Terry Gilliam's inspiration: George Orwell's "1984"

“Brazil” was the second movie of a trilogy. The first one was “Time Bandits” (1981) and the last one “The Adventures of Baron Munchausen” (1898). The three of them have the same theme: The struggle for imagination and free thinking in a world constantly suppressing. These three films show us the progression of life: Childhood, Middle age (“Brazil”), and Old Age.

This movie was inspired by George Orwell’s novel “1984.” Actually, the first name of the movie was “1984 1/2.”

We can notice some similarities between “Brazil” and “1984”. First of all, both protagonists live and work in a bureaucratic Government. Even though, they think their jobs are monotonous, they love them and none of them want to be promoted.

The protagonist of “Brazil”, Sam, and “1984’s” protagonist, Winston rebel against their own government since they fall in love with two women. Both couples are captured in a bed under the same circumstances. Finally, the two of them are dealt in a similar way by their governments and are betrayed by the men they admire.

In terms of government, both stories have a bureaucratic government that has everything under control, everyone is watched by it. Nobody is totally free.

A movie of “1984” was made in 1984 and it has some similarities with “Brazil” which was made in 1985. For instance, the setting where films were released and the use of technology that represents the future. It is good to have in mind, the year these movies were released and the technology they used to create these films.

As a conclusion, Terry Gilliam was strongly influenced by “1984” in terms of the use of technology to refer the future and the bureaucratic governments in which the protagonists live.

Plastic surgery in "Brazil"

Plastic surgery is a medical intervention that uses some techniques to change the appearance and function of a person's body. Plastic surgery procedures include both cosmetic enhancements as well as functionally reconstructive operations. (http://www.wikipedia.org/)

We can notice that in the movie the plastic surgery is an important issue for the eldest age, the protagonist’s mother is obsessed with this procedure. The movie was made in 1985, at that time, plastic surgery was new and a revolutionary invention, but it was not as popular as it is today. Only if it was extremely necessary women would have an intervention, most of the cases were concerning about a health problem.

In the movie this surgery is used with a cosmetic ideology. If women had an appearance or aspect that they didn’t like they would get this operation. Eventually, a woman died abusing of the plastic procedure, but she used it with a cosmetic ideal. Because it wasn’t as popular as now, Terry Gilliam propose that this intervention is a superficial issue that affects a big part of women population, so he is muffing about this topic, which is used in an ironic terminology.

Art design

This movie has a strong visual imagery tends joining the plot.
One visual element is the ducts; heating, ventilation and air conditioning, which is used in modern constructions. Also, Lowry's apartment is dominated by a wall consisting entirely of metal panels which conceal an incorrigible air-conditioning system. After some time during the movie, he lunches in a restaurant where the flowers are actually flex-ducts. In the movie there are more details about this same topic, we only need to take a look. Finally, in the Department of Information Retrieval, there are no ducts at all. Poverty and powerlessness appear proportional to the invasiveness of ducts – and all ducts end in the dictatorial Department of Information Retrieval.

Language of Film

In all movies we can find the language of film, which helps us to understand in a better way how the movie was constructed with all the technical aspects such as; setting, make up, camera angle, and costumes, among others. It is important to define the main concepts related to film.

The Language of film has four main areas:

Mise-en –scene: It is everything in the screen. This is, at the same time, divided in six sub-areas:
A. setting (set and props)
B. acting (people)
C. costumes
D. make up
E. lighting
F. print (diegetic and non-diegetic)

According to this area, in our movie “Brazil”, we can see that the setting is London in the 80’s, but it is a futuristic vision of the word. There are a lot of technological props; everything is made in function of technology.

The actors and actresses are nowadays famous and with a great career, especially Robert Deniro. Their performances are good and credible what make the audience get involve in the story.

The costumes and the make up were very similar in all characters, like uniforms, but sometimes the director tried to exaggerated certain things or elements such as the mother of the protagonist, who passed for a series of surgeries, so Gilliam tried to show this by using a lot of make up.

About the lights, we can say that it was dark throughout the whole movie, this gave an impression of a dark place in the protagonist’s mind.

When it comes to the prints, there is diegetic and non-diegetic. Diegetic; for example is everything that the characters read like menus, papers, signs, among others. Non-diegetic are the credits.

Sound: It is formed by music, dialogues and silence. Music is very important in the movie because we can hear the soundtrack of Brazil, a popular song , that reminds us of a nice, sunny place, just what the main character wants.

Editing: It is formed by fade in , disolve, jump cut, among others. It is a technical aspect that we did not pay too much attention. We notice that there were fade in and cross fade. The shots did not have any unusual type of editing. We think it was not the main focus of the director.

Cinematography: It is the camera angle that the director uses. This is where the camera goes. There are a lot of types, some of this are: high, low, straight, and aerial. There are also camera distance (deep, shallow), extreme long shot, medium shot, close up, among others. In the movie we can see all of these develop in an excellent way, the audience sees just what the director wants to be the main focus, he controls what we see.

Monty Python

Terry Gilliam was a member of Monty Python. It was a group of six men: Graham Chapman, John Cleese, Eric Idle, Terry Jones, Michael Palin, and Terry Gilliam. Some of them met at the University and the other joined later through their work on television comedy programmes.

They created Monty Python’s Flying Circus, a British Television comedy sketch show that appeared for the first time on BBC on October 5, 1969 in which they were responsible of writing and performing their sketches. Its free-form, sarcastic, and satirical style reflected the times they were living. This TV programme was successful among British people because it changed the way of entertaining the audience. They laughed of their own society and daily life situations.

The success of the first season made the BBC and Monty Python’s members create a second season of their show in 1970. Before doing it, they tried to enter to the world of films by releasing a movie called “And Now for Something Completely Different,” but they did not have the success they expected so they returned to the television production.

In 1972-73, they showed the third season of Monty Python Flying Circus. At the end of it, one of the members John Cleese decided to retire of the Pythons. After that, the fourth series, that had only four episodes, was renamed as Monty Python and it is considered the weakest of all the seasons they have had.

Learning from the failure of their first movie, in 1974, they filmed a movie called “Monty Python and the Holy Grail” which was directed by Terry Jones and Terry Gilliam. It was a great success and at the same time, they became successful in USA. After those great results, they realized that they were good in making films so they did four more movies.

In 1983 they filmed their last movie “The Meaning of Life” with which they won the Jury Prize at the Cannes film Festival. The Pythons had others projects particularly, so they decided to finish doing Monty Python’s movies. Monty Python has been a great influence for some British and American television comedy such as “Saturday Night Life.” Because of their influence and success, Monty Python is known as “The Beatles of Comedy.”

Terry Gilliam's Biography

Terry Vance Gilliam was born in Medicine Lake, Minnesota on 22 November 1940. His parents are James Hall and Beatrice Gilliam. He has two siblings, a brother two years younger, and a sister ten years younger. They had to move to California because of his sister’s asthma. There he went to Birmingham High School where he was voted “Most Likely to Succeed.” After graduating from High School, he became a student of Occidental College where Gilliam first studied physics. He did not finish the programme and changed to fine arts which he did not finish either. Finally, he majored in political science. After graduating, Gilliam spent a short time working for an advertising agency. After that Kurtzman offered him a job as associate editor of his magazine Help!

In 1965, Help! Folded, and to avoid being drafted, Gilliam enrolled in the National Guard, doing basic training in New Jersey. With his release, Gilliam went traveling in Europe, returning homeless and penniless to New York. After that, he moved to Los Angeles without success, so he had to move again, this time to London.

In London, Gilliam started working for the Sunday Times Magazine, as well as freelancing for a few American comics. Later he worked as an artistic director for The Londoner, but it also folded and Terry became unemployed again.

Looking for a job, he called John Cleese, the only person he knew who worked on television. He was hired in the direction of producer Humphrey Barclay. After writing sketches for “Do Not Adjust Your Set”, he met Eric Idle who helped him get a job on the show “We Have Ways of Making You Laugh.” Later, Gilliam started working with five more men in a new show called “Monty Python’s Flying Circus” with great success.

In 1973, Gilliam married to the British make-up and costume designer Maggie Weston who worked on Flying Circus, some Python movies, and Gilliam’s movies. They have three children, Amy, Holly, and Harry who have acted in some of Gilliam’s movies.

Monty Python was successful with its comedy sketches on the TV and later with its movies. The last movie of the Pythons was “The Meaning of Life” which succeeded in UK and USA.

Being retired of Monty Python, he became a successful director of some masterpieces in terms of movies, such as “Brazil” and “12 Monkeys.”

Nowadays, Terry Gilliam is a big-director famous for his science fiction and comedies movies and he enjoys his hobby of "sitting extremely still for indeterminate amounts of time". We can say that his classmates in High School foretold the future when they called him “Most Likely to Succeed.”

Filmography:

- Monty Python and the Holy Grail (1975) (co-directed with Terry Jones)
- Jabberwocky (1977)
- Time Bandits (1981)
- The Crimson Permanent Assurance (1983) (a short supporting feature that accompanied Monty Python's The Meaning of Life)
- Brazil (1985)
- The Adventures of Baron Munchausen (1988)
- The Fisher King (1991)
- Twelve Monkeys (1995) (inspired by Chris Marker's La Jetée).
- Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas (1998)
- The Brothers Grimm (2005)
- Tideland (2005)

Awards & Nominations

-The Fisher King (1991)
Venice Film Festival: Silver Lion Winner
Toronto Film Festival: People's Choice Award Winner

- Twelve Monkeys (1995)
Berlin Film Festival: Reader Jury of the "Berliner Morgenpost" - 3rd Place
- Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas (1998)
Cannes Film Festival: Official Selection
- The Brothers Grimm (2005)
Venice Film Festival: Official Selection
- Tideland (2005)
San Sebastian Festival: Winner of the FIPRESCI Prize
- An asteroid, 9619 Terrygilliam, is named in his honor.

(Info. taken from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terry_Gilliam )

Plot Synopsis

Brazil is a black comedy set in an alternate reality, the film says 'Somewhere in the 20th century', probably in England. The world is ruled by 'The Ministry' which serves as a place where everything is ultra-organized and super efficient, but everyone seems to be happy because everything is convenient. Every room has little televisions and behind the walls there are tons of tubes and wires.

The main character, Sam Lowry (Jonathan Pryce) is a low-level government worker who has fantasies of him flying and saving a beautiful woman trapped in a cage. This dream is shown intermittently in the film. His mother, Ida (Katherine Helmond), is a rich woman who gets face-lifts from Dr. Jaffe (Jim Brodbent) and wants her son to be a high-level worker by putting his name in some of the most prestigious jobs, but Sam seems not worried about that. It seems like everyone else wants him to wake up and be shallow just like everyone else.

The plot of the film starts when a government worker accidentally messes up an arrest form and gets the wrong man. The police break in and begin a ridiculous arrest scene; break all the windows, bust up the apartment above theirs and put a sack cloth over the man’s head - Mr. Buttle. Then Sam is shown as a very patient man who has to put up with his nervous and incompetent boss, Mr. Kurtzman (Ian Holm). Sam seems distracted because on his way to work he sees the woman of his dreams. She is a truck driver and rebel, Jill Layton (Kim Greist), who does not want anything with him.

Sam meets a renegade air-conditioner repairman, Harry Tuttle (Robert DeNiro), who was the man the Ministry was looking for at the beginning of the film and who quits the government because of too much paperwork. His interception of a phone call when Sam's air conditioning dies winds him in a lot of trouble with the Ministry of Works, represented by two weird repairmen.

Finally, Sam takes the big promotion his mother had set up for him, and in that way he can track down this Jill Layton easily. However, he finds himself with even more paperwork and in a tiny, claustrophobic office where he shares a desk with another man, Lime (co-writer Charles McKeown). His boss is quick-talking, Mr. Warren (Ian Richardson), who shows him his office, and yells at him for having a messy desk since all he's doing is becoming obsessed with Jill.

“The film is a plunge into the deepening insanity of a man who is having a war between his dreams and the reality of a burdensome world which is too efficient for its own good. Soon everyone has turned against him, including his best friend, Jack (Michael Palin). And by the end, he has won - he is totally numb and lives inside his mind, flying in the clouds with his dream girl and humming the cool latino song 'Brazil'”.

(Information taken from http://www.britmovie.co.uk/genres/fiction/filmography/003.html )