Back to Brazil

[nrc@bsbbs.columbus.oh.us (N. Richard Caldwell)]

AGOUGH@AZ.intel.COM ("Andy Gough, x4-2906, pager 420-2284, CH2-59") writes:

>     Another thing I'd like to talk about is the title--"Brazil."  After I
> saw the film, I couldn't figure out why it was called "Brazil"--after all,
> it's not about the country of Brazil, nor does it take place in Brazil.  But
> then one day I was reading an article on the editorial page of the Wall Street

> Journal, which had a sentence something like, "You know what they're always
> saying about Brazil--it's the place where things are happening and growing,
> where prospects are always positive--it's the Future!  It never pans out, but
> people keep on saying it."  And I thought, "Aha!"  So I think titling the
> film "Brazil" is a statement saying that was is portrayed in the film is 
> "the future"--that, in the future, a mindless bureacracy will control everythi
ng
> (and yet nothing).  Now, if I'm dead wrong about this, I'd very much appreciat
e
> being corrected!

I'd say that's pretty close, but the movie was inspired more by
 the song than the place.  There is nifty magazine called
 Cinefex that is devoted to special effects and such.  Each
 issue is dedicated to one or two films and goes into detail
 about how the effects were acheived.  There is one issue
 dedicated entirely to the films of Terry Gilliam. 

Along with a lot of fascinating details on the special effects
 they mention where Gilliam got the idea for the title.

| Terry Gilliam is the first to admit that _Brazil_ defies
| precise classification.  Even it's title is an enigma, having
| nothing whatsoever to do with either the location of the film
| or its offbeat subject matter.  It *is* linked, however - at
| least in the mind of its creator - with 'Brazil,' a popular
| song of the 1930s whose lingering melody wafts through the
| romantic imaginings of the film's principal character.  "I had
| an image of somebody sitting on a beach," Gilliam recalled, "a
| beach blackened by coal dust.  It is evening and a radio is on
| and that haunting song is coming over the airwaves - escapist,
| romantic sounds suggesting that somewhere out there, far from
| the conveyer belts and ugly steel towers, is green and
| wonderful world.  Of course, the story that developed had
| little to do with that image, except that everything sprang
| from it."

Going back through Gilliams comments in this issue of Cinefex
 I'm anxious to hear his commentary sound track on the new
 Criterion Laser Disc edition of _The Fisher King_.

"Don't drive too slowly."         Richard Caldwell
                                  The Big Sky BBS (+1 614 864 1198)
                                  {n8emr|nstar}!bluemoon!bsbbs!nrc
                                  nrc@bsbbs.Columbus.OH.US