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Wikipedia

Brazil (1985 film)

February 10, 2023

Brazil is a 1985 dystopian black comedy film[9][10] directed by Terry Gilliam and written by Gilliam, Charles McKeown, and Tom Stoppard. The film stars Jonathan Pryce and features Robert De Niro, Kim Greist, Michael Palin, Katherine Helmond, Bob Hoskins, and Ian Holm.

Brazil
Theatrical release poster by Bill Garland
Directed byTerry Gilliam
Screenplay by
Produced byArnon Milchan
Starring
CinematographyRoger Pratt
Edited byJulian Doyle
Music byMichael Kamen
Production
companies
Distributed by
Release dates
  • 20 February 1985 (1985-02-20) (France)
  • 22 February 1985 (1985-02-22) (United Kingdom)
  • 18 December 1985 (1985-12-18) (United States)
Running time
143 minutes[5]
Countries
  • United Kingdom
  • United States[1][6]
LanguagesEnglish
French
German
Budget$15 million[7]
Box office$9.9 million (USA)[nb 1][8]

The film centres on Sam Lowry, a low-ranking bureaucrat trying to find a woman who appears in his dreams while he is working in a mind-numbing job and living 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 satire of technocracy, bureaucracy, hyper-surveillance, corporate statism, and state capitalism is reminiscent of George Orwell's 1949 novel Nineteen Eighty-Four,[11][12][13] and has been called Kafkaesque,[14] as well as absurdist.[13]

Sarah Street's British National Cinema (1997) describes the film as a "fantasy/satire on bureaucratic society", and John Scalzi's Rough Guide to Sci-Fi Movies (2005) describes it as a "dystopian satire". Jack Mathews, a film critic and the author of The 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 country Brazil 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 by Geoff Muldaur.[16]

Though a success in Europe, the film was unsuccessful in its initial North American release. It has since become a cult film. In 1999, the British Film Institute voted Brazil the 54th greatest British film of all time. In 2017, a poll of 150 actors, directors, writers, producers, and critics for Time Out magazine saw it ranked the 24th best British film ever.[17]

Plot

In a dystopian, polluted, hyper-consumerist, overbearing bureaucratic totalitarian future somewhere in the 20th century, Sam Lowry is a low-level government employee who frequently dreams of himself as a winged warrior saving a damsel in distress. One day, shortly before Christmas, a fly becomes jammed in a teleprinter, 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 renegade heating engineer and suspected terrorist Archibald Tuttle.

Sam discovers the mistake when he discovers the wrong bank account had 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 Jill resembles the woman from his dreams. Sam 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 then Tuttle, who used to work for Central Services but left because of his dislike of the tedious and repetitive paperwork now working as freelancing heating engineer (which is considered illegal), unexpectedly comes to his assistance. Tuttle repairs Sam's air conditioning, but when two Central Services workers, Spoor and Dowser, arrive, Sam has to stall to let Tuttle escape. The workers later return to demolish Sam's ducts and seize his apartment under the pretence of fixing the system.

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 rejuvenating plastic 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. Sam returns home to find that the two Central Services workers have repossessed his apartment. Tuttle then appears in secret and helps Sam enact revenge on Spoor and Dowser by filling their hazmat suits with raw sewage. Jill finds Sam outside his apartment and the two take refuge in Ida's unoccupied home. Sam falsifies government records to indicate her death, allowing her to escape pursuit. The two share a romantic night together, but in the morning are apprehended by the government at gunpoint. Sam is told that Jill was killed while resisting arrest. Charged with treason for abusing his new position, Sam 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 Jack, rescuing Sam, and blowing up the Ministry building. Sam and Tuttle flee together, but Tuttle 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. Sam 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 Sam 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 of flex-ducts. Opening a door, he passes through it and is surprised to find himself 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 Sam has descended into irrecoverable insanity, Jack and Mr Helpmann declare him a lost cause and leave the room. Sam remains in the chair, smiling and humming "Aquarela do Brasil" to himself.

Cast

Main cast

  • Jonathan Pryce as Sam Lowry. Pryce has described the role as the highlight of his career, along with that of Lytton Strachey in Carrington.[18] Tom Cruise was also considered for the role.[19]
  • Kim Greist as Jill Layton. Gilliam's first choice for the part was Ellen Barkin; also considered were Jamie Lee Curtis, Rebecca De Mornay, Rae Dawn Chong, Joanna Pacuła, Rosanna Arquette, Kelly McGillis, and Madonna.[20] Gilliam was reportedly dissatisfied with Greist's performance, and chose to cut or edit some of her scenes as a result.[20]
  • Robert De Niro as Archibald "Harry" Tuttle. De Niro still wanted a part in the film after being denied that of Jack Lint, so Gilliam offered him the smaller role of Tuttle.[21]
  • Katherine Helmond as Mrs Ida Lowry. According to Helmond, Gilliam called her and said, "I have a part for you, and I want you to come over and do it, but you're not going to look very nice in it." The make-up was applied by Gilliam's wife, Maggie. During production, Helmond spent ten hours a day with a mask glued to her face; her scenes had to be postponed due to the blisters this caused.[22]
  • Ian Holm as Mr Kurtzmann, Sam's boss
  • Bob Hoskins as Spoor, a government-employed heating engineer who resents Harry Tuttle
  • Michael Palin as Jack Lint. Robert De Niro read the script and expressed interest in the role, but Gilliam had already promised the part to Palin, a friend and regular collaborator. Palin described the character as "someone who was everything that Jonathan Pryce's character wasn't: he's stable, he had a family, he was settled, comfortable, hard-working, charming, sociable – and utterly and totally unscrupulous. That was the way we felt we could bring out the evil in Jack Lint."[23]
  • Ian Richardson as Mr Warrenn, Sam's new boss at Information Retrieval
  • Peter Vaughan as Mr Eugene Helpmann, the Deputy Minister of Information

Supporting cast

Cameos

  • Co-writer Charles McKeown as Harvey Lime, Sam's co-worker.
  • Director Terry Gilliam as the smoking man at Shang-ri La Towers.

Production

Writing

Gilliam developed the story and wrote the first draft of the screenplay with Charles Alverson, who was paid for his work but was ultimately uncredited in the final film. For nearly 20 years, Gilliam denied that Alverson had made any material contribution to the script. When the first draft was published and original in-progress documents emerged from Alverson's files, however, Gilliam begrudgingly changed his story. This was too late for either credit on the film or a listing on the failed Oscar nomination for Alverson; he has said that he would not have minded the Oscar nomination, even though he didn't think much of the script or the finished film.[24] Gilliam, McKeown, and Stoppard collaborated on further drafts. Brazil was developed under the titles The Ministry and 1984 ½, the latter a nod not only to Orwell's original Nineteen Eighty-Four but also to 8½ directed by Federico Fellini; Gilliam often cites Fellini as one of the defining influences on his visual style.[25] During the film's production, other working titles floated about, including The Ministry of Torture, How I Learned to Live with the System—So Far,[26] and So That's Why the Bourgeoisie Sucks,[27] before settling with Brazil, relating to the name of its escapist signature tune.

In an interview with Salman Rushdie, Gilliam stated:

Brazil came specifically from the time, from the approaching of 1984. It was looming. In fact, the original title of Brazil was 1984 ½. Fellini was one of my great gods and it was 1984, so let's put them together. Unfortunately, that bastard Michael Radford did a version of 1984 and he called it 1984, so I was blown.[28]

Gilliam sometimes refers to this film as the second in his "Trilogy of Imagination" films, starting with Time Bandits (1981) and ending with The 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, and Munchausen, through the eyes of an elderly man. In 2013, Gilliam also called Brazil the first instalment of a dystopian satire trilogy it forms with 1995's 12 Monkeys and 2013's The Zero Theorem[29] (though he later denied having said this[30]).

Gilliam has stated that Brazil was inspired by George Orwell's Nineteen 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 did. In Gilliam's words, his film was "the Nineteen Eighty-Four for 1984." Critics and analysts have pointed out many similarities and differences between the two,[13] an example being that contrary to Winston Smith, Sam Lowry's spirit did not capitulate as he sank into complete catatonia.[11][31] The film's ending bears a strong similarity to the short story "An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge" by Ambrose Bierce.[32] The tragicomic tone and philosophy of the film bear many resemblances to absurdist drama, a genre for which Brazil co-writer Tom Stoppard is widely acclaimed.[13]

Production design

 
Logo of the Ministry of Information

Michael Atkinson of The 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."[33] In the second version of the script, Gilliam and Alverson described the film's setting like this: "It is neither future nor past, and yet a bit of each. It is neither East nor West, but could be Belgrade or Scunthorpe on a drizzly day in February. Or Cicero, Illinois, seen through the bottom of a beer bottle."[34] In the 1988 documentary The 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".[35] Pneumatic tubes are a frequent sight throughout the film.[36]

The result is an anachronistic technology, "a view of what the 1980s might have looked like as viewed from the perspective of a 1940s filmmaker"[37] which has been dubbed "retro-futurism" by fellow filmmakers Jean-Pierre Jeunet and Marc Caro.[33] It is a mixture of styles and production designs derived from Fritz Lang's films (particularly Metropolis and M) or film noir pictures starring Humphrey 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 to The Third Man's Harry Lime."[37] A number of reviewers also saw a distinct influence of German Expressionism, as the 1920s seminal, more nightmarish, predecessor to 1940s film noir, in general in how Gilliam made use of lighting and set designs.[38] A brief sequence towards the end, in which resistance fighters flee from government soldiers on the steps of the Ministry, pays homage to the Odessa Steps sequence in Sergei Eisenstein's Battleship Potemkin (1925).[21] Strong references exist to the overcomplicated humoristic machinery of British illustrator W. Heath Robinson, published between 1915 and 1942.[39] The grotesque sets were based on George Grosz's paintings of 1920s Berlin.[40]

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 used to 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 at the time as one of the first lenses of that short a focal length that did not fish-eye.[41] 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 since Brazil.[42]

Many of the film's exterior scenes are filmed in Les Espaces d'Abraxas in Noisy-le-Grand near Paris, a monumental apartment complex designed by Ricardo Bofill Taller de Arquitectura.[43][44]

The numbering of form 27B/6, without which no work can be done by repairmen of the Department of Central Services, is an allusion to George Orwell's flat at 27B Canonbury Square, London (up six half-flights of stairs), where he lived while writing parts of Nineteen Eighty-Four.[45][46]

Music

Geoff Muldaur performed a version of Ary 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. Geoff Muldaur uses the song as a leitmotif in the film, although other background music is also used. Michael Kamen's arrangement and orchestration of Barroso's song for Brazil made it more pliable to late 20th-century tastes to the extent that film trailer composers often use it in contexts that have little to do with Brazil and more to do with Gilliam's dystopian vision.[47] Kamen, who scored 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. Gilliam recalls drawing the inspiration to use the song as follows:[48]

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 upon 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".[49]

Release

Battle for final cut

The film was produced by Arnon Milchan's company Embassy International Pictures. Gilliam's original cut of the film is 142 minutes long and ends on a dark note. This version was released in Europe and internationally by 20th Century Fox without issue; however, US distribution was handled by Universal, whose executives felt the ending tested poorly.[28] Universal 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.[50] At one point, there were two editing teams working on the film, one without Gilliam's knowledge.[51] As with the science fiction film Blade Runner (1982), which had been released three years earlier, a version of Brazil was created by the 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. Sheinberg spoke publicly of his dispute with Gilliam in interviews and ran his own advertisement in Daily Variety offering to sell the film.[52] Gilliam conducted private screenings of Brazil (without the studio's approval) for film schools and local critics. On the same night Universal's award contender Out of Africa premiered in New York, Brazil was awarded the Los Angeles Film Critics Association awards for "Best Picture", "Best Screenplay", and "Best Director".[53] This prompted Universal to finally agree to release a modified 132-minute version supervised by Gilliam, in 1985.[15][54]

Reception

On review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds an approval rating of 98% based on 50 reviews, with an average rating of 8.7/10. The website's critical consensus reads, "Brazil, Terry Gilliam's visionary Orwellian fantasy, is an audacious dark comedy, filled with strange, imaginative visuals."[55] On Metacritic, the film received a score of 84 based on 18 reviews, indicating "universal acclaim".[56]

Los Angeles Times critic Kenneth Turan described the film as "the most potent piece of satiric political cinema since Dr. Strangelove".[15] Janet Maslin of The New York Times was very positive towards the film upon its release, stating "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."[57]

Roger Ebert was less enthusiastic in the Chicago Sun-Times, giving the film two out of four stars and claiming that it was "hard to follow". He felt 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". Ebert wrote positively of certain scenes, especially one 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."[58]

Colin Greenland reviewed Brazil for Imagine magazine, and stated that it was "a daring, exorbitant Vision, sombrely funny and darkly true."[59]

Accolades

In 2004, Total Film named Brazil the 20th-greatest British movie of all time. In 2005, Time film reviewers Richard Corliss and Richard Schickel included 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. The film also ranks at number 83 in Empire magazine's list of the 500 Greatest Films of All Time.[60]

Wired ranked Brazil number 5 in its list of the top 20 sci-fi movies.[61] Entertainment Weekly listed Brazil as the sixth-best science-fiction piece of media released since 1982.[62] The magazine also ranked the film No. 13 on their list of "The Top 50 Cult Films".[63]

The film was nominated for two Academy Awards, for Best Original Screenplay and Best Art Direction (Norman Garwood, Maggie Gray).[64]

According to Gilliam in an interview with Clive James in his online programme Talking in the Library, Brazil is – to his surprise – apparently a favourite film of the far right in America.[65]

Home media

Brazil has been released several times by The Criterion Collection, as a five-disc LaserDisc set in 1996, a three-disc DVD set in 1999, and a two-disc Blu-ray set in 2012, all with the same special features: a 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 edition in 2006, while the three-disc set was revised to be compatible with widescreen televisions

A Blu-ray of the 132-minute US version of the movie was released in the US on 12 July 2011 by Universal Pictures. It contains only that version of the film and no extra features.[66]

Legacy

Film

Other films which have drawn inspiration from Brazil's cinematography, art design, and overall atmosphere include Jean-Pierre Jeunet's and Marc Caro's films Delicatessen (1991) and The City of Lost Children (1995),[67] Rocky Morton and Annabel Jankel's Super Mario Bros. (1993), the Coen brothers' The Hudsucker Proxy (1994), and Alex Proyas's Dark City (1998).[68][69][70]

The production design and lighting style of Tim Burton's Batman (1989) have been compared to Brazil.[71] Tim Burton and production designer Anton Furst studied Brazil as a reference for Batman.[72]

The ending of Neil Marshall's The Descent (2005) was greatly inspired by Brazil's, as Marshall explained in an interview:

The original ending for Brazil was a massive inspiration for the original ending of The Descent – the idea that someone can go insane on the outside, but inside they've found happiness.[73]

Star Wars: The Last Jedi (2017) was also heavily inspired by Brazil, both in its production design and its themes. The planet of Canto Bight is aesthetically similar to Brazil. 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.[74] 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.[75] Another reference can be heard in the film's soundtrack, as the Canto Bight Theme composed by John Williams briefly samples "Aquarela do Brasil", making it one of the few times that a Star Wars soundtrack incorporated a song from outside the Star Wars universe.[76]

Television

Production design of the Time Variance Authority depicted in the Disney+ series Loki was inspired by the "fun sci-fi bureaucracy" and dystopian design elements of Brazil's Ministry of Information.[77]

Technology

The highly technological aesthetics of Brazil inspired the set design of Max Cohen's apartment in the film Pi.[78] Brazil also served as an inspiration for the film Sucker Punch (2011),[79] and has been recognised as an inspiration for writers and artists of the steampunk subculture.[80][81][82]

The dystopian premise of the 2018 video game We Happy Few was largely inspired by Brazil.[83][84]

See also

Notes

  1. ^ This is USA only box office from the Universal release, and does not include the 20th Century Fox release in the rest of the world.

References

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  2. ^ a b Pym, John (1985). "Brazil". Monthly Film Bulletin. British Film Institute. 52 (612): 107–108. dist— 20th Century Fox. p.c.— Brazil Productions.
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Further reading

  • Bruce Krajewski, "Postmodernism, Allegory, and Hermeneutics in Brazil, in Traveling with Hermes: Hermeneutics and Rhetoric (1992), ISBN 0-87023-815-9.
  • Jack Mathews, The Battle of Brazil (1987), ISBN 0-517-56538-2.

External links

 
Wikiquote has quotations related to Brazil (1985 film).
  • Brazil at IMDb
  • Brazil at the TCM Movie Database
  • Brazil at AllMovie
  • Brazil at Box Office Mojo
  • Brazil at the Encyclopedia of Science Fiction
  • Wide Angle Closeup: The Terry Gilliam Files – Interviews and production stories on Brazil
  • Brazil Screenplay, Terry Gilliam, Tom Stoppard & Charles McKeown, Daily Script website
  • Hamel, James Keith. Modernity and Mise-en-scene: Terry Gilliam and Brazil, from Images: Journal of Film and Popular Culture
  • Brazil: A Great Place to Visit, Wouldn't Want to Live There an essay by David Sterritt at the Criterion Collection

February 10, 2023
brazil, 1985, film, brazil, 1985, dystopian, black, comedy, film, directed, terry, gilliam, written, gilliam, charles, mckeown, stoppard, film, stars, jonathan, pryce, features, robert, niro, greist, michael, palin, katherine, helmond, hoskins, holm, brazilthe. Brazil is a 1985 dystopian black comedy film 9 10 directed by Terry Gilliam and written by Gilliam Charles McKeown and Tom Stoppard The film stars Jonathan Pryce and features Robert De Niro Kim Greist Michael Palin Katherine Helmond Bob Hoskins and Ian Holm BrazilTheatrical release poster by Bill GarlandDirected byTerry GilliamScreenplay byTerry Gilliam Tom Stoppard Charles McKeownProduced byArnon MilchanStarringJonathan Pryce Robert De Niro Katherine Helmond Ian Holm Bob Hoskins Michael Palin Ian Richardson Peter Vaughan Kim GreistCinematographyRoger PrattEdited byJulian DoyleMusic byMichael KamenProductioncompaniesEmbassy International Pictures 1 Brazil Productions 2 3 4 Distributed byUniversal Pictures North America 20th Century Fox International 2 Release dates20 February 1985 1985 02 20 France 22 February 1985 1985 02 22 United Kingdom 18 December 1985 1985 12 18 United States Running time143 minutes 5 CountriesUnited Kingdom United States 1 6 LanguagesEnglish French GermanBudget 15 million 7 Box office 9 9 million USA nb 1 8 The film centres on Sam Lowry a low ranking bureaucrat trying to find a woman who appears in his dreams while he is working in a mind numbing job and living 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 satire of technocracy bureaucracy hyper surveillance corporate statism and state capitalism is reminiscent of George Orwell s 1949 novel Nineteen Eighty Four 11 12 13 and has been called Kafkaesque 14 as well as absurdist 13 Sarah Street s British National Cinema 1997 describes the film as a fantasy satire on bureaucratic society and John Scalzi s Rough Guide to Sci Fi Movies 2005 describes it as a dystopian satire Jack Mathews a film critic and the author of The 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 country Brazil 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 by Geoff Muldaur 16 Though a success in Europe the film was unsuccessful in its initial North American release It has since become a cult film In 1999 the British Film Institute voted Brazil the 54th greatest British film of all time In 2017 a poll of 150 actors directors writers producers and critics for Time Out magazine saw it ranked the 24th best British film ever 17 Contents 1 Plot 2 Cast 2 1 Main cast 2 2 Supporting cast 2 3 Cameos 3 Production 3 1 Writing 3 2 Production design 3 3 Music 4 Release 4 1 Battle for final cut 5 Reception 5 1 Accolades 5 2 Home media 6 Legacy 6 1 Film 6 2 Television 6 3 Technology 7 See also 8 Notes 9 References 10 Further reading 11 External linksPlot EditIn a dystopian polluted hyper consumerist overbearing bureaucratic totalitarian future somewhere in the 20th century Sam Lowry is a low level government employee who frequently dreams of himself as a winged warrior saving a damsel in distress One day shortly before Christmas a fly becomes jammed in a teleprinter 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 renegade heating engineer and suspected terrorist Archibald Tuttle Sam discovers the mistake when he discovers the wrong bank account had 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 Jill resembles the woman from his dreams Sam 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 then Tuttle who used to work for Central Services but left because of his dislike of the tedious and repetitive paperwork now working as freelancing heating engineer which is considered illegal unexpectedly comes to his assistance Tuttle repairs Sam s air conditioning but when two Central Services workers Spoor and Dowser arrive Sam has to stall to let Tuttle escape The workers later return to demolish Sam s ducts and seize his apartment under the pretence of fixing the system 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 rejuvenating plastic 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 Sam returns home to find that the two Central Services workers have repossessed his apartment Tuttle then appears in secret and helps Sam enact revenge on Spoor and Dowser by filling their hazmat suits with raw sewage Jill finds Sam outside his apartment and the two take refuge in Ida s unoccupied home Sam falsifies government records to indicate her death allowing her to escape pursuit The two share a romantic night together but in the morning are apprehended by the government at gunpoint Sam is told that Jill was killed while resisting arrest Charged with treason for abusing his new position Sam 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 Jack rescuing Sam and blowing up the Ministry building Sam and Tuttle flee together but Tuttle 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 Sam 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 Sam 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 of flex ducts Opening a door he passes through it and is surprised to find himself 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 Sam has descended into irrecoverable insanity Jack and Mr Helpmann declare him a lost cause and leave the room Sam remains in the chair smiling and humming Aquarela do Brasil to himself Cast EditMain cast Edit Jonathan Pryce as Sam Lowry Pryce has described the role as the highlight of his career along with that of Lytton Strachey in Carrington 18 Tom Cruise was also considered for the role 19 Kim Greist as Jill Layton Gilliam s first choice for the part was Ellen Barkin also considered were Jamie Lee Curtis Rebecca De Mornay Rae Dawn Chong Joanna Pacula Rosanna Arquette Kelly McGillis and Madonna 20 Gilliam was reportedly dissatisfied with Greist s performance and chose to cut or edit some of her scenes as a result 20 Robert De Niro as Archibald Harry Tuttle De Niro still wanted a part in the film after being denied that of Jack Lint so Gilliam offered him the smaller role of Tuttle 21 Katherine Helmond as Mrs Ida Lowry According to Helmond Gilliam called her and said I have a part for you and I want you to come over and do it but you re not going to look very nice in it The make up was applied by Gilliam s wife Maggie During production Helmond spent ten hours a day with a mask glued to her face her scenes had to be postponed due to the blisters this caused 22 Ian Holm as Mr Kurtzmann Sam s boss Bob Hoskins as Spoor a government employed heating engineer who resents Harry Tuttle Michael Palin as Jack Lint Robert De Niro read the script and expressed interest in the role but Gilliam had already promised the part to Palin a friend and regular collaborator Palin described the character as someone who was everything that Jonathan Pryce s character wasn t he s stable he had a family he was settled comfortable hard working charming sociable and utterly and totally unscrupulous That was the way we felt we could bring out the evil in Jack Lint 23 Ian Richardson as Mr Warrenn Sam s new boss at Information Retrieval Peter Vaughan as Mr Eugene Helpmann the Deputy Minister of InformationSupporting cast Edit Jim Broadbent as Dr Louis Jaffe Brian Miller as Mr Archibald Buttle Sheila Reid as Mrs Veronica Buttle Simon Nash as Boy Buttle Barbara Hicks as Mrs Terrain Kathryn Pogson as Shirley Terrain Bryan Pringle as Spiro Derrick O Connor as Dowser Elizabeth Spender as Alison Barbara Lint Derek Deadman and Nigel Planer as Bill and Charlie Charles McKeown as Lime Ray Cooper as Technician Gorden Kaye as the M O I porter John Pierce Jones as Basement guard Ann Way as Old lady with dog Myrtle Devenish as Jack s secretary Simon Jones as Arrest official Bill Wallis as Bespectacled lurker Don Henderson as Black Maria guard Howard Lew Lewis as Black Maria guard Oscar Quitak as Interview official Harold Innocent as Interview official John Grillo as Interview official Patrick Connor as guard Roger Ashton Griffiths as the Priest Jack Purvis as Dr Chapman Sue Hodge as performer Cameos Edit Co writer Charles McKeown as Harvey Lime Sam s co worker Director Terry Gilliam as the smoking man at Shang ri La Towers Production EditWriting Edit Gilliam developed the story and wrote the first draft of the screenplay with Charles Alverson who was paid for his work but was ultimately uncredited in the final film For nearly 20 years Gilliam denied that Alverson had made any material contribution to the script When the first draft was published and original in progress documents emerged from Alverson s files however Gilliam begrudgingly changed his story This was too late for either credit on the film or a listing on the failed Oscar nomination for Alverson he has said that he would not have minded the Oscar nomination even though he didn t think much of the script or the finished film 24 Gilliam McKeown and Stoppard collaborated on further drafts Brazil was developed under the titles The Ministry and 1984 the latter a nod not only to Orwell s original Nineteen Eighty Four but also to 8 directed by Federico Fellini Gilliam often cites Fellini as one of the defining influences on his visual style 25 During the film s production other working titles floated about including The Ministry of Torture How I Learned to Live with the System So Far 26 and So That s Why the Bourgeoisie Sucks 27 before settling with Brazil relating to the name of its escapist signature tune In an interview with Salman Rushdie Gilliam stated Brazil came specifically from the time from the approaching of 1984 It was looming In fact the original title of Brazil was 1984 Fellini was one of my great gods and it was 1984 so let s put them together Unfortunately that bastard Michael Radford did a version of 1984 and he called it 1984 so I was blown 28 Gilliam sometimes refers to this film as the second in his Trilogy of Imagination films starting with Time Bandits 1981 and ending with The 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 and Munchausen through the eyes of an elderly man In 2013 Gilliam also called Brazil the first instalment of a dystopian satire trilogy it forms with 1995 s 12 Monkeys and 2013 s The Zero Theorem 29 though he later denied having said this 30 Gilliam has stated that Brazil was inspired by George Orwell s Nineteen 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 did In Gilliam s words his film was the Nineteen Eighty Four for 1984 Critics and analysts have pointed out many similarities and differences between the two 13 an example being that contrary to Winston Smith Sam Lowry s spirit did not capitulate as he sank into complete catatonia 11 31 The film s ending bears a strong similarity to the short story An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge by Ambrose Bierce 32 The tragicomic tone and philosophy of the film bear many resemblances to absurdist drama a genre for which Brazil co writer Tom Stoppard is widely acclaimed 13 Production design Edit Logo of the Ministry of Information Michael Atkinson of The Village Voice wrote Gilliam understood that all futuristic films end up quaintly evoking the naive past in which they were made and turned the principle into a coherent comic aesthetic 33 In the second version of the script Gilliam and Alverson described the film s setting like this It is neither future nor past and yet a bit of each It is neither East nor West but could be Belgrade or Scunthorpe on a drizzly day in February Or Cicero Illinois seen through the bottom of a beer bottle 34 In the 1988 documentary The 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 35 Pneumatic tubes are a frequent sight throughout the film 36 The result is an anachronistic technology a view of what the 1980s might have looked like as viewed from the perspective of a 1940s filmmaker 37 which has been dubbed retro futurism by fellow filmmakers Jean Pierre Jeunet and Marc Caro 33 It is a mixture of styles and production designs derived from Fritz Lang s films particularly Metropolis and M or film noir pictures starring Humphrey 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 to The Third Man s Harry Lime 37 A number of reviewers also saw a distinct influence of German Expressionism as the 1920s seminal more nightmarish predecessor to 1940s film noir in general in how Gilliam made use of lighting and set designs 38 A brief sequence towards the end in which resistance fighters flee from government soldiers on the steps of the Ministry pays homage to the Odessa Steps sequence in Sergei Eisenstein s Battleship Potemkin 1925 21 Strong references exist to the overcomplicated humoristic machinery of British illustrator W Heath Robinson published between 1915 and 1942 39 The grotesque sets were based on George Grosz s paintings of 1920s Berlin 40 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 used to 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 at the time as one of the first lenses of that short a focal length that did not fish eye 41 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 since Brazil 42 Many of the film s exterior scenes are filmed in Les Espaces d Abraxas in Noisy le Grand near Paris a monumental apartment complex designed by Ricardo Bofill Taller de Arquitectura 43 44 The numbering of form 27B 6 without which no work can be done by repairmen of the Department of Central Services is an allusion to George Orwell s flat at 27B Canonbury Square London up six half flights of stairs where he lived while writing parts of Nineteen Eighty Four 45 46 Music Edit Geoff Muldaur performed a version of Ary 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 Geoff Muldaur uses the song as a leitmotif in the film although other background music is also used Michael Kamen s arrangement and orchestration of Barroso s song for Brazil made it more pliable to late 20th century tastes to the extent that film trailer composers often use it in contexts that have little to do with Brazil and more to do with Gilliam s dystopian vision 47 Kamen who scored 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 Gilliam recalls drawing the inspiration to use the song as follows 48 This place was a metallurgie 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 upon 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 49 Release EditBattle for final cut Edit The film was produced by Arnon Milchan s company Embassy International Pictures Gilliam s original cut of the film is 142 minutes long and ends on a dark note This version was released in Europe and internationally by 20th Century Fox without issue however US distribution was handled by Universal whose executives felt the ending tested poorly 28 Universal 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 50 At one point there were two editing teams working on the film one without Gilliam s knowledge 51 As with the science fiction film Blade Runner 1982 which had been released three years earlier a version of Brazil was created by the 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 Sheinberg spoke publicly of his dispute with Gilliam in interviews and ran his own advertisement in Daily Variety offering to sell the film 52 Gilliam conducted private screenings of Brazil without the studio s approval for film schools and local critics On the same night Universal s award contender Out of Africa premiered in New York Brazil was awarded the Los Angeles Film Critics Association awards for Best Picture Best Screenplay and Best Director 53 This prompted Universal to finally agree to release a modified 132 minute version supervised by Gilliam in 1985 15 54 Reception EditOn review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes the film holds an approval rating of 98 based on 50 reviews with an average rating of 8 7 10 The website s critical consensus reads Brazil Terry Gilliam s visionary Orwellian fantasy is an audacious dark comedy filled with strange imaginative visuals 55 On Metacritic the film received a score of 84 based on 18 reviews indicating universal acclaim 56 Los Angeles Times critic Kenneth Turan described the film as the most potent piece of satiric political cinema since Dr Strangelove 15 Janet Maslin of The New York Times was very positive towards the film upon its release stating 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 57 Roger Ebert was less enthusiastic in the Chicago Sun Times giving the film two out of four stars and claiming that it was hard to follow He felt 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 Ebert wrote positively of certain scenes especially one 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 58 Colin Greenland reviewed Brazil for Imagine magazine and stated that it was a daring exorbitant Vision sombrely funny and darkly true 59 Accolades Edit In 2004 Total Film named Brazil the 20th greatest British movie of all time In 2005 Time film reviewers Richard Corliss and Richard Schickel included 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 The film also ranks at number 83 in Empire magazine s list of the 500 Greatest Films of All Time 60 Wired ranked Brazil number 5 in its list of the top 20 sci fi movies 61 Entertainment Weekly listed Brazil as the sixth best science fiction piece of media released since 1982 62 The magazine also ranked the film No 13 on their list of The Top 50 Cult Films 63 The film was nominated for two Academy Awards for Best Original Screenplay and Best Art Direction Norman Garwood Maggie Gray 64 According to Gilliam in an interview with Clive James in his online programme Talking in the Library Brazil is to his surprise apparently a favourite film of the far right in America 65 Home media Edit Brazil has been released several times by The Criterion Collection as a five disc LaserDisc set in 1996 a three disc DVD set in 1999 and a two disc Blu ray set in 2012 all with the same special features a 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 edition in 2006 while the three disc set was revised to be compatible with widescreen televisionsA Blu ray of the 132 minute US version of the movie was released in the US on 12 July 2011 by Universal Pictures It contains only that version of the film and no extra features 66 Legacy EditFilm Edit Other films which have drawn inspiration from Brazil s cinematography art design and overall atmosphere include Jean Pierre Jeunet s and Marc Caro s films Delicatessen 1991 and The City of Lost Children 1995 67 Rocky Morton and Annabel Jankel s Super Mario Bros 1993 the Coen brothers The Hudsucker Proxy 1994 and Alex Proyas s Dark City 1998 68 69 70 The production design and lighting style of Tim Burton s Batman 1989 have been compared to Brazil 71 Tim Burton and production designer Anton Furst studied Brazil as a reference for Batman 72 The ending of Neil Marshall s The Descent 2005 was greatly inspired by Brazil s as Marshall explained in an interview The original ending for Brazil was a massive inspiration for the original ending of The Descent the idea that someone can go insane on the outside but inside they ve found happiness 73 Star Wars The Last Jedi 2017 was also heavily inspired by Brazil both in its production design and its themes The planet of Canto Bight is aesthetically similar to Brazil 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 74 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 75 Another reference can be heard in the film s soundtrack as the Canto Bight Theme composed by John Williams briefly samples Aquarela do Brasil making it one of the few times that a Star Wars soundtrack incorporated a song from outside the Star Wars universe 76 Television Edit Production design of the Time Variance Authority depicted in the Disney series Loki was inspired by the fun sci fi bureaucracy and dystopian design elements of Brazil s Ministry of Information 77 Technology Edit The highly technological aesthetics of Brazil inspired the set design of Max Cohen s apartment in the film Pi 78 Brazil also served as an inspiration for the film Sucker Punch 2011 79 and has been recognised as an inspiration for writers and artists of the steampunk subculture 80 81 82 The dystopian premise of the 2018 video game We Happy Few was largely inspired by Brazil 83 84 See also EditBFI Top 100 British films List of films featuring surveillance List of films cut over the director s oppositionNotes Edit This is USA only box office from the Universal release and does not include the 20th Century Fox release in the rest of the world References Edit a b McAuley Paul 2004 Brazil Palgrave Macmillan ISBN 1844577953 a b Pym John 1985 Brazil Monthly Film Bulletin British Film Institute 52 612 107 108 dist 20th Century Fox p c Brazil Productions Hunter I Q 2002 British Science Fiction Cinema Routledge p 182 ISBN 1134702779 pc production company distributors not given Hunter I Q 2002 British Science Fiction Cinema Routledge p 206 ISBN 1134702779 pc Brazil Productions Brazil British Board of Film Classification Retrieved 20 January 2015 Brazil 1985 London British Film Institute Archived from the original on 11 July 2012 Retrieved 21 August 2015 BFI Screenonline Brazil 1985 Screenonline Retrieved 20 January 2015 Brazil 1985 Box Office Mojo Retrieved 20 January 2015 Anders Charlie Jane 19 October 2015 50 Brilliant Science Fiction Movies That Everyone Should See At Least Once The Guardian Retrieved 29 October 2015 Dystopia and Science Fiction Blade Runner Brazil and Beyond Santa Barbara University of California Press Retrieved 29 October 2015 a b Rogers Richard A 1990 1984 to Brazil From the Pessimism of Reality to the Hope of Dreams PDF Text and Performance Quarterly Abingdon England Taylor amp Francis 10 1 34 46 doi 10 1080 10462939009365953 Bartz Rob Dystopia A Look at Utopian Societies in Literature Thesis Fargo North Dakota North Dakota State University Archived from the original DOC on 13 July 2012 Retrieved 22 January 2012 a b c d Podgorski Daniel 7 January 2016 1984 with a Sense of Humor The Surreal Wonderful and Haunting Humor of Terry Gilliam s Absurdist Masterpiece Brazil The Gemsbok Retrieved 30 July 2019 Puddicombe Stephen 4 July 2017 Brazil five films that may have influenced Terry Gilliam s dystopian masterpiece British Film Institute Retrieved 30 July 2019 a b c d e Matthews Jack 1996 Dreaming Brazil Brazil Media notes Gilliam Terry director Criterion Collection Kinnear Simon 8 March 2014 Re Viewed Terry Gilliam s Prescient Sci Fi Brazil Digital Spy London England Bauer Media Group Retrieved 27 November 2015 Calhoun Dave Huddleston Tom Jenkins David Adams Derek Andrew Geoff Davies Adam Lee Fairclough Paul Hammond Wally 17 February 2017 The 100 best British films Time Out London Time Out Group Ltd Retrieved 24 October 2017 Paddock Terri 17 May 2004 20 Questions With Jonathan Pryce Whatsonstage com Archived from the original on 17 April 2014 Retrieved 19 August 2012 Kinnear Simon 8 March 2014 Re Viewed Terry Gilliam s prescient sci fi Brazil Digital Spy London England Bauer Media Group Retrieved 11 March 2014 a b Brazil The Facts sciflicks com Retrieved 19 August 2012 a b c Gilliam Terry Director 1985 Audio commentary Brazil The Criterion Collection Katherine Helmond Television Academy Foundation The Interviews 8 December 2010 Retrieved 19 August 2012 Morgan David Michel Palin on BRAZIL Wideanglecloseup com Retrieved 19 August 2012 McCabe Bob ed 2001 Brazil The Evolution of the 54th Best British Film Ever Made London England Orion Books Ltd ISBN 0 7528 3792 3 Taylor Rumsey December 2003 Terry Gilliam Senses of Cinema Retrieved 22 January 2014 Dirks Tim Brazil 1985 AMC Filmsite org Morris Wesley 30 April 1999 Brazil Paranoia with a dash of Python San Francisco Examiner San Francisco California Black Press Group a b Salman Rushdie talks with Terry Gilliam The Believer Las Vegas Nevada University of Nevada Las Vegas 1 1 March 2003 Retrieved 23 June 2018 Pulver Andrew 2 September 2013 Terry Gilliam blames internet for the breakdown in real relationships The Guardian London England Retrieved 7 September 2013 Calling it the third part of a trilogy formed by earlier dystopian satires Brazil and 12 Monkeys Gilliam says Suskind Alex 17 September 2014 Interview Terry Gilliam On The Zero Theorem Avoiding Facebook Don Quixote And His Upcoming Autobiography IndieWire Los Angeles California Penske Media Corporation Retrieved 16 October 2017 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 Redmond Sean 2004 Liquid metal the science fiction film reader Wallflower Press pp 66 69 ISBN 1 903364 87 6 When the Dead Dream Films Inspired by An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge Cineleet Archived from the original on 7 February 2017 Retrieved 14 April 2017 a b Atkinson Michael 1 September 1998 Bravo New Worlds The Village Voice New York City Voice Media Group Morgan David 2012 The Evolution of Brazil Criterion com The Criterion Collection Terry Gilliam and THE BIRTH OF BRAZIL BBC 1988 YouTube Archived from the original on 20 February 2019 Retrieved 2 May 2018 Matthew B Gilmore 5 January 2020 Pneumatic tubes technological innovation and politics in Shepherd era Washington DC The InTowner a b Berardinelli James Brazil reelviews net Kuttner C Jerry Spring 1994 Beyond the Golden Age Film Noir Since the 50s Bright Lights Film Journal Oakland California Studio Hyperset Inc 12 Blair Andrew 13 December 2011 Looking back at Terry Gilliam s Brazil Den of Geek New York City Dennis Publishing Retrieved 2 July 2018 BRAZIL Commentary the Criterion Channel Archived from the original on 24 October 2020 Retrieved 31 October 2020 Sheehan Henry Fall 2006 Welcome to Brazil DGA Quarterly Craft Journal of the Directors Guild of America II 3 Retrieved 31 October 2009 Stubbs Phil Terry Gilliam talks Tideland dreams James Taylor Foster 1 October 2015 A Utopian Dream Stood Still Ricardo Bofill s Postmodern Parisian Housing Estate of Noisy le Grand ArchDaily Maim Garnier November 2017 Abraxas Spaces Time s Doors Sansible Orwell George Orwell Sonia Angus Ian 2000 The Collected Essays Journalism amp Letters George Orwell As I please 1943 1945 Vol 3 David R Godine p 400 27b Canonbury Square Islington London N1 18 August 1945 as return address in correspondence Jura Jackie 14 July 2003 Canonbury Photos Orwell Today Retrieved 24 October 2011 Goldschmitt Kariann From Disney to Gilliam and beyond orchestrating Brazil for a U S audience New College of Florida S2CID 31598986 a href Template Cite journal html title Template Cite journal cite journal a Cite journal requires journal help Vugman Fernando Simao 1995 From master narratives to simulacra analysis of Orwell s 1984 and Terry Gilliam s Brazil repositorio ufsc br Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina Retrieved 16 February 2018 Albertazzi Silvia 16 December 2014 Salman Rushdie s The location of Brazil the imaginary homelands of fantastic literature Acta Neophilologica 47 1 2 25 30 doi 10 4312 an 47 1 2 25 30 ISSN 2350 417X Jack Mathews The Battle of Brazil 1987 ISBN 0 517 56538 2 Haley Guy 2014 Sci Fi Chronicles A Visual History of the Galaxy s Greatest Science Fiction London Aurum Press p 402 ISBN 978 1781313596 Carmentay Rudolph 1989 1990 Terry Gilliam s Brazil A Film Director s Quest for Artistic Integrity in a Moral Rights Vacuum Columbia VLA Journal of Law amp the Arts vol 14 91 Retrieved 16 February 2018 Terry Gilliam s battle to release Brazil in US BBC 1 December 2011 Matthews Jack 1987 The Battle of Brazil ISBN 0 517 56538 2 Brazil 1985 Rotten Tomatoes Fandango Media Archived from the original on 13 July 2022 Retrieved 13 July 2022 Brazil Reviews metacritic com CBS Interactive Archived from the original on 27 July 2020 Retrieved 23 August 2020 Maslin Janet 18 December 1985 The Screen Brazil From Terry Gilliam The New York Times Retrieved 27 November 2010 Ebert Roger 17 January 1986 Brazil Chicago Sun Times Greenland Colin May 1985 Fantasy Media Imagine review TSR Hobbies UK Ltd 26 47 The 500 Greatest Movies of All Time Empire Bauer Media Group Archived from the original on 14 August 2011 Retrieved 17 August 2011 The Wired Sci Fi Top 20 Wired Vol 10 no 6 June 2002 Wolk Josh 7 May 2007 The Sci Fi 25 The Genre s Best Since 1982 Entertainment Weekly Archived from the original on 8 May 2007 Retrieved 21 June 2007 The Top 50 Cult Films Entertainment Weekly 23 May 2003 Brazil 1985 Movies amp TV Dept The New York Times 2014 Archived from the original on 1 March 2014 Retrieved 1 January 2009 clivejames com Talking in the Library Series 3 Terry Gilliam Archived from the original on 4 March 2016 Retrieved 4 February 2014 Brazil Blu ray Announced Blu ray com Retrieved 22 September 2012 Ximena Gallardo C C Jason Smith 2006 Alien Woman The Making of Lt Ellen Ripley Continuum International Publishing Group p 158 ISBN 978 0 8264 1910 1 Ronald Bergan 2000 The Coen Brothers New York City Thunder s Mouth Press pp 148 162 ISBN 1 56025 254 5 Hicks Adrienne DARK CITY 1998 Critical Review and Bibliography Archived from the original on 19 March 2015 Dunne Susan 23 February 2006 Welcome To Dystopia At Trinity s Cinestudio Hartford Courant Kehr Dave 23 June 1989 Effects Make Batman A Stylized Dark Adventure Chicago Tribune Retrieved 6 February 2011 Jones Alan November 1989 Batman in Production Cinefantastique Anders Charlie Jane Neil Marshall Explains What He Learned From The Films Of Terry Gilliam io9 Retrieved 18 February 2018 Young Bryan 17 January 2019 Star Wars The Last Jedi and Brazil Compared Slashfilm com Retrieved 13 January 2022 Did You Catch the Brazil Reference in Star Wars The Last Jedi Vulture com Retrieved 13 January 2022 Archived at Ghostarchive and the Wayback Machine John Williams Canto Bight From Star Wars The Last Jedi Audio Only YouTube Marvel Studios Assembled The Making of Loki TV Episode 2021 IMDb 21 July 2021 Retrieved 21 July 2021 Adams Sam 23 July 1998 Pi Brain Philadelphia City Paper Boucher Geoff Sucker Punch Zack Snyder says big crazy fairy tale influenced by Brazil Los Angeles Times Archived from the original on 17 January 2011 La Ferla Ruth 8 May 2008 Steampunk Moves Between 2 Worlds The New York Times Bebergal Peter 26 August 2007 The age of steampunk Nostalgia meets the future joined carefully with brass screws Boston Globe Braiker Brian 30 October 2007 Steampunks Twist on Tech Newsweek Archived at Ghostarchive and the Wayback Machine Hatfield Daemon We Happy Few Gameplay Showcase IGN Live E3 2016 IGN Retrieved 29 June 2016 via YouTube Davis Ben 24 April 2016 We Happy Few is a roller coaster of creepy vibes and eccentric humor Destructoid Retrieved 29 June 2016 Further reading EditBruce Krajewski Postmodernism Allegory and Hermeneutics in Brazil in Traveling with Hermes Hermeneutics and Rhetoric 1992 ISBN 0 87023 815 9 Jack Mathews The Battle of Brazil 1987 ISBN 0 517 56538 2 External links Edit Wikiquote has quotations related to Brazil 1985 film Brazil at IMDb Brazil at the TCM Movie Database Brazil at AllMovie Brazil at Box Office Mojo Brazil at the Encyclopedia of Science Fiction Wide Angle Closeup The Terry Gilliam Files Interviews and production stories on Brazil Brazil Screenplay Terry Gilliam Tom Stoppard amp Charles McKeown Daily Script website DGA magazine interview with Gilliam Hamel James Keith Modernity and Mise en scene Terry Gilliam andBrazil from Images Journal of Film and Popular Culture Brazil A Great Place to Visit Wouldn t Want to Live There an essay by David Sterritt at the Criterion Collection Portal Film Retrieved from https en wikipedia org w index php title Brazil 1985 film amp oldid 1134083209, wikipedia, wiki, 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