Brazil

Paper Summary:

In this article, the writer discusses that Terry Gilliam's 1985 black comedy 'Brazil' uses a bizarre, crowded, and largely dysfunctional urban environment of the future as a way of commenting on the urban environment of our time. The writer points out that the urban world shown in the film reflects a created culture that never existed but that still has familiar elements that would get a response from anyone today. The writer discusses that this film uses this city as a generic city, standing in for the modern city at a time of social unrest, terrorist activity, and the ascendancy of an authoritarian regime. In short, the writer maintains that many observers might see this film as more reflective of our time than when the film was made, though such a convergence would have to be largely accidental.

From the Paper:

"In this view, the organic city has been overlaid with a created landscape, one shaped more by political forces and determined reformers of one stamp or another. In this view, these political forces pushed various populations deemed less important into some parts of the city while allowing and even encouraging white flight into suburban areas. In Los Angeles, the suburbs keep moving further from the city core, first into the Hollywood area and the San Fernando Valley, more recently into what is called Canyon Country to the north, as well as into outlying communities all around the city, such as Santa Monica, Culver City, Alhambra, and El Segundo, and others."

Sample of Sources Used:

• Avila, Eric. Popular Culture in the Age of White Flight: Fear and Fantasy in Suburban Los Angeles. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2004.
• Gilliam, Terry. Brazil. Warner Bros., 1985.
• Glass, Fred. Brazil by Terry Gilliam . Film Quarterly, Vol. 39, No. 4 (Summer 1986), 22-28.
• Hynes, Samuel. Twentieth Century Interpretations of 1984. Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey, 1971.
• Sanders, James. (2003). Celluloid Skyline. New York: Alfred A. Knopf.

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• Research Paper # 96222 : "Christian Conversion in Mexico and Brazil"

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