Brazil (film)
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| Directed by | Terry Gilliam |
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| Produced by | Arnon Milchan |
| Written by | Terry Gilliam Tom Stoppard Charles McKeown |
| Starring | Jonathan Pryce Robert De Niro Ian Holm Bob Hoskins Jim Broadbent |
| Music by | Michael Kamen |
| Cinematography | Roger Pratt |
| Editing by | Julian Doyle |
| Studio | Surrey Cumbria Wembley London Seine-Et-Marne Buckinghamshire |
| Distributed by | Embassy International Pictures Universal Pictures 20th Century Fox Warner Home Video |
| Release date(s) | 18 December 1985 |
| Running time | 133 mins |
| Country |  United Kingdom France |
| Language | English |
| Budget | $15,000,000 (estimated) |
| Gross revenue | $9,929,000 (USA) |
Brazil is a 1985 film directed by Terry Gilliam. It was written by Gilliam, Charles McKeown, and Tom Stoppard and stars Jonathan Pryce. The film also features Robert De Niro, Kim Greist, Michael Palin, Katherine Helmond, Bob Hoskins, and Ian Holm. John Scalzi's Rough Guide to Sci-Fi Movies describes the film as a "dystopian satire".
The film centers on Sam Lowry (Jonathan Pryce), a young man trying to find a woman who appears in his dreams while he is working in a mind-numbing job and living a life in a small apartment, set in a dystopian world in which there is an over-reliance on poorly maintained (and rather whimsical) machines. Brazil's bureaucratic, totalitarian government is reminiscent of the government depicted in George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four, except that it has a buffoonish, slap-stick quality, is capitalist, rather than socialist and lacks a 'Big Brother' figure.
Jack Mathews, movie critic and author of The Battle of Brazil (1987), characterized the film as "satirizing the bureaucratic, largely dysfunctional industrial world that had been driving [Gilliam] crazy all his life."[1] Though a success in Europe, the film flopped upon initial release in North America, even with the extra publicity of the fight with the studio. It has since become an important cult film.
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[edit] Plot
Sam Lowry (Jonathan Pryce) is a low-level government employee, often daydreaming of saving a beautiful maiden. One day he is assigned the task of trying to rectify an error created by a government mishap, causing the incarceration of a Mr. Harry Buttle instead of the suspected terrorist, Harry Tuttle. When Sam visits Mr. Buttle's widow, he discovers Jill Layton (Kim Greist), the upstairs neighbor of the Buttles, is the same woman as in his dreams. Jill is trying to help Mrs. Buttle find out what happened to her husband, but has gotten sick of dealing with the bureaucracy. Unbeknownst to her, she is now considered a terrorist friend of Tuttle for trying to report the mistake of Buttle's arrest in Tuttle's place to bureaucrats that would not admit such a mistake. When Sam tries to approach her, she is very cautious and avoids giving Sam full details, worried the government will track her down. During this time, Sam comes in contact with the real Harry Tuttle (Robert De Niro), a renegade air conditioning specialist who once worked for the government but left due to the amount of paperwork. Tuttle helps Sam deal with two government workers who are taking their time fixing the broken air conditioning in Sam's apartment.
Sam determines the only way to learn about Jill is to transfer to "Information Retrieval" where he would have access to her classified records. He requests the help of his mother Ida (Katherine Helmond), vainly addicted to rejuvenating plastic surgery under the care of cosmetic surgeon Dr. Jaffe (Jim Broadbent), as she has connections to high ranking officers and is able to help her son get the position. His mother is delighted as she used to be frustrated at her son's prior lack of ambition, and the promotion Sam receives is one his mother has previously arranged for him but that Sam has declined. He eventually obtains Jill's records and tracks her down before she is arrested, then falsifies her records to make her appear deceased, allowing her to escape the bureaucracy. The two share a romantic night together before Sam is apprehended by the government at gun-point for misusing his position.
Sam is taken to be tortured by his old friend, Jack Lint (Michael Palin), as he is now considered part of an assumed terrorist plot including Jill and Tuttle. However, before Lint can start, Tuttle and other members of the resistance shoot Jack and save Sam, blowing up the Ministry building as they flee. As they try to disappear into the crowds, Tuttle's disappearance is surreal and mysterious; he is slowly covered by the stray scraps of paper from the destroyed Ministry building, and once Lowry comes to his aid and tears through the layer of paper, Tuttle has disappeared. The scene becomes dream-like as Sam runs to his mother at a funeral. The funeral is described as that of Mrs. Terrain (Barbara Hicks). Rather than Mrs. Terrain who is recently deceased due to her cosmetic surgery gone wrong, Sam's mother, thanks to Dr. Jaffe's repeated surgery, now seems like in her 20s again, looking exactly like Sam's love interest Jill, and is surrounded by a flock of juvenile admirers younger than Sam himself. She refuses to help and, falling into Mrs. Terrain's seemingly bottomless coffin, he then continues to run from the police in streets that more and more resemble the concrete and brick walls of his nightmare daydreams. When he finds himself surrounded on three sides by the police and the imaginary monsters of his nightmares, he turns to the only escape way left and climbs up a seemingly insurmountable pile of old flex-ducts such as those running the world of Brazil, and finds sanctuary in a trailer driven by Jill, whereupon the two leave the city together.
However, it is quickly revealed this happy ending is all happening inside Sam's head when in front of the idyllic scene, two faces come into view staring at the camera, that of Jack and of Mr. Helpmann (Peter Vaughan), who as Deputy Minister of the Ministry of Information is the system's highest official we see in the film. What they are looking at, as they now realize, is Sam having become insane at Jack's hands. Jack gives up trying to torture Sam, and Sam is left with a smile on his face, humming "Brazil" as Jack moves Mr. Helpmann in his wheelchair away from the scene.
[edit] Cast
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[edit] Production
[edit] Writing
Gilliam developed the story and wrote the first draft of the screenplay with Charles Alverson, who was paid for his work but ultimately uncredited in the final film.[2] 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 1984 but also to Federico Fellini's 8½, a director which Gilliam often cites as one of the defining influences for his stunning and visionary visuals when it comes to directing.[3] 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,[4] and So That's Why the Bourgeoisie Sucks,[5] before settling with Brazil relating to the name of its escapist signature tune (but also note Brazil (mythical island)).
Gilliam sometimes refers to this film as the second in his "Trilogy of Imagination" movies, starting with Time Bandits (1981) and ending with The Adventures of Baron Munchausen (1989).[1] All are about the "craziness of our awkwardly ordered society and the desire to escape it through whatever means possible."[1] All three movies focus on these struggles and attempts to escape them through imagination; Time Bandits, through the eyes of a child, Brazil, through the eyes of a thirty-something year old, and Munchausen, through the eyes of an elderly man.
Gilliam has stated that Brazil was inspired by George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four—which he has admitted never having read[6]—but is written from today's perspective rather than looking to the future as Orwell did. In Gilliam's words, his film was "the Nineteen Eighty-Four for 1984."
[edit] Casting
Robert De Niro originally wanted to play Jack, but Gilliam had already promised the role to Michael Palin. De Niro still wanted to be in the film, and so was cast as Tuttle instead.[6]
Terry Gilliam's daughter Holly Gilliam plays Jack Lint's daughter Holly.[6]
[edit] Art design
Wrote Michael Atkinson of The Village Voice in his review of Brazil, "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.",[7] The result has been dubbed retro-futurism by fellow film-makers Jean-Pierre Jeunet and Marc Caro[7]. Generally called "sci-fi noir", it is "a view of what the 1980s might have looked at viewed from the perspective of a 1940s filmmaker"[8], an eclectic yet coherent 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"[8]. A number of reviewers also saw a distinct influence of German Expressionism, as 1920s seminal, more nightmarish predecessor to 1940s film noir, in general in how Gilliam's Brazil made cunning use of lighting and set designs.[9][10] All that was coupled with Gilliam's trademark obsession for very wide lenses and tilted camera angles.
One visual element which figures prominently in the movie is the ducts, specifically the snakelike "flex-ducts" used in modern construction. The film opens with an advertisement for different styles of ducting available for homes, seen on a display of television sets in a shop, which is then blown up in a terrorist bombing. As a visual metaphor, the ducting is a physical manifestation of the bureaucracy that consumes Sam's life.
Sam's apartment is dominated by a wall consisting entirely of metal panels which conceal a complex air-conditioning system, and his hero is the guerrilla mechanic Tuttle, who is the only person able to tame this monster. Later, Sam lunches in a restaurant dominated by a giant centerpiece where the "flowers" are actually flex-ducts. After that, when Sam makes a potentially seditious nighttime visit to his office, the emptiness of the government building's gigantic lobby is set off by maintenance men's floor buffing machines, trailing long cords of flex-duct.
In the working-class Buttle home, the family have to live their lives while giving way to ducts that in fact hinder their daily activities. In Sam's home, the ducts are not visible initially, but make their presence felt as an undertone, particularly when they break down. In the Department of Records, the ducts are a visible part of the environment, but above everyone's heads. Finally, in the dreaded Ministry of Information, there are no ducts at all - for this is the center of power, and also where all ducting leads to ultimately.
[edit] Music
Ary Barroso's 1939 song "Aquarela do Brasil" ("Watercolor of Brazil", often simply "Brazil") is the leitmotif of the movie, although other background music is also utilized. Michael Kamen, who scored the music, 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.
[edit] Themes
The tale Gilliam relates in Brazil takes a darkly-humored look at consumerism as a totalitarian society's prescribed lulling distraction from its inherent inhumanity. In outdoor scenes, many faceless people are repeatedly seen moving full shopping carts in the streets. In a particular scene, a person leading a brass band is holding a sign that reads, "Consumers for Christ", while a young girl is asked what she wants for Christmas, and the swift reply is "My own credit card!" While Sam is being strapped to a chair, about to be tortured, a police officer tells him, "Don't fight it son! Confess quickly, or you'll jeopardize your credit rating."
Similarly, the elevation of meaningless considerations of status and vanity over personal happiness and well-being is continuously portrayed throughout the movie. Sam's mother and her friend, Mrs. Terrain, as part of this world's high society, undergo a number of cosmetic surgeries in a seemingly addicted fashion to look young and beautiful. Even when terrorist bombing attacks are occurring nearby, all they care about are most recent surgery catalog prices.
A minor underlying theme running through the film's narrative are overtones of a Freudian Oedipus complex,[11] potentially giving insight into main character Sam's state of mind as well as his views and attitudes. For instance:
- After her first cosmetic surgery Dr. Jaffe enticingly invites Sam to imagine his rejuvenated mother "with her clothes off" and proceeds to tell him about his mother's body in raunchy terms, concluding in the probing question, "What do you think of your mother now?" Sam, in a seemingly unwilling parody of queer behavior, with an obvious limp wrist nervously slaps away Dr. Jaffe's hand probing his face, but is relieved of having to give a reply by being called away.
- Later on (but only included in the 142-minute Director's Cut version), his love interest repeats a line word-by-word that his mother has uttered and that both use while offering a gift for him, in Jill's case more obviously carnal delight: "Something for an executive!" Jill says the line just at the dawn of an extended bed romping night between her and Sam that took place not only in his mother's apartment but even in his mother's very own bed.
- Finally, in the surrealist nightmarish scene towards the film's end, which due to only being one of his escapist dreams potentially probes deeper into Sam's unconscious, his mother has fully acquired the physical likeness of his love interest, but instead of caring for her son, she is romantically engaged with a group of admirers not even half her age.
In Brazil, Sam is not so much beset by malicious characters as he is by a vast, impersonal, and indifferent social structure that is both hypocritical and pedantic for its own sake. Most of the individual villains are neither malicious nor sadistic, they are merely doing their jobs. Consequently, a major theme is the absurdity of the anonymous, ritualized, and soulless machinery that make up the absurd necessities of adult life in modern society. This absurd, anonymous machinery is apparent in the fact the film's whole plot is set into motion by a (quite literal) bug in the system that nobody is aware of. In the end, nobody but the viewer has a full grasp of the events that occurred and all of their causes, or how each central person fits in there. Sam, as the most perceptive character, only came across pieces to the puzzle by a row of accidents, while being entirely focused on finding, then saving his love interest; Jill is seemingly oblivious to her endangered situation until her very last minute in the film, and probably of her life; and Jack, as well as the system behind him as embodied by Mr. Helpmann, have built up an elaborate yet self-delusional tale of sabotage and terrorism to explain away the bugs of their own making. Additionally illustrating this world of absurd, automated necessities are the various Rube Goldberg machines, such as those in Sam's own flat, that have fully automated everyday life.
Most highlighting this absurdity, the film's most dark tragicomic twist from the very beginning is that "it may be argued that the existence of 'terrorists' in the film (i.e., Jill Layton, Buttle/Tuttle, and Sam are all accused of being terrorists) [...] [is] deliberately made ambiguous [...]. Viewers must interpret this central theme of the film for themselves - and recognize the fact that ironically -- there may be no terrorists at all."[4] It is obvious already from a superficial first viewing of the film that Sam's love interest Jill has nothing to do with the various bombings. At closer examination, we are neither given any evidential link between subversive heating engineer Harry Tuttle and these terrorist acts that the government accuses him of - he only carries a handgun for self-protection, and the only time he is actually in charge of a bombing is later revealed as but one of Sam's dream sequences. On top of it all, as we never see who's really responsible for the bombings, "it is very probable that the central threat of terrorism is the government's way to silence deviation, provoke fear, cover up its multiple errors, and provide a scapegoat enemy."[4]
[edit] Releases
[edit] Theatrical releases
The movie was produced by Arnon Milchan's company Embassy International Pictures (not to be confused with Joseph E. Levine's Embassy Pictures). Gilliam's original cut of the film is 142 minutes long and ends on a dark note. This version was released internationally outside the US by 20th Century Fox.
US distribution was handled by Universal. Universal executives thought the ending tested poorly, and Universal chairman Sid Sheinberg insisted on dramatically re-editing the film to give it a happy ending, a decision that Gilliam resisted vigorously. As with the cult science fiction film Blade Runner (1982), which had been released three years earlier, a version of Brazil was created by the movie studio with a more consumer-friendly ending. After a lengthy delay with no sign of the film being released, Gilliam took out a full-page ad in the trade magazine Variety urging Sheinberg to release Brazil in its intended version. Eventually, after Gilliam conducted private screenings (without the studio's approval), Brazil was awarded the Los Angeles Film Critics Association award for "Best Picture", which prompted Universal to finally agree to release a modified 131-minute version supervised by Gilliam, in 1985.[1][12]
[edit] Video releases
In North America, the film was released on VHS and Laserdisc in the 131-minute US version. A slightly modified 142-minute version of the original European cut was first made available in a 5-disc Criterion Collection laserdisc box set in 1996, and is currently available on DVD (referred to in the director's commentary as the "fifth and final cut", it uses the American cloud opening instead of a stark blank screen setting the time and place).[6]
Sheinberg's edit, the 94-minute so-called "Love Conquers All" version, was shown on syndicated television and was first made available for sale to consumers as a separate disc in the Criterion laserdisc box set, and subsequent DVD three-disc set in 1999 (both of which also featured a special video documentary version of Jack Mathews' book, with new Gilliam interviews and tape-recorded interviews from Sid Sheinberg for the original book).
The box set presents the feature film in its correct aspect ratio for the first time, but the version on the original DVD release is not enhanced for newer widescreen TVs. New 16:9-enhanced editions of the film in both a complete set and separate film-only disc were re-issued on DVD by Criterion on September 5, 2006.
[edit] Differences between various versions
The British and American versions of the film have several differences.
[edit] Scenes missing in the British cut
These are scenes missing in the UK release of the film and what Americans saw in US theaters. The reasons for excluding these scenes from the UK version and adding them to the US version are unknown.
- Scenes of clouds open and close the film in the American release. Some of the footage was extraneous film from The Never Ending Story. The clouds were in fact present in the original script; Gilliam confesses that he used the opportunity of the American edit to put them back in, because he actually liked it both ways. Furthermore, it gave him the opportunity to play the first bars of the song 'Brazil' as background music, as a reminder to the viewers who had trouble understanding the film's title.
- After watching Mrs. Lowry's first plastic surgery treatment, Sam sarcastically exclaims "My God, it works!"
- Jack says "You look like you've seen a ghost, Sam..." to Sam at the entrance of the Ministry of Records when Sam sees Jill Layton. This scene is also present in the Sheinberg cut of the film.
[edit] Scenes missing in the American cut
These are scenes missing in the US release of the film and what British audiences saw in UK cinemas. These scenes were edited for the US release by Sheinberg because he thought that an American audience would be highly disturbed and unsettled by their content and length.
- Shortly before the troops storm Mrs. Buttle's home, her daughter says to her "Father Christmas can't come if you haven't got a chimney." Mrs. Buttle replies with "You'll see."
- A brief scene involving Sam and his mother, Ida, entering the restaurant where they meet Mrs. Terrain and Shirley. They have to pass through a metal detector in order to gain entrance, and Ida's present to Sam (one of the "Executive Decision Makers", seen later in the movie) sets off the alarm.
- Part of the beginning of the first "Samurai" dream sequence, where Sam explores through the concrete labyrinth he finds himself in. The American version makes this sequence three separate ones while the UK release is one whole sequence.
- A scene where Sam and Jill lie in bed after the implied consummation of their relationship. Jill has taken off the wig she was wearing in the scene before, and has a pink bow tied around her naked body. She says to Sam: "Something for an executive?" and he unties her.
- The "Interrogation" scene, where Sam is charged with all of the violations of the law he committed throughout the film, including "wasting Ministry time and paper."
- The "Father Christmas" scene where Helpmann visits Sam after his booking, Helpmann is dressed as Santa Claus. Among other things, Helpmann informs Sam that Jill Layton has been killed while resisting arrest. Upon Sam's admission that he falsified her file in order to save her, Helpmann muses that "Yes, it's rather odd...it seemed it happened to her...twice."
- The European release begins abruptly with the "Central Services" advert about ducts, and ends with a held shot of Sam in the cooling tower without clouds present in the American release.
[edit] The Sheinberg Edit (Love Conquers All/TV Edit)
The Sheinberg Edit also aired on syndicated TV for time restrictions on some occasions and it pleased Gilliam as it showed how bad the studio cut of the film was.
- When the ministry building is blown up, the piece of paper that is shown is a "deleted" form for Harry Tuttle.
- It is made clear in this version that Tuttle is a terrorist. Examples include the man in the white lab coat in the beginning (who kills the fly that causes the film's events) isn't watching an interview with Helpmann, but an "Arrest and Detainment" show about Tuttle and Sam's fellow employees watching the film without music with gunshots left.
- The scene at the restaurant starts the film with Shirley offering Sam the salt, and the explosion in the restaurant.
- Extended, more romantic dialogue between Sam and Jill is added after Tuttle switches the sewage and air pipes at Sam's flat. This is one of many scenes between Jill and Sam that was cut out of Gilliam's cut and re-added for this one.
- You do not see the inflamed guard when the police vehicle crashes during the chase.
- It is never stated that Buttle is dead, only asked by his wife.
- Lots of curse words were replaced with tamer dialogue.
- The "Something for an executive" scene is intact. However, afterwards, only Sam is captured while Jill is not killed.
- The film ends with a brief sequence where Jill wakes Sam in their country hideaway. Sam says "I don't dream any more", looks at a picture on the wall of himself wearing the dream-sequence wings, and the film ends with them flying up into the heavens. Jack Lint and Mr. Helpmann do not interrupt the ending of the fantasy (thereby altering the ending of the film).
- Many of the fantasy sequences are missing, or slightly different, like having an opaque surrounding the scene.
- Extended dialogue between Jill and Sam outside his apartment and while in the truck is added.
- Extended dialogue in the scene where Sam meets Jack at Information Retrieval is added as well, and Jack has his daughter in his office.
- A cut of Casablanca featuring the line "Here's looking at you, kid." right after Sam leaves Kurtzmann's office.
- Jack says "You look like you've seen a ghost, Sam..." to Sam at the entrance of the Ministry of Records when Sam sees Jill Layton. This scene is also in the American cut.
[edit] Critical response
The film has a 98% on the Rotten Tomatoes Tomatometer, with 39 out of 40 reviewers giving positive reviews. It has received a score of 88 on Metacritic, based on 12 reviews.[13]
Chicago Sun Times film critic Roger Ebert disliked it, giving it 2 out of 4 stars, saying it "is awash in elaborate special effects, sensational sets, apocalyptic scenes of destruction and a general lack of discipline," as well as, "The movie is very hard to follow. I have seen it twice, and am still not sure exactly who all the characters are, or how they fit."[14] Los Angeles Times critic Kenneth Turan described the film as "the most potent piece of satiric political cinema since Dr. Strangelove".[1] Janet Maslin of The New York Times was very positive towards the film upon its release. She stated, "Terry Gilliam's Brazil, a jaunty, wittily observed vision of an extremely bleak future, is a superb example of the power of comedy to underscore serious ideas, even solemn ones."
In 2004 Total Film named Brazil the 20th greatest British movie of all time. In 2005 Time film reviewers Richard Corliss and Richard Schickel named Brazil in an unordered list of the 100 best films of all time. In 2006 Channel 4 voted Brazil one of the "50 Films to See Before You Die", shortly before its broadcast on FilmFour.
Wired ranked Brazil number 5 in its list of the top 20 sci-fi movies.[15] Entertainment Weekly listed Brazil as the sixth best science-fiction piece of media released since 1982.[16] The magazine also ranked the film #13 on their list of "The Top 50 Cult Films".[17]
The film was nominated for two Academy Awards; for Original Screenplay and Best Art Direction (Norman Garwood, Maggie Gray)[18] According to Gilliam in an interview with Clive James in his online programme Talking in the Library, to his surprise Brazil is apparently a favorite film of the far Right in America.
[edit] Cultural references to other works
- During the escape from the ministry building near the end of the film, government soldiers parody the famous "Odessa Steps" sequence from the film The Battleship Potemkin. Instead of a baby carriage rolling down the stairs after the Tsar's soldiers kill the mother, it is a janitor's cleaning machine that rolls down the stairs soon after the janitor is killed.
- The film often mentions an ambiguous form called 27B-Stroke-6. 27B was the number of George Orwell's apartment in London.[19]
[edit] References in popular culture
- In the video game Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory, Sam Fisher tells a security guard "Pretend I'm Harry Tuttle", "I'm an ill-tempered, heavily-armed heating engineer asking about your ventilation system" and "The adventure, the travel" in a reference to his work as a spy and his ability to enter areas without recognition by anyone. A response given by a guard when asked "Is there anything else?" has been "Yeah, don't forget your 27B(stroke)6".
- Wired's Threat Level blog ("privacy, security, politics, and crime online") has the URL "http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/".
- In the film π, the technology of Brazil inspired the design of Max Cohen's apartment.[20]
- The writers of the role-playing game Paranoia openly cite Brazil as a source of inspiration for the game's dystopian world, Alpha Complex. Along with the Central Processing Unit's strong resemblance to the Ministry of Information, the supplement book Service, Service! features a Technical Services guerrilla serviceman archetype, called a Tuttle.
- British extreme metal band Cradle Of Filth used the line "Care for a little necrophilia? Hmm?" (delivered in the film by Kim Greist as Jill Layton) in the song "Lord Abortion" from the 2000 album Midian. The line is delivered in the intro of the song by Toni King, wife of frontman Dani Filth.
- Hermes Conrad in Futurama works for the Central Bureaucracy; with its pneumatic tubes and walls of filing cabinets, it has a striking resemblance to the Ministry of Information as made apparent in episode eleven in season two How Hermes Requisitioned His Groove Back
- The video game The Longest Journey borrows heavily from the movie, from the Church of Voltez replicating the Information Retrieval building, to the puzzle of the repair men who won't work because they lack a 27B/6 form.
- The Canadian folk-pop band Moxy Fruvous used the theme song from the movie in their song "I Love My Boss"
- The address of Sam's new office at Information Retrieval is Level 42, a reference to "The answer to life, the universe and everything", from "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" by Douglas Adams, a long time friend of Gilliam's from the Monty Python days.
- The British New Wave band Level 42 also may have taken its name from "The Hitchhiker's Guide" though the reference is often attributed to "Brazil" (see Level 42).
- In Lucasarts computer game - Star Wars Jedi Knight: Dark Forces II a player can enter a flight code (eriamjh). Which is a tribute to the scene where Mr. Helpmann tells Sam about when he worked with Sam's father, Jeremiah. He then writes in a spill of powder "EREIAMJH," while saying "'Ere I am, J. H.". This turns out to be the access code to his personal elevator.
[edit] See also
[edit] References
- ^ a b c d e Matthews, Jack. "Dreaming Brazil". Essay accompanying DVD release by The Criterion Collection.
- ^ Brazil (The Evolution of the 54th Best British Film Ever Made). Orion books Ltd, 2001, edited by Bob McCabe. ISBN 0-7528-3792-3
- ^ Terry Gilliam at Senses of Cinema
- ^ a b c Tim Dirks: Brazil (1985) on filmsite.org (The greatest films: The "Greatest" and the "Best" in Cinematic History)
- ^ Wesley Morris: "Brazil': Paranoia with a dash of Python, San Francisco Examiner, April 30, 1999
- ^ a b c d Gilliam, in his audio commentary for The Criterion Collection edition of Brazil
- ^ a b Michael Atkinson (1998): Bravo New Worlds, September 1st 1998
- ^ a b James Berardinelli: Brazil on reelviews.net
- ^ C. Jerry Kuttner (1994): Beyond the Golden Age: Film Noir Since the '50s, Bright Lights Film Journal, no. 12 (Spring 1994)
- ^ Brazil on Cinemania Movie Reviews
- ^ http://www.filmsite.org/braz4.html
- ^ The clashes between Sheinberg and Gilliam are also documented in Matthews' book The Battle of Brazil (1987, ISBN 0-517-56538-2).
- ^ [1]
- ^ :: rogerebert.com :: Reviews :: Brazil (xhtml)
- ^ Wired Magazine, Issue 10.06, Jun 2002 (http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/10.06/scifi.html?pg=6)
- ^ Josh Wolk (2007-05-07). "The Sci-Fi 25". Entertainment Weekly. http://www.ew.com/ew/article/0,,20036782_20037403_20037541_20,00.html. Retrieved on 2007-06-21.
- ^ "The Top 50 Cult Films". Entertainment Weekly. May 23, 2003.
- ^ "NY Times: Brazil". NY Times. http://movies.nytimes.com/movie/6977/Brazil/awards. Retrieved on 2009-1-1.
- ^ "George Orwell, Big Brother is watching your house" (in English). Evening Standard. 2007-03-31. http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/news/article-23391081-details/George+Orwell,+Big+Brother+is+watching+your+house/article.do.
- ^ Adams, Sam (1998-07-23). "Pi Brain" (in English). Philadelphia City Paper. http://www.citypaper.net/movies/p/pi.shtml. Retrieved on 2008-03-10.
[edit] Further reading
- Jack Matthews, The Battle of Brazil (1987), ISBN 0-517-56538-2.
[edit] External links
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Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Brazil (film) |
- Brazil at the Internet Movie Database
- Brazil at Allmovie
- Brazil at Filmsite.org
- Brazil at Rotten Tomatoes
- Review by Science Fiction Weekly
- Brazil Screenplay, Terry Gilliam, Tom Stoppard & Charles McKeown, Daily Script website
- Brazil at Future Times Magazine
- DGA magazine interview with Gilliam
- Brazil at The Numbers
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