Brazil

To my mind, this is Terry Gilliam's first truly great films.  It's also one of his darkest.  In my mind this is Gilliam's A Clockwork Orange.  The two movies share nightmare scenarios of the horrors of cynical and distopian societies, with all their increasingly mechanized instruments of torture, all the the lens of the darkest of humors.  In Brazil Gilliam focuses on the sheer banality of a society that has become wholly reliant on it's own insanity aided by machinery and computers; it reinforces it's own monstrosity with a kind of societal group think that has a monopoly on what is legal, acceptable and "needed."  Indeed the monopoly that "Central Services" has on the city is particularly sinister one, since it the government and the sole provider of consumer goods all at the same time.  It would be like the US government merging with Walmart and then putting everyone else out of business, including local government.  Oh, and "Central Services" never makes a mistake, according to them....which means when they do, things go awry in very bad ways.  This is especially borne out in it's pursuit of the "terrorist plumber"  Archibald "Harry" Tuttle, played in witty comic fashion by Robert De Niro.

Gilliam says of the film:  "It's about fights of fantasy, and the nightmare of reality, terrorist bombings, and late night shopping, and creative plumbing."  He forgot to add that's also a Christmas movie.  He also left out the plastic surgery.....

Runtime: 132 min. (142 director's cut)

Rated R

Color (Technicolor)

Sound Mix:  Dolby

Aspect Ratio:  1.85:1 (J D C Cameras)

Tagline:  Have a laugh at the horror of things to come

Trivia:

Several actresses were tested for the role of Jill, including Jamie Lee Curtis, Rae Dawn Chong, Ellen Barkin, and Rosanna Arquette....even Madonna, to name but a few.  The part, of course, went to Kim Greist.  However, Gilliam was less than happy with her overall performance, so many of her scenes, originally written as a much bigger role were cut in post-production.  Gilliam has state that his performance was for the role to go to Barkin.

The role of Sam was the first part of this movie written.  It was written years before the actual production with Jonathan Pryce specifically in mind.

The screenplay was written by Gilliam himself, along with famed playwright Tom Stoppard. A third party, one Charles McKeown shared a writing credit for writing all of the propaganda slogans.

It's quite well known that Gilliam got into a public war with Sid Sheinberg, a high up studio executive, over the release of the film.  It progressed to the point where Sheinberg was viciously holding up the release of the film, if Gilliam didn't make the changes that he was demanding.  It went far enough at one point Gilliam ran a full page ad in the Daily Variety that had borders that resembled a funeral flyer with the message, "Dear Sid Sheinberg, when are you going to release my film?  Signed Terry Gilliam"  Later De Niro got on the band wagon by going on "Good Morning America" with Gilliam.  When Joan Lunden asked him about his troubles with the studio, Gilliam replied "No, I'm having trouble with Sid Sheinberg, here is an 8 X 10 photo of him."  His picture was then show in national television, which enraged Sheinberg, but helped get the attention of people above him.  It was one of the reason that Gilliam prevailed in getting it released the way he wanted.

An early working title for the film was "1984 and 1/2."

Another mitigating factor that helped get the film released occurred in Hollywood.  During the time that the studio was blocking it's release, and forcibly re-editing it's ending away from the original, to what they were calling the "Love Conquers All" version, a number of copies of Gilliam's cut made it out to video stores in the Los Angeles area.  With critics being able to rent and review the film, a number of well connected critics began to ask if a film that compleated, but officially released, but released in a very limited way, could be eligible for an Oscar nomination.  Well, the studio had egg on it and it relented and released Gilliam's version to theaters.

In the Christmas shopping scene, there a woman holding up a sign that reads "Consumers For Christ."

The use of the Samurai suit in the film is a reference Japanese filmmaker Akira Kurosawa.

And if you were wondering about the car that Sam drives, it's a German manufactured Messerschmitt KR200 which is a three wheeled, 2 stroke singular cylinder engine "Kabinroller," which is described as being a "covered scooter."  It's manufacture was halted in 1964.