#terry gilliam brazil

[drconstellation]

Brazil and The Dream of Escape

I was delighted to find in the Xtras that the machine created to be used by Furfur to use to find out how many demons Shax could requisition for storming the bookshop was inspired by the movie Brazil. This is another nod to Monty Python member Terry Gilliam, who directed this film, and who almost directed the failed GO film in the 1990's.

I love this film. Always have. Yes, I was around when it came out in 1985. I'm that old. It's always been in my top 5 favourite films. And its totally relevant to Good Omens.

Brazil can be described as a dark dystopian story based on the novel 1984. It doesn't have a happy ending, but its funny, horrific, ludicrous, romantic and timelessly beautiful all at the same time. Its so iconic that when ever I see its influence in other productions its been unmistakable.

It stars Jonathan Pryce long before he was a James Bond villain or the head Sparrow in Game of Thrones, a comedic turn from Robert de Niro and a handful of other famous faces that you are bound to recognise, such Bob Hoskins, Ian Holm and Jim Broadbent.

Pryce, as Sam Lowry, lives in a world that is strictly controlled with paperwork that comes in multiple copies, where people are routinely arrested and tortured and a long running unexplained terrorist campaign sees bombs explode in the most random of places. Sam has dreams of a beautiful woman floating in the sky, and he is a sliver-armoured winged hero trying to rescue her. He eventually finds that she is real, and finds out her name through various means via his work and contacts. He tracks her down, but that is where it all starts to unravel as she is mixed up with an unfortunate case of mistaken identity.

Its easy to see the common themes and elements that run through the film with GO: the desire to run away and escape (that doesn't work,) a totalitarian authority controlling the masses, propaganda, piles of paperwork, an undercurrent of rebellion, torture and abuse, forbidden love between classes, a villain hidden in plain sight.

There is an art deco aesthetic to the film that also carries over to other films and shows it has influenced, and the busy work floor scene that stops on a dime to watch the tv show de jour while the boss isn't looking is one of the highlights of the film.

It was a reference of this that caught my eye in the Cohen Brothers modern fairy tale The Hudsucker Proxy, where they copied the busyness of the work floor for their mail room scenes, but also the art deco aesthetic. That's another film that is always in my top five films, and could go a round of comparisons with GO - its got time stoppage, an angel appearance and a near-godlike manipulator.

It also appears, surprisingly, in Star Wars: The Last Jedi. The casino at Canto Bight is Brazil inspired, in the way its introduced to us, its decor and the music. I know some people hate this film because of what they did to Luke, but I love it, the whole thing is just utterly gorgeous to look at.

And if you've watched any of Loki recently, since S2 of that show finished not long ago, you would also seen some influence from Brazil in the retro look.

I love the classic art deco style. my grandparents had an art deco house that I spent many of my childhood hours in. The style itself is a clean, unadorned look, and often is meant to give a look of movement, speed or strength. A classic example of this is the Bentley, of course, which comes from the height of the art deco era in the 1930's.

Hell is the other place we see the Brazil influence in GO, where is looks like it's constantly several decades behind the times, with overhead projectors and manual typewriters and odd looking not-quite steampunk contraptions.

Brazil is available to stream on Disney at the moment, if you'd like to take a look. I highly recommend it, its one of those influential films that once you know it, you see its long reach in the most unexpected places.

[lemongrablothbrok]

The irony of Twitter being blocked in Brazil when everything I've read about the Cybertruck makes it sound like something straight out of Brazil but I mean like the movie not the country.

[lemongrablothbrok]

Love it. Adore it. Wish I could marry it.

[sillysymbol]

where hearts were entertaining june!!

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Brazil (1985) dir. Terry Gilliam

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Brazil (1985) - dir. Terry Gilliam

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Brazil, 1985, directed by Terry Gilliam.

[luckypluckychair]

Brazil | 1985

Director: Terry Gilliam

Production designer: Norman Garwood

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movie: brazil (1985) audio: dead finks don't talk - brian eno

[facts-i-just-made-up]

Faaaacts 'bout Brazil pls? :3

Brazil is Terry Gilliam's third non-Monty-Python film, loosely adapting the novel 1984 with heightened surrealism and satire. As with most Gilliam films, it was a very difficult production:

Gilliam was psychosomatically paralyzed for much of the film, and had to direct from a hospital bed that was pulled around by a donkey. When the first donkey died of cirrhosis, his understudy was kept on full monitoring for alcohol abuse.

The producers insisted the film have a happy ending. Gilliam finally got away with having the main character die horribly after being tortured to madness and cannibalizing his own family because Gilliam believed this to be the happiest possible conclusion.

George Orwell tried to sue the filmmakers for using his plot without his title and name, but failed because he had died in 1950, and long dead men in British law are nearly as disenfranchised as the Irish themselves.

The film has been credited with inventing not only steampunk but also retro-futurism, retro-steampunk, cyber-futurism, future-steam-retro, cabin-core, grimpunk-cybersteamdark-ism, and Norwegian black metal. Gilliam regrets all this still.

None of the actors involved survived filming the movie. Jonathan Price drowned in sewage during the sewage-drowning scene, Kim Greist burned to death during the burning-to-death scene, Robert De Niro fell to his death filming the deadly-falling scene, and Carl Weathers died decades later happy and surrounded by his family after filming the rabid-moose-stampede scene.

[senor-frank-024]

I can't be the only one who's still so obsessed with Veneer

Bonus:

[steampunkforever]

Brazil is like if Kubrick did Cyberpunk but could pull off satire without cruelty. It's whimsical Kafka. It's a long drawn out series of Monty Python gags. It's a ghoulish, pleasant dystopia. It's what I'm pretty sure inspired the Samurai mecha scene in Zack Snyder's revered Sucker Punch.

Brazil, named after the one song that backs most of the movie in many forms The Long Goodbye style, is a retelling of 1984 and 8 1/2 mixed with Kafka and sundry other surrealist modernist dystopias directed by Terry Gilliam. It was originally going to be an modernized retelling of 1984 until someone else adapted 1984 and Gilliam had to change the title from 1984 1/2 to something else. It rocks.

This is a gags film. It's a gizmos film. It's like if someone did The Trial but forgot to remind the set decorators to keep things "bleak." It's a colorful dystopia that still manages to terrify. Depending how monstrous you classify state bureaucracy you could stretch it a bit and call this surrealist horror. This movie answers the question "What if Brave New World was slapstick?"

Gilliam has been an unnamed influence on my life practically since I was born, and only recently was I able to realize the extent of his impact on my perceived reality. Therefore a simple objective positive/negative outlook on this testament to how bad being british is wouldn't be something I could give you. I've been addicted to Gilliam's sort of cinema for as long as I can remember, and so take this into consideration as I say this, but Brazil is very very good.

An aside: I know this is a deathly insult to any italian man with a mustache but Robert Deniro in this looks like he should play a live action 80s Mario. He's even an overalled tradesmen in this. I hate it but its the truth.

Watch this movie to see Jonathan Pryce have the worst time in his life as he spirals down the drain of the quirkiest dystopia you'll ever see.

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Terry Gilliam and Kate Bush, circa 1980s