Slashdot Log In
Terry Gilliam's Brazil
from the ministry-of-information dept.
Brazil is a beautiful picture about the hacker ethic.
The protagonist, Sam Lowry, is trapped in an evil system, a world of senseless, crushing bureaucracy interrupted only by human vanity, sloth, impatience, and idiocy. The plot is too convoluted to explain (and a lot more fun to watch) -- it'll suffice to say that Sam's life is turned upside-down when a bug in the system brings him to meet a woman he falls obsessively in love with.
One of the genius visions of this film is its depiction of the crazy patchwork of technology that runs our civilization. Ducts are everywhere; wires and cables lurk behind every wall and make frequent appearances. The incongruous combination of bizarrely unusable computers, pneumatic tubes, and even the retro-style elevators is a modernized version of a Kafka fever-dream.
This system, presumably built by Central Services (a government or a corporation? it could be either), is constantly on the verge of falling apart. Nobody but the competent but unambitious Sam seems to know how to operate a computer. The breakfast machine pours the coffee onto the burnt toast. And the telephones should be Exhibit A in a gallery of poor user-interface design. Meanwhile, Central Services runs ads telling us to upgrade our "out of date ducts" with new designer colors. It's a hilarious parody of the situation that most of us find ourselves in today, with our Rube Goldberg, barely-functioning technology constructed by colossal, faceless bureaucracies -- moreso now than in 1985 when the film was made.
But it's not just forms, malfunction, and evil. The one hero of the film is the hacker. Robert de Niro plays the untouchable outlaw Harry Tuttle, who intercepts Sam's call for help with his broken air conditioner, and comes to fix it. He used to work with Central Services but now works freelance, for the love of the job.
This is a real hacker, even the archetype of the hacker. I'm not sure how it happened -- the writer/director, TerryGilliam, wasn't in tune with the computer underground that I know of -- but the character, in a few short minutes onscreen, captures the universal essence of hacking.
Tuttle isn't the dangerous criminal that the media wants to pin the word "hacker" on even to this day; he doesn't break things or work to disable the system. Much like the real-world media demonization of "hackers" as electronic graffiti-artists and ping-flooders, the movie's Central Services blames terrorists for the bombings which recur throughout the film. We're led to believe these may be staged incidents, or at least unorganized -- one character asks another near the end: "have you ever seen a real terrorist?"
But neither is Tuttle a squeaky-clean navel-gazer. Some people want to sanitize the word "hacker" (usually the same people who noisily point out the distinction between "hacker" and "cracker"). Tuttle's work is illegal; he wears black, defends himself with a gun, and escapes under cover of darkness.
It's too easy to forget that, back in the day, the only way for a brilliant, motivated computer geek to learn about computers was to work the system at a more or less unauthorized level. To name just one example, Steve Wozniak and Steve Jobs, the founders of the personal computer revolution, built illegal blue boxes and sold them. I wish someone had had a camera at the moment when the phone system first shed its secrets to them -- when they first got a taste of look at this huge computer system. Look what it can do.
The hacker ethic that played such a large part in advancing computer science, building gcc, building Linux, indeed building the world's computer systems and engineering the biggest peaceful economic boom in history, is more than just a thirst for knowledge about computers. It's the obsessive belief that knowledge exists to be shared, that helping someone by making their computer run better (or their air conditioner) is one of life's joys, and that the rules that prevent sharing and helping exist to be broken.
And poor Sam Lowry pays the price for the hacker's work, for his fixing something without authorization. When I see this movie, I can't help but think of Randal Schwartz, prosecuted vigorously by Intel for running a diagnostic with the best of intentions, but without the proper paperwork. We live in a world where insane things like that can and do happen.
Somehow, 15 years ago, Terry Gilliam got in his head the same glimpse of underlying reality that Woz got when he learned about how the phone system works -- and it's all on film. The hero is the one who repeats the Central Services slogan, "We're all in this together," and makes it unironic (or at least differently ironic). The hero is the one who knows how to fix things, and fixes them -- despite not being "authorized." The evil is the paperwork we construct around ourselves, the forms and regulations that take the place of people freely helping each other. Everyone into open source should see this film.
Poor Sam Lowry's plight becomes a real-life horror for Brazil director Terry Gilliam, who faced red tape and monolithic Hollywood studios to release his picture. In addition to the full-length film with director's commentary, the three-DVD set of Brazil also includes the short film The Battle of Brazil, which chronicles Gilliam's fight to release the film he created. The third DVD consists of the 'Love Conquers All' version of Brazil, a 90-minute version that was edited down from the original picture by Sid Sheinberg and his team of hack-and-slash artists at Universal. Terry Gilliam refers to this movie as 'Sid Sheinberg's Brazil,' and it's just plain horrible. The 'Love Conquers All' version is a standing memorial to all films that have been cut to pieces by the studios. This version of Brazil was only released to the television market, and was previously unavailable to the public on VHS.
Terry Gilliam was a hacker in his own right. After a long, involved battle over release rights, he promised Universal that he would only show clips of the film to film students in California, and they capitulated and let him show brief passages from the film. In the end, he only showed one clip. It was only two hours and twenty minutes long. In other words, the whole thing.
The full DVD set of Brazil is a massive package of content, from film commentary to press photos to trailers to alternate versions of the film. Surprise, surprise, it's part of the Criterion Collection of films, which also gave us fantastic DVD versions of Robocop, Time Bandits, and Monty Python's Life of Brian. Here are the contents (as listed by the film packaging):
Disc One
New pristine widescreen transfer of Terry Gilliam's 142-minute final cut
Remastered Dolby stereo surround soundtrack
Audio commentary by Terry Gilliam
English subtitles for the deaf and hearing impaired
Disc Two
What is Brazil?, Rob Hedden's 30-minute on-set documentary
The Battle of Brazil: A Video History, an original 60-minute Criterion documentary by Jack Mathews
Screenwriters Tom Stoppard and Charles McKeown on the script
Production designer Norman Garwood on the look of Brazil
Costume designer James Acheson on the couture of fantasy and fascism
Storyboards for Gilliam's original dream sequences, many of which didn't make it into the film
Composer Michael Kamen unveils the sources of his score
A study of the special effects includes raw footage of unfinished effects
Theatrical trailer, plus publicity and production stills
Disc Three
The 94-minute cut of Brazil includes all of the changes that Gilliam refused to make, from the alternate opening to the controversial happy ending
Audio commentary by Gilliam expert David Morgan.
This three-DVD set is a lot of material. I ended up taking two days to get through all of it, and every second of it is worth it. From the beautiful new transfer of Brazil to the interviews and specials to the hacked-up 90-minute version of the film, the set stays consistent in packaging and iconography, and you'll be humming the main theme for a week. Brazil is a fantastic film, and the Criterion Collection DVD set does it justice.
This is what DVD should be all about. (Score:4)
This should show all those DVD production people that try to claim 'chapter menu' as a Special Feature on the back of the box. *this* is the special stuff.
is this on.... DVD? (Score:4)
It's tough when the format is so wonderful (except for CSS and region coding), but the businessmen behind it are such dolts.
Best on the Big Screen... (Score:3)
Thad
Re:another godawful self congratulating hacker (Score:3)
True enough. Terry Gilliam has stated many times that he neither likes nor trusts technology, that all too often it is a tool for repressive types to use th strengthen their grip on power. The parody of technology, the insanely over-complicated telephones, user-hostile computers and such seem (IMO) to reflect Gilliam's own distaste for technological fixes. The only group in the film who seem to have a technology that actually works is the brutal department of Information Retrieval
But, on the other hand, Harry Tuttle is a hacker archtype. Anyone who has ever worked in a company with a huge "Information Technology" department has had to hack around the system by bringing in unauthorized hardware and software in order to be able to get the job done. Maybe it's just me, but the hassles involved in getting additional RAM (i.e. filling out a "twenty-seven bee stroke zed" and waiting forever) made it easier to bring in my own. In 6 months working for a particularly brain-damaged division of Lucent, I was never able to get upgraded from a P90 with 16 megs of ram and a 400 meg HD. When I left, I took my 2 gig HD, 166 mhz processor and 64 megs of ram with me. If they had found out that I had added any of this, I could have been fired for even opening my computer.
Almost any of Tuttle's lines could be spoken by any hacker anywhere: "I got into this game for the action! Get in, get out, man alone. Your entire apartment could be on fire and I couldn't so much as turn on a tap without filling out a 27b/z!". Also, Tuttle hacked the Central Services phone system to intercept Sam's phone call.
It's not much of a stretch to compare Harry Tuttle's free air-conditioning services to a bunch of Linux geeks at a shopping mall doing free Linux installs ("Remember kid, we're all in this together.")
Re:Are They Tallking About The Same Movie I Saw ? (Score:3)
I think it's repugnant. It's intellectually dishonest when you try to force a pre-conceived notion on "objective analysis". Granted, interpretations of art are very subjective and I normally wouldn't begrudge someone the opportunity to present their viewpoint. However, what I see here at Slashdot often, usually displayed by Katz or Roblimo, is an appalling tendency to force the square hacker peg into the round hole we call reality. I understand that they are marketing to the very segment that they patronize, but I think they would garner much appreciation if they were honest in their approach.
Now as regards my perspective, as I've mentioned, I believe that Brazil was about the man's fears about losing control to amorphous entities that purport to be our benefactors, making all our decisions for us, telling us what products to use, controlling our thoughts. It's also speaks to man's unflinching fight against such onerous control. Brazil is very Orwelian in form and shares some similarities to Kafka's The Trial. I think Brazil has more symmetry with those works of arts than Steve Jobs and Randal Schwartz. I think most people who have broadened their horizons would share this assessment.
Are They Tallking About The Same Movie I Saw ? (Score:5)
It is? Hmmm. I thought it was a movie about the ineptness of senseless bureacuracy. Ok, ok...I guess you could kind of take the bug dropping into the typewriter as a symobolic computer bug thingy, but please, let's stop trying to reinvent the world based on some perverted hacker ethos.
Frankly, I'm tired of seeing everything viewed through this same, tired prism. It doesn't always have to be about hacking to be good. Brazil is a prime example.
I'm not trying to be funny, and I realize I will be moderated down for saying this, but some of you people, particularly who wrote this "review, need to get out more and broaden your horizons.
Re:This review and this post (Score:3)
I'm going to guess that this review will irritate a bunch of people. It tries to pull too much stuff into orbit around the author's worldview, a sort of "kitchen-sink" theorizing that seems to me just what vexes people about JonKatz.
Seabord says, in another reply:
You know, this guy uses the BIG words correctly, yes still looks like a freshman jackass trying to impress someone. Not having a point to your posting can not be covered up by using ten dollar words. Have a nice day!
I think you're both onto something. Just who IS "Slashteam"? It's that JonKatz wanker AGAIN, I bet. Actually it probably isn't, but Skald is absolutely right in what he says. But I still appreciated notice that it's available - I'll probably buy it.
To appear soon on the
"Perhaps you are seeking to avoid ANYTHING written by Jon Katz - well TOO BAD, because he's now writing anonymously, and stories about him are appearing too. This has become necessary since every single Slashdot reader chose to turn on the JonKatz filter. Have a nice day."
Disc Three (Score:4)
Anyway, anyone who hasn't seen Brazil needs to go do so now. It is (IMHO) one of the best movies ever. Certainly the best dystopia ever put on film.
By the way, the script was cowritten by Tom Stoppard, who won an oscar a year or so back for Shakespeare in Love.
Re:Braziltech (Score:4)
After rewatching it a couple of times, I am conviced that the "terrorists" don't exist, and the explosions are merely due to the technology falling apart due to incompetence. And the "hacker" types like Tuttle, blamed for the "terrorism" are actually the only thing keeping the system afloat. Nice irony.
Braziltech (Score:4)
This is an interesting way to put it. Other reviewers always refer to the crazy patchwork of technology that runs Brazil's civilization as a metaphor for the crazy patchwork that runs ours.
But actually, to a large extent, it is literally true. I don't know why I never thought about this before....
Redmond (Score:4)
At least, I always assumed that was in Redmond...I could be wrong.
Re:Terry Gilliam's "triology" (Score:4)
Actually, you're only 2/3rds right. While Gilliam has said that he never set out to create a formal "trilogy", he realized after the fact that the themes of three of his films do track the progression of the life of the dreamer from birth to death: Time Bandits [express.com] showing the dreamer as a child, Brazil [express.com] depicting the dreamer in adulthood, and The Adventures of Baron Munchausen [express.com] (not 12 Monkeys [express.com]) showing the dreamer in old age. The three movies in the "trilogy" were all written by Gilliam (which allowed him to shape the storyline to fit his ideas), but he did not write 12 Monkeys (he was brought in by Universal as a hired director to film an already-written script).
Gilliam's films are almost uniformly fascinating to watch and think about, even the less artistically successful ones such as Baron Munchausen and Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas [express.com]. Anyone who is interested in Gilliam's work can find lots of great info in two books: The Battle of Brazil [barnesandnoble.com] by film critic Jack Mathews, chronicling the struggle on Gilliam's part to get Brazil released with its original ending, and Gilliam on Gilliam [barnesandnoble.com], a series of interviews in which Gilliam talks about his life and work. Both are excellent reads.
-- Jason A. Lefkowitz
Hacker hacker hacker hacker hacker! Blah... (Score:5)
Sam is a hacker. Harry is a hacker. Terry is a hacker. Everyone's a hacker, and it's absolutely astounding because they didn't even consult with 'us' first!
GET A FUCKING GRIP! You brats didn't invent this idea of hacking, it doesn't apply solely to computer-related life, and in fact you didn't even invent the term. The only thing original you've done with regards to 'hacking' is to overuse, abuse, and dilute the term.
My dad took apart watches when he was a kid. Also made NI3 to torment the bully upstairs in university. Oh my god, he's a hacker and he didn't even read the official hacker manifesto. (if it doesn't exist yet, it will) Neither did Newton. It's amazing! They were, like, our spiritual forefathers, dudez!
Ah, fuck it. I only hope that Terry Gilliam doesn't get wind of this interview. It'll probably make him sick.
Hacker=Cowboy (Score:4)
Back to the roots, right? We all want to be Heroes.
Hacking is not about a mood, but about knowledge, how it is created, how it is found, how it is made.
George Orwell (Score:4)
And on a side note, anybody who enjoyed watching brazil, ought to watch Terry Gilliam presented the same vision once again 10 years later in 12 monkeys. Both movies are really great at giving us that true orwell like big-brother-paranoia!
This review and this post (Score:3)
This is an early post, so I'm going to make a guess. I'm going to guess that this review will irritate a bunch of people. It tries to pull too much stuff into orbit around the author's worldview, a sort of "kitchen-sink" theorizing that seems to me just what vexes people about JonKatz.
Hackers and Crackers, Randal Schwartz, the Woz, Open Source, the Hacker Ethic... all by analogy with a renegade air-conditioner repairman. Maybe there's something there. I thought the correlation novel, anyway. But it's not tight. The review reaches out for things which have the feel of the theory and pulls them in, without the sort of fastidious discernment which many analytical people feel as a moral obligation: asking themselves, in strict fashion, "does this really belong here?"
Just an interesting dichotomy I've noticed here on Slashdot. At one extreme, people so exuberent about their Grand Unified Theory of Hacking that they'll find a half-baked way to use it to predict the weather. On the other hand those abstemious fellows who seem uncomfortable posting without a full set of MLA footnotes.
This post lies somewhere between. It's not entirely baked either. :-) Nor, however, as ambitious as the review. It's a bit tighter, and as a consequence not as likely to peeve folks (I hope!)
And likely to generate interesting criticism... I hope.
Re:#1 Annoying thing about Libertarians (Score:3)
Even I see the irony here, and I'm one of those who agree there's a resonance between Brazil and hackerdom.
Happy endings (Score:3)