Revolutionary filmmakers Terry Gilliam and Tom Stoppard pooled their efforts in 1985 to create the renowned cinematic commentary on technology's impact in "Brazil," which is playing Sunday in Spaulding Auditorium.
Stoppard, the accomplished British dramatist renowned for the post-modern plays "Arcadia" and "Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead," has a deep love of talking on the same level as an intelligent audience--and as such has generally steered clear of the film world.
Terry Gilliam, the post-modern animator for Monty Python (also credited with "Time Bandits," "The Fisher King" and "Twelve Monkeys") has a penchant for creating vivid images of his hilariously twisted vision of the world -- and has squeezed as much art as possible from Hollywood's commercial funds.
"Brazil" is perhaps the most successful work of either artist.
"8:49 p.m., Somewhere in the Twentieth Century," wafts over a beautiful cloudscape as "Brazil" opens. Suddenly, the images clear off and are replaced by a darkly comic view of George Orwell's "1984," in which technology infests every corner of society and people are merely cogs that operate the machines. We sift through the bureaucracy's drones, watching them all work and pulsate through the streets like hordes of locusts.
And then we meet Sam Lowry (Jonathan Pryce). He's just a drone, a cog, a bureaucrat like all other characters we've met. But there's a difference: he dreams. Gloriously, he flies on Icarus-like wings in his dream, attacking an immense samurai in the hopes of saving a damsel in distress. His humdrum life is filled with technology far beyond our commodities today, but Lowry plods through his existence to lose himself in his complex fantasy, in the hopes that he may save the angelic girl of his dreams.
Until one day he meets her in the real world. And he escapes his life to be with her, as they both revolt against the system. From this point on, the film is headed down a path towards either cynical romance or romantic cynicism, with Lowry's fate hanging in the balance.
English Professor Alan Gaylord will host a panel discussion on "Brazil" in the Faculty Lounge immediately following the 6:45 show.
