Contemporary Cinema Classics
Brazil English Traditional Typesetting Bai Zhiyu 14111736d
Brazil
Contemporary Cinema Classics
Brazil Terry Gilliam Tom Stoppard Charles McKoewn
Working Titles Press Hong Kong 2015
Copyright Š 2014 Terry Gilliam, Tom Stoppard, Charles McKoewn All rights reserved. This book may not be reproduced in whole or in part, in any form without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review. First published in paperback in 2015 ISBN 978-0-300-15209-1 Working Titles Press 12A, 123 King’s Road North Point Hong Kong www.workingtitlespress.com For information about this and other Working Titles Press publications please contact: enquiries@workingtitlespress.com Set in Adobe Minion Pro designed by Robert Slimbach Series typography by Robert Slimbach Printed in Hong Kong
Contents Introduction
8
Plot summary
13
Cast
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Part 1 scenes 1–56
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Part 2 senes 57–80
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Part 3 scenes 81–155
185
Introduction 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. But then when the first draft was published and original in-progress documents emerged from Alverson’s files, Gilliam begrudgingly changed his story. This was a bit 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. Gilliam, McKeown, and Stoppard collaborated on further drafts. Brazil was developed under the titles The Ministry and 1984½, the latter a nod not only to Orwell’s original 1984 but also to 8½ by Federico Fellini, a director whom Gilliam often cites as one of the defining influences on his visual style when directing. 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, and So That’s Why the Bourgeoisie Sucks, before settling with Brazil relating to the name of its escapist signature tune.
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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 (1989). All are about the ‘craziness of our awkwardly ordered society and the desire to escape it through whatever means possible.’ 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. Gilliam has stated that Brazil was inspired by George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four – which he has admitted never having read – 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, an example being that contrary to Winston Smith, Sam Lowry’s spirit did not capitulate as he sank into complete catatonia. Art design 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.’ 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.’
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The result has been dubbed ‘retro-futurism’ by fellow filmmakers Jean-Pierre Jeunet and Marc Caro. Generally called ‘sci-fi noir’, it is ‘a view of what the 1980s might have looked like as viewed from the perspective of a 1940s filmmaker.’ It is 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.’ 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 cunning use of lighting and set designs. 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 Eisenstein’s Battleship Potemkin (1925). This eclectic virtuosity and attention to detail in 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. 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. One visual element which figures prominently in the movie is the ducts, specifically the snakelike ‘flex-ducts’ used in modern construction. The film even opens with an advertisement for diffe10
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rent styles of ducting available for homes as seen on a display of television sets in a storefront window. Sam’s apartment is dominated by a wall consisting entirely of metal panels which conceal a woefully out-dated and complex air-conditioning system – the guerrilla engineer Tuttle is the only person able to tame it. Later, Sam lunches in a restaurant dominated by a giant centrepiece where the ‘flowers’ are actually flex-ducts. Still later, when Sam makes a potentially seditious night-time 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 families 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 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 Department of Information Retrieval, there are very few ducts. The reference to form 27B-6, without which no work can be done by repairmen of the Department of Public Works, is a reference to George Orwell, who lived at Canonbury Square Apartment 27B, Floor 6, while writing parts of Nineteen Eighty-Four. Music Ary Barroso’s 1939 song Aquarela do Brasil (Watercolor of Brazil, often simply Brazil) in a version specifically performed by Geoff Muldaur is the leitmotif of the movie, although other background music is also used. Michael Kamen, who scored the film, 11
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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.
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Plot summary Sam Lowry (Jonathan Pryce) is a low-level government employee who has frequent daydreams of saving a beautiful maiden. One day he is assigned the task of trying to rectify an error caused by a fly getting jammed in a printer, which caused it to misprint a file, resulting in the incarceration and death during interrogation of Mr Archibald Buttle instead of the suspected ‘terrorist’, Archibald Tuttle. When Sam visits Buttle’s widow, he discovers Jill Layton (Kim Greist), the upstairs neighbour of the Buttles, and is astonished to see that she has the face of the woman from his recurring dreams. Jill is trying to help Mrs Buttle find out what happened to her husband, but has become sick of dealing with the bureaucracy. Unbeknownst to her, she is now considered a terrorist friend of Tuttle for attempting to report the mistake of Buttle’s arrest in Tuttle’s place to a bureaucracy that would not admit such an error. 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 Tuttle (Robert De Niro), a renegade air conditioning specialist who once worked for the government but left due to his dislike of paperwork. Tuttle helps Sam deal with two Central Services workers, Spoor (Bob Hoskins) and Dowser (Derrick O’Connor), who later return to
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demolish Sam’s ducts and seize his apartment under the guise of fixing the air conditioning. Sam discovers that the only way to learn about Jill is to get transferred 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. Delighted that her son has finally shown ambition – having previously turned down similar offers from her – Ida arranges for Sam’s promotion. Sam 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, but they are quickly apprehended by the government at gunpoint. Charged with treason for abusing his newly acquired position, Sam is restrained to a chair in a large, empty cylindrical room (the interior of a power station cooling tower), to be tortured by his old ‘friend’, Jack Lint (Michael Palin), who is wearing a mask seen earlier in Sam’s dreams and had previously renounced their friendship in favour of loyalty to the Ministry. Sam also learns that Jill had been killed resisting arrest. However, before Jack manages to begin the torture, Tuttle and other members of the resistance break into the Ministry. The resistance shoots Jack, rescues Sam, and blows up the Ministry building as they flee. Sam and Tuttle run off together, but Tuttle disappears amid a mass of scraps of paper from the destroyed Ministry. Sam runs to his mother attending a funeral for a friend who died of excessive cosmetic surgery. Finding his mother now looking like Jill and 14
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fawned over by a flock of juvenile admirers, Sam falls into the open casket, falling through an empty black void. He lands in a world from his daydreams, and attempts escape up a pile of flexducts from the police and imaginary monsters. He finds a door at the top of the pile and, passing through it, is surprised to find himself in a trailer driven by Jill. The two drive away from the city together. However, this ‘happy ending’ is all a product of Sam’s delusions: Sam is still strapped to the chair and observed by Jack and Deputy Minister Mr Helpmann (Peter Vaughan), who is portrayed along the film as a good ‘friend’ of Sam’s family. Realising that Sam has grown catatonic, with a smile on his face and humming Brazil, the two declare Sam a lost cause, and exit the room as the film ends.
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