him away somehow and made the world seem less blue to him.
Sylvia Albertazzi, in her article "Salman Rushdie's 'The Location of Brazil': The Imaginary Homelands of the Fantastic Literature", stresses even further the importance that the soundtrack had on the movie's plot and meaning. She suggests, "... the opening question 'where is Gilliam's Brazil?', may be answered, quite literally, 'in a song'; just as it is in a song that there is to be found that world where 'all fall down' in children's games."[52]
The film was produced byArnon Milchan's companyEmbassy International Pictures. Gilliam's original cut of the film was 142 minutes long and ends on a dark note. This version was released in Europe and internationally by20th Century Fox without issue. However, the film's US distribution was handled byUniversal Pictures, whose executives felt that the endingtested poorly.[30] Universal's chairman,Sid Sheinberg, insisted on a dramatic re-edit of the film to give it a happy ending and suggested testing both versions to see which scored higher.[53] At one point, there were two editing teams working on the film, one without Gilliam's knowledge.[54] After a lengthy delay with no sign of the film being released, Gilliam took out a full-page ad inVariety urging Sheinberg to releaseBrazil in its intended version. Sheinberg spoke publicly in interviews of his dispute with Gilliam, and ran his own advertisement inDaily Variety offering to sell the film.[55]
Gilliam conducted private screenings ofBrazil (without the studio's approval) for film schools and local critics. On the same night when Universal's award contenderOut of Africa premiered in New York,Brazil was awarded the awards for "Best Picture", "Best Screenplay" and "Best Director" at theLos Angeles Film Critics Association.[56] This prompted Universal to finally agree to release a modified 132-minute version supervised by Gilliam in 1985.[15][53]
On thereview aggregator websiteRotten Tomatoes, 98% of 55 critics' reviews are positive, with an average rating of 8.8/10. The website's consensus reads: "Brazil, Terry Gilliam's visionaryOrwellian fantasy, is an audacious dark comedy, filled with strange, imaginative visuals."[57] OnMetacritic, the film received a score of 84 based on 18 reviews, indicating "universal acclaim".[58]
Los Angeles Times criticKenneth Turan described the film as "the most potent piece of satiric political cinema sinceDr. Strangelove".[15]
Janet Maslin ofThe New York Times was very positive towards the film on its release, stating, "Terry Gilliam'sBrazil, 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."[59]
Roger Ebert was less enthusiastic in theChicago Sun-Times, giving the film two stars out of four and claiming that it was "hard to follow". He felt that the film lacked a confident grasp on its characters' roles in a story "awash in elaborate special effects, sensational sets, apocalyptic scenes of destruction and a general lack of discipline". However, Ebert did say that "there are several scenes in Brazil that show a lot of imagination and effort". Ebert especially enjoyed one scene in which "Sam moves into half an office and finds himself engaged in a tug-of-war over his desk with the man through the wall. I was reminded of a Chaplin film,Modern Times, and reminded, too, that in Chaplin economy and simplicity were virtues, not the enemy."[60]
Colin Greenland reviewedBrazil forImagine magazine, and stated that it was "a daring, exorbitant Vision, sombrely funny and darkly true".[61]
According to Gilliam in an interview withClive James in his online programmeTalking in the Library,Brazil is—to his surprise—apparently a favourite film of thefar right in America.[62]
In 2004,Total Film namedBrazil the 20th-greatest British movie of all time. In 2005,Time film reviewersRichard Corliss andRichard Schickel includedBrazil in an unordered list of the 100 best films of all time. In 2006,Channel 4 votedBrazil one of the "50 Films to See Before You Die", shortly before its broadcast onFilmFour. The film also ranks at number 83 inEmpire magazine's list of the "500 Greatest Films of All Time".[63]
Wired rankedBrazil at number 5 in its list of the top 20 sci-fi movies.[64]
Entertainment Weekly listedBrazil as the sixth-best science-fiction piece of media released since 1982.[65] The magazine also ranked the film number 13 on its list of "The Top 50 Cult Films".[66]
The film was nominated for twoAcademy Awards, forBest Original Screenplay andBest Art Direction (Norman Garwood,Maggie Gray).[67]
A directors' cut ofBrazil was released onLaserDisc in the United States in December 1993.[68] It was released byThe Criterion Collection as a five-disc LaserDisc set in 1996 and a three-discDVD set in 1999, featuring the 142-minute cut of the film (referred to by Gilliam as the "fifth and final cut"), Sheinberg's 94-minute "Love Conquers All" cut for syndicated television, and various galleries and featurettes. Criterion also released a one-disc, movie-only DVD edition in 2006, while the three-disc set was revised to be compatible with widescreen televisions.
ABlu-ray of the 132-minute US version was released on 12 July 2011 byUniversal Pictures. It contains only that version of the film and no extra features.[69] The 142-minute cut was released onUltra HD Blu-ray and a remastered Blu-ray by Criterion on 4 June 2025.[70]
Other films that have drawn inspiration fromBrazil's cinematography, art design and overall atmosphere includeJean-Pierre Jeunet's andMarc Caro's filmsDelicatessen (1991) andThe City of Lost Children (1995),[71]Rocky Morton andAnnabel Jankel'sSuper Mario Bros. (1993), theCoen brothers'The Hudsucker Proxy (1994) andAlex Proyas'sDark City (1998).[72][73][74]
The production design and lighting style of Tim Burton'sBatman (1989) have been compared toBrazil.[75]Tim Burton and production designerAnton Furst studiedBrazil as a reference forBatman.[76]
The technological aesthetics ofBrazil inspired the set design of Max Cohen's apartment in the filmPi.[77]Brazil also served as an inspiration for the filmSucker Punch (2011),[78] and has been recognised as an inspiration for writers and artists of thesteampunk subculture.[79][80][81]
The ending ofNeil Marshall'sThe Descent (2005) is inspired byBrazil's, as Marshall explained in an interview:
The original ending forBrazil was a massive inspiration for the original ending ofThe Descent – the idea that someone can go insane on the outside, but inside they've found happiness.[82]
Jupiter Ascending (2015) features a scene that is deliberately designed to resemble the bureaucracy inBrazil, featuring Terry Gilliam in a cameo role and a reference to a "statute 27B-stroke-6".
Star Wars: The Last Jedi (2017) was also influenced byBrazil, both in its production design and its themes. DirectorRian Johnson used it as inspiration for the scene in which BB-8 fixes Poe Dameron's X-Wing.[83] The planet of Canto Bight is aesthetically similar toBrazil. Both films also share several themes, showing the ambivalence of the wealthy in the face of a world falling apart and a society unaware of the conflict surrounding them.[84] A direct reference to the film can be heard when Finn and Rose are arrested for Parking Violation 27B/6, a nod to form 27B/6, without which no work can be done by repairmen of the Department of Public Works.[85]
Production design of the Time Variance Authority depicted in the Disney+ seriesLoki is inspired by the "fun sci-fi bureaucracy" and dystopian design elements ofBrazil's Ministry of Information.[86]
In theRick and Morty episode "The Ricklantis Mixup", the ending ofBrazil is referred to through a subplot involving a character who is attempting to escape. Like Lowry, is captured but lives with the illusion that he has escaped.[87]
In theFuturama episode "How Hermes Requisitioned His Groove Back",Matt Groening and others in the DVD audio commentary citeBrazil as having influenced the depiction of the Central Bureaucracy.[88]
The 2018 dystopian video gameWe Happy Few was largely inspired byBrazil.[89][90]
dist— 20th Century Fox.p.c.— Brazil Productions.
pc production company (distributors not given).
pc Brazil Productions.
Calling it the third part of a trilogy formed by earlier dystopian satiresBrazil and12 Monkeys, Gilliam says ...
Well, it's funny, this trilogy was never something I ever said, but it's been repeated so often it's clearly true [laughs]. I don't know who started it but once it started it never stopped ...
27b Canonbury Square, Islington, London N1, 18 August 1945 [as return address in correspondence]
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