Just after watching Brazil and struck by its obvious similarities to Nineteen-Eighty-Four, to give the film its proper title. While any budding critic can reel off the Orwellian influences in Brazil, I felt it may be more interesting to consider the divergences and attempts by director Terry Gilliam to distance himself from Orwell's masterpiece.
Brazil is a much more visually arresting film then 1984. Gilliam was allowed free reign to express his unique visual style and found ample opportunity to impress and excite with trademark wit, surrealism and dramatics. 1984 is deliberately more low key, putting more emphasis on the dialog. A misplaced word or thought crime can be fatal in that environment.
While both provide a dystopia, retro future (or present), the Kafkaeaque society of Brazil at least functions on some level. 1984 only exists in a hopeless, brutally efficient war zone of Orwells imagination. Resistance to the norm provided by De Niro's Tuttle, a comic vigilante plummer, is no comparison to Goldsteins studied logic but perhaps provides more hope. That Tuttle can exist due to an administrative error shows the system is flawed and will ultimately fail. 1984 would never admit such a mistake, Buttle would have been Tuttle and always was, as the corrected records would naturally show. Most surprising is the conclusion to the torture scene in both films. They diverge radically and you will have to see the films to know what I mean.
Personally, I feel that 1984 is the more superior film of the two. The performances of Hurt and Burton are first rate, not taking anything away from Pryce, Holm and Hoskins. But the content, gravitas and impending (or current?) reality of 1984 stays with you. Brazil always had a hard act to follow coming a year after its namesake, being released in 1985. Though given the choice, I know which world I would prefer to live in, and it would be a lot more fun then BB.
Brazil is a much more visually arresting film then 1984. Gilliam was allowed free reign to express his unique visual style and found ample opportunity to impress and excite with trademark wit, surrealism and dramatics. 1984 is deliberately more low key, putting more emphasis on the dialog. A misplaced word or thought crime can be fatal in that environment.
While both provide a dystopia, retro future (or present), the Kafkaeaque society of Brazil at least functions on some level. 1984 only exists in a hopeless, brutally efficient war zone of Orwells imagination. Resistance to the norm provided by De Niro's Tuttle, a comic vigilante plummer, is no comparison to Goldsteins studied logic but perhaps provides more hope. That Tuttle can exist due to an administrative error shows the system is flawed and will ultimately fail. 1984 would never admit such a mistake, Buttle would have been Tuttle and always was, as the corrected records would naturally show. Most surprising is the conclusion to the torture scene in both films. They diverge radically and you will have to see the films to know what I mean.
Personally, I feel that 1984 is the more superior film of the two. The performances of Hurt and Burton are first rate, not taking anything away from Pryce, Holm and Hoskins. But the content, gravitas and impending (or current?) reality of 1984 stays with you. Brazil always had a hard act to follow coming a year after its namesake, being released in 1985. Though given the choice, I know which world I would prefer to live in, and it would be a lot more fun then BB.