Brazil (1985, Dir. Terry Gilliam)
Synopsis:
Lowly clerk, Sam Lowry (Jonathan Pryce) is reasonably content with his life and non-descript job at The Ministry, which suits his lack of ambition, despite the worries of his clingy, whining boss (Ian Holm) and his pushy mother (Katherine Helmond), who is obsessed with keeping her looks. All this changes, however, when Sam accidentally encounters both rogue heating engineer Harry Tuttle (Robert De Niro) and a young woman, Jill (Kim Greist), who resembles the girl of Sam‘s dreams. Both are regarded as undesirable troublemakers and terrorists by the totalitarian Ministry. Can Sam protect both and escape his dull life for a bright future with Jill, can one man really make a difference in a world such as this?
Continuing our series on underrated „disturbing“ films, we have Terry Gilliam‘s 1980‘s masterpiece, which re-imagines Orwell‘s 1984 as a black comedy about bureaucracy and the British class system.
I‘m sure I first saw this film as part of BBC 2‘s Moviedrome season, in its original incarnation when it was hosted by Alex Cox. This series, with its format of a brief critical introduction before the film began, was responsible not only for the tv premieres of a great many cult movies and my first introduction to them, but also an early appreciation of film criticism and scholarship. In this case, it was probably the Monty Python connection which initially peaked my interest. I’d first come across them a year or two before, when a local radio DJ played some of their sketches, before seeing Life Of Brian when Channel 4 screened it for the time on ever on British TV, a short while later. As I’ve stated already during the posts in this series, „disturbing“ might apply in any number of contexts. In this case, it was the film’s overriding sense of doom and the futility of one man’s attempts to fight against the system. Make no mistake, this is the Python style of black humor at its darkest and bleakest and, in that sense, it remains a fairly tough watch for me, despite its incredible visual brilliance (or perhaps even because of it) as there are images in it (the creepy doll masks, the demise of the Central Services plumbers, The Nuclear Power plant cooling towers painted with blue skies and clouds, Tuttle submerged under paperwork, the funeral nightmare) that literally haunt my dreams and nightmares to this day.
Whilst the influence of Orwell’s famous novel, is unmistakable (One of Brazil‘s many working titles was 1984 & 1/2) – The sinister Ministry and government perfectly willing to torture and murder and of its citizens that do not conform, the 1940s version of the future and Gilliam was apparently very unhappy when, during pre-production on Brazil, Michael Radford‘s film adaptation of Orwell‘s novel was released. However there are plenty of differences too. Orwell’s vision has the populace largely complicit in the state sponsored surveillance and removal of undesirable members of society (similar to what happened in East Germany under the Stasi) whereas in Gilliam’s world the public are merely complacent about it, unless they live in the very poorest areas. Perhaps this is why, growing up in Thatcher‘s Britain as I did, the film disturbed me so much. It’s very much a possible future from that time, where money and social status were the only things that mattered, and the important thing was just to „carry on“, nevermind the terrorist attacks and rising poverty. In the dark days of the late 80s when I became a teenager, this film both depicts and satirizes what many were worried Britain would become.
Infamously, Sid Sheinberg, the head of Universal Pictures at the time, re-cut the film to give it a happy ending in the U.S. Only when the film won the Los Angeles Critic‘s Association award for „Best Picture“, did the studio relent and put out the full version. In retrospect, it’s easy to see why the studio didn’t immediately recognize its brilliance, steeped as it is in both the British class system but also the British political climate of the 1980s. In fact it’s quite amazing that American audiences & critics appreciated it as much as they did, but then the U.S. took to Monty Python far quicker, recognizing the satire and absurdity in a way that many British viewers didn’t – at least at first.
Regardless of the cultural differences, no-one can deny the film’s visual mastery in creating its dystopian world. After Blade Runner, this is perhaps the most visually influential film of the 1980s with its retro futuristic world of quirky, steampunk technology, brutalist architecture and 1930s-40s fashion. It was a noted influence on the work of Jeunet and Caro, particularly Delicatessen and City Of Lost Children, as well as the Coen Brothers‘ The Hudsucker Proxy and Alex Proyas‘ severely underrated Dark City along with countless tv adverts and music videos and Gilliam’s own Twelve Monkeys. Personally, I can also see it’s influence in the early films of Lars Von Trier, such as The Element Of Crime and Europa as well as The Matrix, though in these cases it may just be that Brazil’s influence has become so disseminated over the intervening years, that films are now being made that borrow from its style whilst being unaware of the original source.
The production design is absolutely breathtaking, considering how small the film’s budget was, but then even when working with the Pythons on their films, Gilliam had already shown he was adept at creating atmosphere with the bare minimum of resources. Aided by some stunning cinematography from regular collaborator Roger Pratt featuring German Expressionist lighting and often using very wide angle lenses, this to me is Gilliam‘s most visually arresting work, in a career filled with astounding imagery.
The film features what would now be regarded as an all-star cast, featuring a host of British character actors. However, back then even the better known ones, such as Ian Holm and Bob Hoskins might have relatively unknown to American audiences. They are just the tip of the iceberg, though, in a film featuring the likes of Jim Broadbent, Ian Richardson, Derrick O’Connor and Allo, Allo’s Gordon Kaye before any of these were really household names even in the U.K.; every single one of which are absolutely perfect in their respective roles. It’s also fantastic to see the ever- likable Michael Palin as the unscrupulously nasty Jack Lint. It’s the sort of casting that would only have happened under the eye of his friend Gilliam and yet Palin is absolutely superb. Interestingly, it was the role that initially attracted Robert De Niro, who would end being given the role of Harry Tuttle as a consolation prize. However, having De Niro as Tuttle is brilliant as a casting decision and in terms of the film’s narrative. He appears as a „deus ex-machina „ 3 times in the film, saving the hero each time. These are his only onscreen appearances in the entire movie and yet he is mentioned constantly. De Niro‘s performance is every bit as good as you would expect it to be, though according to Gilliam he would demand endless takes to get it. Gilliam also recounted that De Niro’s behavior was also imitated by Kim Greist, whose performance Gilliam was apparently so unhappy with that he ended up cutting out some of her scenes. Her performance within the film is perfectly fine, in my opinion, and she manages to make the rather bland role of love interest/tough heroine into something more substantial that it might have been on the page.
However, despite the superb supporting cast and amazing production design, the film ultimately belongs to Jonathan Pryce and his multi-layered performance as Sam. Pryce regards the film as one of his career highlights and it’s easy to see why: it’s a role that requires him to slip from black comedy to despair within the space of the same scene. His fear and pleading in the films last 30 minutes are genuinely heart-wrenching and upsetting, heightened by the way the narrative appears to give the audience a glimmer of hope. Equally, his attempts to appear brave and authoritative whilst trying to help Jill look suitably ridiculous. There have been many roles in his career since Brazil that have showcased his talent for comedy (Pirates Of The Carribean for example) and many more that show his brilliance at pathos (Glengary Glen Ross etc), but almost none that allow him to do both within the same film, let alone the same scene.
A final key element in the film’s brilliance, is its score by Michael Kamen, who fuses bluesy melancholy with martial action themes that both imitate and satirize the typical Hollywood blockbuster score, whilst drawing on Ary Barrosso‘s song „Brazil“ for its melodic inspiration. It’s perhaps ironic then that, after Brazil, Kamen was tapped to score the new breed of Hollywood blockbusters such as Lethal Weapon and Die Hard, featuring heroes that were far more down to earth and quick-witted than the likes of Stallone or Schwarzenegger, but the seeds of all those scores are sown here in the music to Sam’s dream sequences.
The end result is a film that, if you haven’t already seen it, is quite simply a „must watch“. If, like myself, you adore it’s stunning production design but find its downbeat narrative and jet black humor a hard sell, pick a day when life feels amazing and persevere with it once more, as it is most definitely a film that repays repeat viewings.
