Essay on Brazil (Terry Gilliam)

Résumé du document

“1984 is about 1948. I made a film about today.” told Terry Gilliam to the Cahiers du cinéma in April 1984. Concerning two films which were nearly made the same year and which both seemed to talk about the same thing (oppression in society), it is indeed very interesting to make a comparison so as to discuss which film is closer to our modern society and on which inspirations both were made.

In the first place, it seems very important to talk about aesthetics which brings a deep contrast between these two movies.
Indeed, 1984 is clearly shot in a post second world war aesthetic. I mean that the entire place seems to have been destroyed long ago and that nobody tried to rebuild the city. The furniture – where there is some – is old. Streets are dirty, dusty and quite deserted. The dining room of the minister seems completely out of technology. Rooms are always dark and there is no comfort at all. This is even much suggested by the flash-backs happening during the war when Winston Smith is a little boy. Winston also seems sick (he is always coughing). This is obviously not a pleasant society to live in. It depicts miserable people and lives.
On the contrary, in Brazil, even if we're clearly in an urban environment, with high and grey buildings, we do not have the same society. Comfort is an important thing : the Buttle's are not very rich, but they do have a TV set, a sofa etc. It's the same for Sam, whose apartment is particularly modern, even if his technology doesn't seem to work very well (the phone, the alarm, the toaster, the air conditioning… he keeps having problems with everyday life objects). And when we come to Ida's place or in the restaurant, we have the vision of what luxury can be in this particular society.

Extraits

[...] It is a movie deeply influenced by a sixties universe (as can be seen in the clothes, the ads, the song) but it talks about today in the sense that today is only the consequence of a consumer society that started to develop faster and faster in the sixties. But it is also a very strong vision of life, full of humor even though quite pessimistic. On the contrary, in my opinion is quite a poor adaptation of Orwell's book. [...]

[...] But he does meet O Brien and encounters Goldstein and the resistance. His desire for freedom existed before Julia. At the end, they're like strangers. In Brazil, the relationship between Sam and Jill seems quite close to that of Julia and Winston. He dreams, she leads. We never really know what she thinks, whereas we are in his head. But the main difference is that Jill is really concerned with other people (not that Julia is selfish: she brings chocolate and real coffee to Winston but she's less concerned) such as Mrs Buttle or the people injured in the bombing of the mall. [...]

[...] Winston also seems sick (he is always coughing). This is obviously not a pleasant society to live in. It depicts miserable people and lives. On the contrary, in Brazil, even if we're clearly in an urban environment, with high and grey buildings, we do not have the same society. Comfort is an important thing: the Buttle's are not very rich, but they do have a TV set, a sofa etc. It's the same for Sam, whose apartment is particularly modern, even if his technology doesn't seem to work very well (the phone, the alarm, the toaster, the air conditioning he keeps having problems with everyday life objects). [...]

[...] He has to forget these kind of memories, so as to love only Big Brother. In Oceania, there is absolutely no way to escape. Winston only wanted to “stay human”, it is not possible. He can only survive. But there is a slight hope when he writes 2 + 2 = , on the table at the end As Julia had told him “they can make you say it, but not believe it. They can't get inside you.” In Brazil, dreams do exist. [...]

[...] Putting images on Orwell's novel diminishes the power of its critics. Gilliam's creative process of taking what he wants in 1984 and also other things relative to our contemporary society is much more successful in the way that it doesn't seem outdated (even 10 years later) and that its richness prevents it from being completely understandable and interpretable at the first sight. Gilliam sticks to Huxley's idea (in Brave new world's preface) that a modern totalitarian government would be a government which would make people love their state of slavery, as La Boétie had already foreseen in Le discours de la servitude volontaire. [...]