Writers: Gilliam, Charles McKeown, Tom Stoppard
Sam Lowry...Jonathan Pryce
Jill Layton...Kim Greist
Archibald "Harry" Tuttle...Robert De Niro
Mrs. Ida Lowry...Katherine Helmond
Mr. Kurtzmann...Ian Holm
Spoor...Bob Hoskins
Jack Lint...Michael Palin
Released: 18 December 1985 (US)
Budget: $15 million
Box Office: $9.9 million
1. What do you think of the movie so far? Like? Dislike? And what moment or scene has stayed with you—and why?
2. What do you think of our hero Sam? Do you care about him? Do you like him? Is he a good person—a moral person? Do you care about his mission? And, in fact, what is his mission?
3. What is the problem this movie presents? What is Terry Gilliam wanting to take down? And how does he show this—how do you see him using satire here?
250-300 words. Again: click on "Comments" to post your response.
Ducts.
I think that this movie so far is a great movie. The movie is very similar to 1984, and I believe that this is what the director is going to go for. I like all the characters and the system of government, which has to be so careful with what they do in order to not make any mistakes. My favorite scene of the movie was in the beginning, which shows the irony of what the government says. The scene where Civil Services are filling in the hole in which the SWAT-like police force sliced a hole through. One of the agents says “we never make mistakes,” then promptly drops the ceiling replacement though the hole where it crashes on the floor below. I liked this scene because it shows that the government is not as perfect as they make out to the public to be.
ReplyDeleteSam Lowry seemed like he is a decent person. He is caring and compassionate, and it seems like that he wants to help out the family of the person who was killed. However, he is only moral, there are still some bad sides to him. When asked about the body, he keeps dodging the question, not answering, which could be because he truly doesn’t know what happened to the body, or because he DOES know about the body, but refuses to tell the deceased’s wife where the body is–and what happened to it. I do care about his mission. I think that it is necessary to fix an accident which lead to some big consequences, but he also has a second mission–find the woman that he keeps seeing in his dreams.
The problem that the movie is presenting is the issue of governments making themselves look good by hiding mistakes that they made and not admitting them. Terry Gilman uses satire here by explaining what would happen if a citizen was wrongly arrested and executed. He makes it well known that the wrong person was killed, and he is showing the measures a government takes to sweep a mistake under the rug.
I like the movie so far and I think that it is quite funny. At some times it feels a bit all over the place and I have a hard time following what is going on. A scene that stuck with me was when Sam and his mother were having lunch with his mother's friend. Not only did the food they were eating look disgusting, but right in the middle of their meal, there was a terrorist attack. Nonchalantly, their waiter put a room divider around their table and apologized for the attack saying that it doesn't happen very often. I like this scene because it shows that the terrorist attacks happen so often that people barely get phased by them. this scene also shows that since the people are accustomed to the terrorist attacks, the government is doing a less than par job of stopping them.
ReplyDeleteI thinks that Sam Lowry is one of your average people in this society. I think that the movie shapes the plot around him so that you have to care about him and want to see what he does next. I, however, do not like Sam. He does seem to want to help the family of the man who was wrongly convicted. he shows this by offering to hand deliver the refund check to the mans wife. But, I think that his main mission is to find the woman in his dreams. the only reason he took the promotion was to be able to find more information about this woman. before he knew the promotion would help him with that, he refused to take it. I think this shows that although he has the chance to help an innocent family, he will continue to chose finding the woman over helping them.
the problem this movie presents is that the government hides things from the citizens and then try to make the citizens believe that they are hiding things from each other. this is satirical because Gilliam uses extremes such as the posters and slogans put up on the streets and in offices and the lack of knowledge people have about the innocent man's arrest.
So far I do like the movie. I would not watch out in my free time, but I am glad we are watching it. I find some scenes in the movie funny, but overall I would not say that this is a comedic movie. A scene that stuck with me was the scene where Sam visits the buttle household, and while he’s leaving the daughter of mr. Buttle tells him that she is waiting for her father. This stuck with me because of how sad this small scene was, and how quickly they moved past it.
ReplyDeleteI do not like Sam. He is an okay very average person, and although that is very relatable, it isn’t very deep or interesting. He has no hopes or dreams until he sees a girl that looks like someone he dreams about, and all of the sudden he has motivation. His mission is just to find this girl and meet her. that is a very average mission for such a different film. I have slight interest in his mission, but not a lot.
The problem the movie presents is the control, and cluelessness of the government. The government controls everything we do, yet they rarely ever really help the people that they control. The endless paperwork, and the not thought about terrorist attacks show this within the film. The satire is not shown in the situations as much as it’s shown within the randomness of the film.
Honestly, I am not sure what to think about the movie so far. Every scene is extremely chaotic and pressed from a film point of view. The plot can become kind of difficult to follow because of this. However, the film is funny. Some of the drastic actions that take place, make the film amusing by placing the audience in a hypothetical world. My favorite scene was the dinner scene, where the food comes out as mush and the servers cover up the terrorist attack by blocking the patron’s view. That stood out to me, because it really summed up the extremity of the movie, and how far the society has strayed from what we would call normal.
ReplyDeleteOriginally, I did not like Sam. I thought he was unintelligent, and generally a waste of space. However, as the story progressed we began to see that Sam was more complex than he appears. He is emotionally affected by the loss of Mr Buttle, he allows Mr. Tuttle to work on his house, and does not snitch on him, and he shows tremendous compassion for Layton. I believe he is moral, because he showing the early signs of compassion and love. He has not gotten to the point where he is willing to blatantly disrespect authority, but I would not be surprised if he eventually gets to that point.
I see the problem that this movie presents as conformation. Everyone in the city has allowed the government to have such a strong and large centralized power; so they are completely controlled. I believe that Terry Gilliam is trying to show people the dangers of conforming to one style of life, and revitalize the idea of diversity.
1. I have really enjoyed watching this movie so far, as it is unlike any other movie I’ve seen. As someone said in class, the special effects and sets are just remarkable, which elevates the movie to a whole other level. The continuity of the ducts is quite profound- they can be seen from the first scene on the television to the ducts coursing around and throughout every governmental building, restaurant, and apartament. The movie seems to teeter on the fine line between just plain odd and so odd that the irregularities of the plot are actually expected. Having watched all of the perplexing scenes up to the point in Sam’s dream where he battles the giant person (?), is it really so strange that the people towing Jill’s cage have “baby face” masks? I can’t say that this peculiar style would be my first choice if I were to ever direct or write a film myself, but I am definitely interested in how this movie operates. And I suppose this is part of the satire, but I don’t love how quickly the plot moves past the entities of sadness and hardship in the movie. As John mentioned in class, the children in the street are playing a game of the government’s torturous questioning style, putting their friend in a sack and then leaving them there. I’m sure this is part of the satire of the film, with the humour of the scenes more apparent than the horror, and with the fast pace reflecting the quick tempo of the governmental operations. But to me, this sadness requires a minute to process before moving on. Mr. Buttle’s daughter, obviously distraught and believing that her father is not only still alive, but going to come home, is not even corrected by Sam when she tells him that she’s waiting in the street for him to return. He knows the truth, and he doesn’t tell her- not because he wants to spare a child that pain, but because he just doesn’t really seem to care. Satire at play? Maybe, but I just can’t say I love it. The scene that has stayed with me is when Sam goes into Jack’s room, finding him there covered in blood. His old friend seems to have no concern whatsoever about his job executing the people the government sends to him, even when Sam points this out to him. I could never condone the actions of this government- the viciousness of their impromptu house arrests and the terror caused by the body bags is just horrific. Yet Sam’s friend just calmly puts away his bloody lab coat- in front of his daughter, no less (a daughter he doesn’t even seem to care that much about). And maybe I saw this wrong, but I’m fairly certain that he had a weird mask in his room, similar to the one Sam saw in his dream… very auspicious.
ReplyDelete2. I can’t say that I am really that much of a fan of Sam at all times. My major concern with him is that whenever Sam sees Jill at the government offices, he seems to be obsessed with her beauty and mysteriousness. If Jill is supposed to be that woman in his dreams, she always appears with long hair and wispy clothing, and later, as the typical “damsel in distress.” When she is captured, she just sits there fornorley in her cage, plaintively calling out his name and waiting for him to come rescue her. But in real life, she is this short-haired, erratic powerhouse (pretty much a badass) that is actually trying to find answers for Mrs. Buttle. Instead of waiting for Sam- or anyone else, for that matter- to realize the mistake they’ve made, she is out there herself, demanding answers. But all Sam sees is this woman from his dream- yes, maybe his obsession with her is more on the part that he wants to figure out why he’s seeing her in is dreams. But still, his fascination with her is distorted in his fantasy of who he thinks she is. I do believe that he is one of the characters in the movie who has morals, though. Sam is disturbed by the way the government treats the people, and his contempt for his mother is rightly placed, I believe. And I admire that he went down to Mrs. Buttle’s house in person, but I didn’t believe it was necessary for him to tell her that when she got upset. He seemed bothered that she was angry at his news- the news that Mr. Buttle, the man she married, was wrongly arrested and killed for a crime he did not commit. I don’t believe Sam really had the right to act so defensive. But I do admire his dedication to the case. Unlike his boss, who just wants to cover up the mistake, Sam is actually able to find out about Mrs. Buttle and have the correct papers signed. I suppose that this is his mission, and I care that he is on this investigation. I wouldn’t say that Sam realized that his life mission would be to find out what happened to Mr. Buttle, but I’m not really sure that he had any other life plans or goals. He seemed fairly content for his mundane job to be the sole purpose of his day. I may not respect Sam for all that he’s done, but I do believe that he will determine the problems with the government and hold people accountable for their role in Mr. Buttle’s death.
ReplyDelete3. I see a bit of automatronization in the society, which could be what Gilliam wants to expose through satire. Everyone seems busy, but no one seems to be accomplishing much- besides making mistakes that lead to innocent people dying. Another disturbing scene that really stood out to me was the scene right before Sam meets Jack. The woman seated in the waiting room seems completely distanced from the words that she is typing. The pleas for help chronologized by her robotic hand need to be noticed by someone, but only Sam seems to actually care what the paper says. However, Sam doesn’t do anything about it. And the endless paperwork, ferried around by the never-ending sea of men, doesn’t actually have any purpose. We briefly discussed this in class, and it seems as if people are only typing the words to type the words, not to understand what it is they’re saying. I think one could see the satire in this. The first couple of shots of the movie in the records room- and later in the corridors at Sam’s new job- show an endless parade of men running from here to there. But the next scene is of those same employees who previously appeared as hard workers who were dedicated to their job turning on their “computers” to watch movies. A classic student/ employee move, hilarious all the more. But it shows how undedicated these employees are to their jobs. Similarly, the duct engineers are bound by the paperwork, unable to fix Sam’s ducts without it. But even when they do get the papers sorted out, they stop midway and leave when they find the device in Sam’s duct. They’re more interested in what illegal act Sam has committed than anything else.
Though this movie isn't one that I would watch in my free time, I appreciate it for what it is: a sarcastic dystopian drama. I enjoy watching the story progress and offer me a deeper insight into this world, but sadly it seems like this progress is held down by drawn out scenes like Sam’s fantasies that at first seem wacky and interesting, but eventually end up making me want to close my eyes and go to sleep as they drag on. One scene that I found particularly striking was when Sam was breaking the news of her husband’s death to Mrs. Buttle, and was completely incapable of understanding her fury towards him, just continuing to shift the blame to another department as if that makes it better. This really shows how emotions have been contorted in this world as even the protagonist is unable to understand human emotion.
ReplyDeleteIf Sam were to exist in our world, I would believe he was either an awful person or a sociopath. When compared to the rest of “Brazil”, however, Sam seems competent, humble, and has a good work ethic. In this movie, I like him. Again, by today’s standards I wouldn’t consider him to be a moral man, but morality isn’t a set of concrete rules, and Sam is certainly more moral than many other characters in this movie who are even more removed from their world than him. I see Sam’s mission as finding something that he isn't allowed to, which is antithesis to the extreme bureaucracy his government wants him to maintain, and Sam is using the woman he is chasing to lead him to his desire for something more. I support this goal as I think it will break him free from his sociopathic mindset, and he will perhaps oppose the government he believes in now.
The problem I see in this movie apart from the silly mechanisms and obviously dystopian technology is the apparent issue of extreme overreach from a flawed system of government. A Government should protect the interests of its people, and although most people seem to be employed by the government, every person is subject to regular encroachment upon their liberty that varies from government workers essentially breaking and entering and destroying one’s home, to being wrongfully convicted and killed without a trial. Perhaps worst of all, through all their mistakes, every member of the government seem utterly without care for the people they should be sworn to protect, focusing more on saving their own skin than even informing a widow about the death of her husband.The satire I see in this movie is the sociopathic government, which is so ridiculous that I find it scary how many parallels can be drawn to our government.
1. So far, I like this movie. In the beginning, I thought it was rather strange, but the more we watched, the more I got into it. The scene that stuck with me the most is rather minscul; however, I think it was important. It occurs when Sam is standing in Jack’s office asking for the file on his mystery-dream girl. As he says, “you can trust me, Jack”, there’s a poster on the wall behind him that says “Who Can You Trust?” I found this particularly interesting because it was intentionally done that way as a nod to exactly how honest each party, Sam and Jack, is being. It also felt very Orwell-esque.
ReplyDelete2. I like Sam, but he feels a bit bland. I care about him enough that I don’t want him to die, but his choices and decisions don’t really matter much to me. I don’t think we’re supposed to care very much about Sam, at least not yet. I think he’s good enough. He doesn’t always do bad things, but he lets them happen knowingly. His morals are low, but I’m choosing to blame that on their society and government. I think his mission is to find this girl, not to gather information on her, but rather to figure out why she’s in his dreams. I care about his mission because I too wonder why she’s so significant. Also, I really like her. I hope he finds her soon.
3. The government controls and regulates everything, but they don’t always make things better. Terry Gilliam is trying to take down burreacy and the idea of large, unnecessary government (positions). He shows this by the way he mentions paperwork and mindless government officials whose only purpose is to keep things in “order” and clean up mistakes that they’ve made themselves. He exercises satire through characters like Jack and Sam’s boss who do things because they are told to or because they’re “right”, and not because they believe in them.
The film is hectic. We go from terrorist attacks, to a flying Sam, and back to endless paperwork with only seconds to process the information we were just given. To me, this makes for an enjoyable movie that requires you to really pay attention to understand the nuanced details placed throughout the movie making it better as a whole. The scene that stayed with me is a mix of a couple of different scenes with the same idea. We see Harry Tuttle forced to go into an all black camouflage equipped with a gun to change Sam’s heater. And the later in the movie we see a pack of guards chase down Sam for using the wrong elevator all ready to fire (and potentially firing already I don’t remember). Whilst these scenes take place we also have a restaurant put up a divider to a terrorist attack and people continue to shop in a store despite bombings happening in the store. Its funny to see how in this 1984ish film how Gilliam uses these contrasting scenes to show the worth of human lives in the eyes of the government vs. the breaking of minute rules, telling us where the government's worries lie.
ReplyDeleteSam just seems clueless. He is a practical man, yes, who can find solutions to problems easily, yet at the same time there is this lack of information about the government he works for that may just be a result of how the government treats their citizens and employees. As an outsider we can identify the wrong doings, yet these obvious problems prove to be foreign to Sam as he starts to face them. What is telling of his character is how he acts upon receiving the knowledge of the wrong doings. Nothing. Let's be honest here until now his sole mission has been finding Jill. His one moment of selflessness was when hiding Tuttle from the mechanics, and even then this could be thought to be for his own protection. Overall, Sam’s a bit of a goof who, as he rises up the ranks, keeps to himself and his own problems while quietly learning about the new world around him.
Gilliam is fighting to reveal the faults in government’s constant surveillance and regardless ness. In his movie the government seems to be more concerned with paperwork and reputations than the loss of a human life. They will exhaust all their resources into keeping people in check with their surveillance systems, resources that could be fought to defeat the terrorists killing multiple lives a day. Even in the beginning when we see a description of the current terrorist situations we never hear about the impact the bombings have had on lives and instead get a description similar to a sports report on two teams. Then there is the endless paperwork and positions that take up the time of the government employees so that they can keep everyone in the fictional country or state in check. This is all done in humorous ways to show the absurdity of the current state of affairs and Gilliam uses a dystopic extreme to further emphasize the absurdity, making us reflect on how our current day government, or other countries’ governments, compare to this one.
1.) In terms of what I like in general, my favorite thing about this movie is its style. The set, costumes, and the way it's trying to be retro and modern at the same time interests me. It reminds me of The Incredibles. In terms of content, I like the introduction to Sam Lowry and the scene before with the workers. I like seeing the stasis of a movie and settling in to whatever I am seeing. Plus, it shows that they have a bit of individuality even though there is a big brother.
ReplyDelete2.) I think Sam Lowry is a moral guy. He knows the truth and he wants to expose it but it may not be for the right reason. Many people say that intention is important and if Sam is just trying to do the right thing for a girl, is that right? That brings up the question, is he moral? In defense for Sam Lowry, maybe he hits two birds with one stone. It is possible that he thinks 'Hey, this guy was wrongly convicted and I know the real guy. Plus, I may get the girl of my dreams." Is that even that bad? It's not necessarily his main reason but it can help with motivation and adds another reason to do the right thing.
3.) Propaganda & Subliminal Messages are pretty big in this world. If you take a second to look at the background instead of the characters, you will see posters like "loose lips are noose lips". These types of posters seep into civilians minds and make them believe certain ideologies even when they are young. It also is portraying how major systems use the media to affect people's lives. Such as the mother wanting her face to be younger and since "the gov. makes no mistakes" they aren't willing to look further in the buttle/tuttle case. People like Sam Lowry or Buttle's neighbor trying to fix things are always left with too many obstacles in their way. Tom Gilligan is showing the craziness of people agreeing with the propaganda. Even the way the movie's plot started was silly. A scientist kills a bug and the bug gets caught in the typewriter misspelling TUTTLE into BUTTLE. So much over so little right? I think the satire is in the way people think, their ideologies affect by those in charge. Another good example is the workers trying to fix the hole in the Buttle residence. They say they "never make mistakes" because of how their gov. works and then proceed to make a mistake. Tom Gilligan shows that having a mindless world may be easy to control but not easy to maintain nor is it free.
So far, this movie has been mediocre to me. It has its funny parts and clever lines, but it’s just hard to follow. It started off with the scene about thuttle and buttle, which leads into the wrongful arrest of buttle. We then move into a different scene where Sam is having a dream about a girl, while his partner in business is struggling without him. Then we transition into Sam’s family life and his differences with his mother. Then we meet Mr Thuttle who is a vigilante repairman. We then finally go back to the beginning point of Mr Buttle’s arrest, which leads us back into the dream girl scenario. He then accepts the promotion and tries to find out more about this girl. However, the movie has already progressed a lot, which doesn’t leave much time for the plot to progress at a good pace. Although th movie isn’t terrible, I can understand why it was a commercial failure.
ReplyDeleteSo far, I do not really like Sam. This is mostly because when I watch a movie, i like to put myself in the main characters shoes. In this case, there are so many things I would’ve done different if I was Sam. When a character has multiple occasions where they do something that I wouldn’t have done, and it turns out worse for them, it makes me irritated. I don’t believe he is a moral person. In the scene where he is delivering the check to Mrs Buttle, he tells her “You know I didn’t have to do this”. It’s as if he is bringing himself up rather than trying to comfort her. I don’t really care about his mission to find the girl of his dreams. I see it as slightly interesting, but not worth a main movie plot.
The problem this movie is addressing is our world’s obsession with paperwork/records. He shows this in multiple scenes. In the beginning scene, as they are taking Mr Buttle away, the guy tells Mrs Buttle, very casually, to sign multiple documents. He then gives her a receipt and gives himself a receipt of the receipt. This obsession is also shown in the Air-conditioning scene. Mr Thuttle decided not to work for central services because of the amount of paperwork required. He was able to fix the problem in a fast amount of time without any paperwork needed. When the Central Services people came, they were forced to go back home because the problem he was having required a huge amount of paperwork.
I actually really enjoyed watching this movie. It took a while to get used to how strange it was, but the dark message paired with lighthearted humor makes it interesting. The scene that stuck with me the most was all the scenes of sam's dreams, him flying through the air with his beautiful wings soaring towards a woman in a cage calling his name. It doesn't really stick with me any other reason than its pretty to watch, and it brings a bit of calm in between all the other chaotic scenes.
ReplyDeleteI like Sam enough. He seems like an ok guy but he's boring. It was the same way with the main character in 1984, you're not supposed to love and care about this average bland guy. I also think he is trying his best with the life he is given. I think his mission is to find this woman and meet her, which is a pretty superficial mission but I can't blame him. His mother is crazy and he has a boring life, he's just having something interesting happen by following this girl.
The problem in this is their government. Their government that hides information, keeps documents on everything, and controls its citizens. The way the mysterious lady is sent back and forth from department to department unable to get anything done about her neighbor's wrongful arrest, they ignore her for so long he gets killed. The dramatization of the governments role is very satirical in the way by making their extreme role look normal.
I like the movie so far and my favorite scene was the one at the restaurant when the kitchen exploded due to a terrorist attack. It was comedic how everyone just seemed annoyed but did not care at all, and then when the waiter used a room divider to shield the explosion from the table made it even funnier. However, I really don’t Iike Sam’s dreamscapes, I think they add more confusion that clarity and make him seem really creepy with his obsession with Jill. I think Sam wants to go against the pointless system of paperwork and the government, but he doesn’t know how. He is the second most moral character so far, with the upstairs neighbor who Sam is pining after being the first. I don’t like his mission because it is centered around finding Jill, the upstairs neighbor to the Buttles. His mission is self serving, but along the way he seems to battle the system of regulations and government. The problems that Gilliam presents are that as a people, we are too focused on making systems and legal requirements to do anything, basically busy work that humans create for themselves. He is also commenting on people’s obsession with technology, that ends up doing more harm than good. Gilliam comments on the issues by showing the frustration with the legality of everything and the meaningless paperwork that must be done, like when Sam calls central services for help with his air conditioner, and they freak out because they don’t have the right forms to help him. He comments on the usage of technology with the broken toast and coffee machine and Mrs. Lowry’s obsession with her plastic surgeon and her friends obsession with the new advances in plastic surgery that practically melt her face.
ReplyDeleteSo far I am a huge fan of this film. I love to question our society and all of the backwards ways we have boxed ourselves into it, so this film's overall message wasn't exactly new to me. Although it has it's strange quirks and such, I really do enjoy the film a lot. I think it does a great job of creating this wonderfully wacky universe made up of Bureaucrats and
ReplyDeleteuseless administrators tasked with filling out endless paper work for an unknown reason. A moment that really stuck with me was when Sam's apartment had been completely destroyed and the terrible heating engineers simply just left it there for him to take care of. In this society they were literally the only ones who could fix it (besides Tuttle). It made me think of how ruthlessly bureaucratic the people in the universe are. Maybe that's where we're headed.
I do like Sam a lot. I think he is starting to grow tiresome of his life. I think his recurring dream is his subconscious showing him what he really wants. He wants to get away from that gray and awful world and go somewhere with blue skies, big billowing clouds, green pastures and a beautiful woman waiting for him. He doesn't care about money or getting a better job or anything of the sort. I admire that about Sam. He may not be the most courageous person, but he does have free thought and is able to question the very society he lives in, and I think that makes him a good and free thinking person. His mission is unclear. The main plot seems to be about Sam trying to locate the woman he keeps seeing in his dreams, who we later find out is a truck driver named Jill (or Jane I can't remember).
The problem that this movie presents is that the government and society in general is becoming a bit inside of itself and is pressuring people to slowly lose their individuality. In this fake world that Gilliam has created, he is showing that the human race has lost it's way. We are more concerned with control than we are with actually caring about people. We are more worried about our next promotion rather than being a good person and living life. I think Terry Gilliam is showing us what our society is slowly becoming at it's core: a useless mess of paper work more focused on control and power than prosperity. I believe Gilliam is using this wacky world to show us this in a more friendly and less aggressive way.
1. To be honest, I don’t really like the movie so far. I think it is interesting how big of a role “big brother” has in this world, and i think the way the government works in this movie is very humorous. But, the plot of the movie isn’t that interesting to me and i think the story is a little hard to follow. I also didn’t get very much of the humor.
ReplyDelete2. I don’t really like Sam that much. Even though i think Sam is a good character, he doesn’t seem to have any motive in his life, that is until he meets Jill and then he is the most motivated person in the world. Overall, Sam just doesn’t grab me as an interesting character or as someone that has an interesting story.
3. The problem in this movie is the Government’s lack of caring for its people. Even though the government is in power, they never use their power to help the needy. The government watches almost everything in this world, gives its employees endless amounts of paperwork, but when it comes to its people who are suffering, the government looks away.