Sometimes films are banned or cut by censors. Treating us like children and telling us what we cannot see. Just make it a fucking 18 and let adults decide. If that rape scene is merely there as some misogynist's wank bait what the fuck makes you think that you can tell that's what it is or that I'll leave the cinema right away and go on a rampage instead of being disgusted (and maybe a little aroused)?
Sometimes films are held up by people outwith the film industry and we're told how horrible they are. As though some self appointed arsehole's view of a film matters to anyone with a brain cell (and for that reason I hope you all ignore me completely). So someone, somewhere, might think
Trainspotting glamorises drugs and want it banned but we all realise that person is an utter fool. I don't know if it was Renton climbing down a shit-encrusted toilet or a baby dying and coming back to life as a hallucination that made Bob Dole think we'd all be on the smack as soon as we saw it but, once again, make it an 18 and have some faith in other adults.
Although the road to hell is lined with good intentions, it's hard to look past the fact that these people honestly believe they are doing it for our own good and I have no right to stop them, however much I revel in my right to call them wankers. They pursue these nannying ideas with the same fervour and zeal as Ken Tynan, Charlie Chaplin and hundreds of others pursued their own agenda to stop censorship and meddling in art.
What's most amazing of all is the tiny number of films that are cut at all. Check the BBFC website and you'll see it almost never happens and can anyone actually remember the last film to have a huge moral outcry raised about it?
What's even more amazing is the number of studios who hire a scriptwriter and a director to create a film only to entirely shit all over their finished article.
Not believe me? Here's a list of some famous films that have had cuts made to them without the director's consent:
Metropolis,
King Kong,
Fantasia,
Seven Samurai,
Spartacus,
Bedknobs and Broomsticks,
The Blues Brothers,
Dances With Wolves and
Hankcock.
Some big-ass names there and hundreds more. You wouldn't associate
Bedknobs and Broomsticks with the same series of articles that's spent most of its time talking about sex and gore but that was merely cut to bring its time down a bit. Kids can't sit down for an extra fifteen minutes you see. However those cuts were minor and never changed the course or idea of the film and I don't know if the director even cared. All films are edited for time, usually with an editor working with a director; sometimes, however, again after their own final cut and directors, sadly, know that is a hazard of the job.
Some are absolutely butchered; we already discussed Todd Browning's
Freaks, but even the world's favourite black man, Will Smith, has had his last two films fucked over by the studio. First
I Am Legend removed its original ending, similar to that of the classic novel, and
Hankcock was raped into a PG-13 as opposed to the dark comedy it was originally meant to be.
Studios are always cutting films to get a PG-13 rating in the States—such is the manner of their moral outrage and the harm it can do films many cinema chains refuse to show films over a certain rating, many stores do not stock films over a certain rating, and the dollar means more than the Oscar. We'll come back to the mockery of the American ratings system at a later article but right now we're going to give Universal Studios a fist fucking in retribution for the molestation they gave Terry Gilliam's
Brazil.
What I fail to understand is how studio execs honestly think they understand cinema better than directors such as Gilliam. What makes it all worse is when you do, finally, get to see the full version of
Brazil, or
Blade Runner, or
Apocalypse Now you wonder how the fuck anyone ever thought their stupid edits, re-cuts, re-dubs and general buffoonery could ever make the film better.
Then again they didn't care if they made the film better. They only cared if they made the film more appealing to the majority. As we all know the majority means "lowest common denominator".
Directors have ways of fighting back. Taking your name off the film, using the pseudonym Alan Smithee, publicly attacking the film, refusing to do any promotion for the film, etc. Many studios also stipulate it into director's contracts so they can't take many of the avenues that should be open to them. What makes
Brazil so amazing is the lengths Gilliam went to make sure his film was shown and shown the way he intended.
The film was immediately distributed, uncut, in Europe but not in America as a few test screenings, perhaps the world's worst idea, had people say they didn't like the downbeat ending.
Of course some people won't like downbeat endings! For fuck's fucking sake. The best fucking films have downbeat endings. Let them get married and live happily ever after in
Casablanca, let Shane ride off to save the day again, let him off in
To Kill a Mockingbird and you turn it into a John Grisham novel. No film is ever improved with an imposed happy ending no matter how much we wish it was.
So a few fat Americans—we'll assume they were fat—decided
Brazil would be better with everyone riding off into the sunset and the studio ignored the clear fact it wouldn't be and asked Gilliam to re-cut. Gilliam told them to go fuck themselves and wouldn't re-cut nor allow it to be released cut. Instead he ran a full page ad in
Variety imploring its release. The ad's only text was "Dear Sid Sheinberg, when are you going to release my film? Signed: Terry Gilliam."
He then appeared on daytime TV and Bobby De Niro, not known for being a fan of film promotion, came along for emotional support in an effort to get the film released. When asked what problems he faced with the studio Gilliam merely stated "Sid Sheinberg" and held aloft a picture of the git.
Finally he was asked to speak to a set of students in California University about his problems with getting the film released and, as a visual aid, brought along his cut of the film. Gilliam then invited critics, actors, directors and just about everyone to these screenings and it ran for two weeks. It won the Los Angeles Film Critics' Award for film of the year, despite not being released. Mostly because it was a stunning film and, partly, to get it right up the studio and show solidarity with Gilliam. It won a major award without even being released and there were also people in the Academy trying to figure out if a two week run on a college campus entitled it to be picked up for Oscar nominations. Shienberg was looking like a fool, so on the back of all this Sheinberg relented and a modified cut was released that kept Gilliam's main ideals intact.
So the Americans got to the chance to see
Brazil and didn't really bother. It made a large loss and that bastard Sheinberg probably thought that he was right to do what he did in the first place.
He wasn't, of course, but the point remains that major studios, like major labels, exist not to create good art but to make money and this doesn't look like changing anytime soon. So we'll continue to have instances like
Idiocracy getting the limited release it did not deserve for ever more lest it offend, not the punter, but someone in a suit or, to be more exact, someone in a suit's wallet.
So while the BBFC, MPAA and those guardians of moral fibre tell us what we can/can't see to keep us from turning into child molesters and communists I can at least hold my hands up and admit they're doing what they feel is right and true and virtuous. Like Hitler and Gandhi.
These stains at the studios are not doing their own style of censorship to stop us from doing damage to ourselves or others but purely to keep shareholders happy, and it's sickening. If the BBFC ever do cut anything they do so only if they feel the offending piece has no artistic value. The nanny army obviously feel the same way, as wrong as they often are, and we cannot get too worked up about stupidity or we'd all end up radio rental. These bigwigs, however, often know the art they are removing in order to make money and any ire you may have should be directed at them and not some daft seventy year old from Taunton.
I digress, however: you probably want to know why
Brazil's a good film. Well, in that case, watch it. Until then read this.
It's funny. It's disgustingly funny. The cast is outstanding, the soundtrack amplifies the visual efforts wonderfully. Like all Gilliam films, it's visually striking, it's touching in the most sadistic way your soul will ever know and its themes and narrative are something we can identify with without it falling into the trap of going for the median approach to empathy with its audience. It can often be difficult to underpin serious motives and ideas through comedy but
Brazil is right up there with
Dr. Strangelove and
Modern Times and it's even better than
Jabberwocky (but I probably still prefer
Time Bandits).
Jonathan Pryce, as Sam Lowry, plays a low level civil servant in an intensely bureaucratic regime mundanely happy in his low end job; just one of a number of similarities to
1984. He has a varied and vivid dream life outside his grey, humdrum existence, and meets the literal girl of his dreams during one of the film's more harrowing scenes when he confronts a woman whose husband has been killed accidentally by the government.
This scene underpins Sam's struggle beautifully as he comes to battle between the existence he has and the existence he wants and whether he knows which one is the one he is after. After his attempts to console the woman, all muddled down in paperwork and bureaucracy, he sees the literal woman of his dreams and does all he can to find her.
His mother, a well to-do-socialite, has arranged a promotion for him which he doesn't want. The promotion, however, could help him track down the woman of his dreams and he eventually takes it up after some groveling. Exploring ideas of what we'd do to get what we dream for but, once he moves on up, his new place of work appears even more banal than his last job. Much like going to Jersey for a fresh start and something new only to find out it it's a boring little island and hotels are shite places to work no matter how many Swahili, Romanian and Polish swear words you learn.
Confusing things for Sam further are: a brilliant Robert De Niro as Harry Tuttle, a renegade mechanic who left the system because of paperwork and does guerilla maintenance; Bob Hoskins as the government's mechanic doing his best to fuck up Tuttle's work; his mother and her friend's attempts to set him up with another girl. There are also numerous other characters who underline other themes of the film such as Jim Broadbent's delightful turn as Dr. Jaffe: a plastic surgeon who cares more for appearance and beauty that for real life.
A central theme, Michael Palin's character and Sam's mother, perhaps, being the embodiment of it reminds me of a famous line from G. B. Shaw's
The Devil's Disciple: "The worst sin towards our fellow creatures is not to hate them, but to be indifferent to them". As Sam's mind begins to drift in and out of his dream world his growing unease and hatred of the life he has grows but none of his friends even notice. No-one is particularly malicious toward Sam, nor does anyone wish, or bestow, harm toward him but their complete lack of empathy makes that a worse world for our hero.
Whether you've read
Brave New World,
1984,
Fahrenheit 451 or any of those science fiction books regarding those dystopian futures or seen any of the films along the same lines or not you can just about sum up the plot on hearsay and
Brazil isn't too different. It's just more visually appealing than most and a fuckload funnier than the rest. Sam has a steady job but an uneasy sense of longing for something different whilst still having a fear of leaving his comfort zone. He then gets emotions he's never had before: his love for the woman of his dreams, and he chases after those despite the danger it puts him and his romantic interest in. All the usual characters are there, the seemingly friendly guy who is a mere drone for the system and as callous as they come, the bereaved stranger who starts those first twangs of empathy, the midget plastic surgeon, etc. The themes are nothing new nor too hard to grasp. The style and vivacity of Gilliam's interpretation are mesmeric however and it's good to see one filmmaker who carries his passion for making films into keeping them as he intended.
And it's still got that Pythonesque wit and humour seeping through it. Perhaps a flawed classic but unlike anything you've seen before or since. Thank god it got the released like it was meant to and thank god for Terry Gilliam.
Trailer
One of my faves too..
