Brazil: Terry Gilliam reflects on fighting with the studio over the film
It’s the 40th Anniversary of the abstract dystopian dark comedy Brazil, and Monty Python member-turned-director, Terry Gilliam, is celebrating with a Q&A session with Deadline. Gilliam will also soon be venturing to the Umbria Film Festival in Italy, where he will attend a special screening of the film. Per Deadline, Brazil is about “Jonathan Pryce’s Sam Lowry, who works in the sprawling archives of a megalopolis ruled by faceless bureaucracy and an all-seeing Information Department. When a band of terrorists begins sowing chaos, Sam escapes the gray monotony of his desk job through vivid, dreamlike visions — until reality and fantasy collide with explosive consequences.”
With films like 12 Monkeys and Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, Gilliam is a filmmaker with a unique vision, and someone like him is usually at odds with the studio over their vision. Gilliam reflects on the battles he had with Universal during the making of the movie. The director told Deadline, “It was such an intense period, not the making of the film, the fighting to get the film released as we made it — that was very intense and interesting. I kind of look back at that time and think, ‘Wow, it was almost good fun to have that fight with Universal.’ I was just so determined that they were not going to change the movie. As a result of it, I was, for a while, inundated by other filmmakers who were thinking that I had changed the rules. There was a little opening for a few weeks, and then it closed again. And it’s either you have to decide whether you want a career or you want to make your movie the way you want to make it. Simple.”
He is now working on the film, The Carnival at the End of Days, which will be a comedy in which God decides to wipe out humanity, and the only one who wants to save them is Satan, who will be played by none other than Johnny Depp. Gilliam talks about how he doesn’t have the energy for fighting now, “I’m getting weary as I get old. I really don’t want any more fights. Filmmaking is, I think, different now, and I think the producers, the financiers, the studios, are very timid these days.” He continues to talk about the lack of risks in today’s films, “That’s one of the problems. That’s what’s depressing, the fact that to have ideas, strong opinions, and things that try to get people thinking, or at least discussing or even being outraged about what’s happening. It just feels like it’s not a very interesting time. I watch movies now, and I see them very technically skilled films, but not doing anything to make my view of the world different. They’re not shocking me. They’re not making me think. And I find that’s what’s so depressing, it makes me feel old.”
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