Brazil is a little dull in too many places for me to call it a great film, but it is fun in many places as well. I think Gilliam became a much better filmmaker starting with The Fisher King. The humanistic digressions are still there throughout his later films, but they're better-focused and contribute more to the actual story being told.
Brazil wasn't about "technology". It was about the dehumanization by bureaucracy, corporations, and the government, and how they make it impossible to survive if they get past a certain point. The technology in this film is actually decaying. Computer screens are tiny, and have to be viewed through magnifying glasses. The air is polluted, the buildings are decaying, and there is a continuous war by the rebels that the government and the citizens pretend isn't happening. I don't know how Siskel and Ebert saw a completely different film than everyone else...
there are so many beautiful and horrifying scenes in this movie... i love the christmas scene with the swat team crashing through the windows cutting a hole in the ceiling throwing Buttle in a straightjacket giving the wife a receipt... then the following scene in the department of records being like a beautifully choreographed dance only to be undermined as Kurtzman goes in his office and everyone just stops and watches old films... the dream sequence with the buildings erupting from the ground... the interrogation room is unnerving... could these guys really not see all that?
Maybe the reviewers were simply overwhelmed by the movie (as I was initially). Hindsight is always 20/20 and I’m sure they would’ve picked up more as we did, after viewing it a dozen times. It was a work of art, but you shouldn’t have to watch it more than once to put it all together.
The problem is there were no rebels or terrorists. It was, as you said, the technology decaying and subsequently exploding. The government didn't want to admit this, assuming they knew about it in the first place because of all the bureaucracy that was suffocating the system so they invented "terrorists" to explain what was happening. The biggest "terrorist" we meet is Henry Tuttle. A guy that hated the fact he couldn't do anything without all the proper forms filled out. So he went against the system just so that he could repair heating units. That's the kind of guy the government wanted to get rid of. Somebody that ignored the layers of unnecessary paperwork to simply get the job done.
@@umachan9286 , Actually, there were rebels, it's just that we never see them. I don't think the government was fabricating their existence. I believe that Terry Gilliam deliberately kept them anonymous and faceless so the picture wouldn't get off track into a war between two sides, but kept the focus on one poor schmuck just trying to survive in such a hopeless world.
That’s not a good enough metric. Maybe the ideas are better than 95% of movies made but the execution and story are so derivative of so many other movies before.
The film isn't just about technology. It's about the bureaucratization of society and the loss of individuality and freedom. The dream sequences perfectly illustrate that idea and the film wouldn't be the same without them
Wow, I've never seen Siskel and Ebert more off about a picture than this one. The movie was Not about "technology out of control". If anything, the technology was decaying, because of the constant warfare. It was about absolute tyranny combined with absolute pointless bureaucracy taking over, crushing people's dreams or hope for a better life, where your only Escape was into dreams. Siskel said "if they'd thrown out all the dream sequences, it would have been better". Siskel missed the whole point that the dreams were the poor hero's only escape; and that he finally escaped into madness at the end. Terry Gillium had a very depressing assessment of his own film; that there is no escape from the system anymore, except into your own fantasies. There is no fighting it or defeating it, or even escaping it; except into your own mind. Great message, Terry. I think a better moral for it (if there is one), is that we must never allow our world to get to this point in the first place, or there is no escape.
One of my theories is there are no terrorists. We never see them. Let's say the decaying technology you mention is the CAUSE of the explosions, and government is either 1) too inept to realize it or 2) too corrupt to speak the truth.
I think our world is already there... And if you've lived in the UK, as I did in the mid to late '80s when this film came out, the bureaucracy is even worse. Getting anything fixed in a timely fashion was a nightmare! He wasn't far off.
@@arturojimenez7087 to be fair a lot of people didnt get it when it came out it demanded multiple viewings it is only in the later years it has become more understood
Got to disagree with them both this time. "Brazil" is an amazing experience - Orwellian in its themes. It is a relentless film too though, but that's part of its strength. You walk out of this film feeling exhausted due to its impact (especially seeing it in a theater).
Brazil is a FANTASTIC film - there's a reason it's in the Criterion collection. What got released in the states had parts hacked out toward the end because the American studio execs wanted to give it a happier ending. That added greatly to the confusion. What Gilliam originally intended makes more sense. I saw the film again not too long after 9/11. I was stunned by its prescience.
It's examples like this that showed me that film critics don't always get it right and yet too many people will go see a movie, or not see a movie, based on what their favorite critic said. Use them as a guide if you must but make up your own mind on what you want to see.
It wasn't about man being overwhelmed by "technology". It was about bureaucratic fascism. The idea that bureaucracy can, in its extreme, become a form of fascism. I have some of the same complaints that they did. It is sometimes confusing and meandering. The special effects can be almost a distraction from the film itself. It is also brilliant and beautiful and demoralizing. It is definitely worth seeing.
Siskel was wrong on every count. It wasn't a movie about "technology". If anything, the technology had gone backwards, not forwards, because of the constant warfare. It's about the dystopian government that lies continually to its people that are happy to live in the fantasy propaganda that the government sells. It's like 1984, except the people are even more enthusiastic about avoiding the reality they are living in. Siskel says that if Gillium had "removed All of the dream sequences in the movie, it would improve the film a little bit". Genius statement there, Siskel. The entire point of the film as stated by Gillium is that in this world, fantasy is the only way to escape the harsh reality they live in, and so Pryce uses his daydreams to escape the oppression they live in. At the end, when he is being brutally tortured to death for information, he makes his final escape.... into his own mind. I thought it was a depressing statement, and is what set off the battle between Gillium and the studio, that thought it was too depressing for audiences. (For a fascinating behind-the-scenes breakdown of this battle of wills, read the book "The Battle of Brazil", which in its own way is just as weird as the film was). However, it was the statement that Gillium wanted to make. But Siskel was way out to lunch, and smugly so, on this one. Which is a common dodge by critics; if they don't understand something, dismiss it smugly without analyzing it. Ebert was guilty of this himself at times.
How they can say the shorter version (the love conquers all version) criterion dvd) is better is just astounding ,the full version is amazing and today more real than ever
The US theatrical release was inferior. Perhaps the European version would have reviewed better for these guys. But I know that in those times, US audiences could not handle "sad" endings. They wanted a happy ending to go with their movies as they pranced on home as they left the theater.
2 years late but the US theatrical release was the director's. I saw it the weekend it finally came out. It was the television version that was edited to end happily.
@@Susang It depends on the concept of psychology. I thought Sam - mentally - was very happy living with his partner in a Cumbrian ideal location, sure he was a vegetable but mentally he's the happiest man. He's in his zone and it's a happy place. It isn't reality but it is his reality. I thought that K-Pax tried to copy that psychology in it's ending.
It’s funny I agreed with Ebert when I first watched it but years later after re-watching the film I now think it’s brilliant and before its time. It would have been interesting if these two were to re-examine the film which of course isn’t going to happen.
I agree, i also find stupid to have a strong opinion on something you clearly didn’t get or even tried to understand, if you want to be a critic imo you should be a bit more humble.
How could you be confused by Brazil ? I thought it was a straight forward dark comedy about a dystopian future in which a massive government bureaucracy regulated everyone's lives.
The movie was confused, which is slightly different than confusing. Confused means it is less consistent. Confusing things can be vacuous-confused tends to mean it’s stuffed with somewhat odd and out of place choices. That said, they did interpret the movie wrong.
@@benabaxter As David Lynch once stated "Why should film make any sense ? Life makes no sense !". A Hollywood entertainment should be consistent. That should not be a requirement for something that is truly ambitious.
Ricardo Cantoral if you want films that are like they are by David Lynch, that is very good advice. However, life does make sense. Storytelling is the art of making sense of life. If you want a story that manages to be about something, lean towards the Unities.
@@benabaxter Life makes sense ? Are you kidding me ? Dude, you are lucky to be breathing right now. The world is chaos. Regarding film, I have enjoyed plenty of classically structured stories but I also enjoy films that don't place a great of importance on narrative like the films of Tarkovsky, Sharunas Bartas, Jem Cohen, and Peter Hutton. Film is not limited to just telling stories and they are not bereft of meaning just because they are outside of the norm.
Ricardo Cantoral In that case, I think we are at a fundamental philosophical difference between us! Attentiveness to the moral dimension of reality will always produce something coherent, I believe. I would point this out: Without coherence, you limit the possibility of art. Meaninglessness and purposelessness and chaos is the only message possible in a story which rejects the purpose, coherence, and order of life. Wouldn't that get dull after a while---and miserable immediately? Still, I respect your polite disagreement. Thanks for engaging!
From what I’ve read of Ebert in particular the range of films they could consider good where strictly relegated to the realms of the banal, anything fantastical, avant garde or ridiculous was over indulgent. I’m sure there are exceptions, but I’ve never found any.
Most reviewers, including Gene Siskel and Robert Ebert totally miss the point of "Brazil" by missing it's most obvious main characters -- the unseen terrorist foes of the seemingly hapless society. And for some reason, many people don't get that the main theme of "Brazil" is "escape". "Brazil" takes place "Somewhere in the 20th Century" because the film largely focuses on tragi-comical responses, both large and small, to terrorism and terrorist threats, in which every aspect of the society is transformed from something like 1940 to 1984 UK (i.e., the world of you and me), into a modern, distrustful, materialistic and authoritarian machine (though error-ridden and inefficient), that has dehumanized everyone and sucked all life out the protangonist, Sam Lowry. In "Brazil" the problem is not technology itself but how technology was arrayed to improve security. Unlike "1984" in which Big Brother has an aspect of technical perfection, "Brazil" rejects the idea that humans can ever achieve such perfection and ingeniously demonstrates technical imperfection and vulnerabilities as comical (like "Tuttle" to "Buttle") even while humans and their freedoms are being violently put to death. (Terry Gilliam intended to have "Brazil" released in 1984, which would have synchronized it with the title of the George Orwell novel "1984".) Overall, the movie's title means the real Brazil, popularly known as a tourist destination, because the plot is all about escapes from reality by Sam Lowry (whose escape is the main plot) and, to some obvious extent, each of the film's characters -- each escape having some tragi-comical aspect. The theme of "escape" is eveywhere as an aspect of everyday human desire-- illustrated by advirtising and realized as fantastic air ducts, convenience appliances, telephones, vacuum tube document communications, robotic surveillance cameras, body modification, etc., that fail before our eyes in hilarious ways. I think the film and screenplay (written by Gilliam, Charles McKeown and Tom Stoppard) are masterpieces because "Brazil" is a hoot that empathizes with each character, who try to adapt to oppression, while providing an essential warning to viewers who value individual liberty.
Or they just didn't like it. Thats the problem with film nerds these days. They act like a critics has to praise high brow stuff and get mad when they dont
Whatever. Whatever. Whatever. The first time I saw it-I was mesmerized, blown away, and could not believe what I had just seen. Each time since, it became more rich, hysterical and wonderful. I love, love, love this movie. Sometimes people read too much into something; when they really just need to sit back, relax, and simply enjoy the smorgasbord before them.
I think the movie worked on both of them. The overwhelming feeling of living in a totalitarian society where everything is up in the air and you can’t made heads or tails of what’s going on around you and can’t question anything lest you be lost in the mix yourself and get declared dead - like Tuttle... That’s the point of the film... It’s a brutal, inhuman society... That ‘beats you over the head’...
Think Roger & Gene missed the point of the film. It wasn't about technology it's about pencil pushing geeks who have the power to send anyone to their death. They murder a guy because of a typo and then give his wife a check for damages. A truly disgusting moment that captures the 1984-esqe society of Brazil. It is one of Gilliam's greatest films.
Brazil is one of my all time favorite movies so I disagree with their assessment but it does depend on which version they viewed. That scene with Sam fighting over his desk is one of my all time favorites in comedy, right up there with the best from Chaplin, Fawlty Towers, Monty Python, Lucille Ball, Laurel & Hardy, etc. -- brilliant and gets me laughing every time!
The film is brilliant. It is a nightmare and is overwhelming the way nightmares are overwhelming and surreal. I saw it in the theater when it was first released and I still laugh and ultimately die inside when I see how completely this film describes the human condition.
I can't believe they both didn't even grasp the meaning of the film. Technology is not the enemy here. Brazil depicts a society filled with bureaucracy and propaganda which, while always stifling and frustrating to the citizens, is now evolving into a deadly menace. And there is always the "enemy" out there....the terrorists.... for the state to use as a distraction from the real threat. And the ending is amazing, for it can be interpreted in two completely opposite ways. If it had been made today, I think it would make a lot of sense to most people.
Don't blame Terry Gilliam for the North American EDITED release of Brazil. It has been cut down from the original Award-Winning European version to allow more showings per day. However, much of what was cut would actually allow the audience to follow the plot better.
I became a big Python fan at 18, and watched Brazil then expexting a Python movie (and, I hoped, some nudity, since it was rated R). For 30 years, I considered this film a huge disappointment, but after having spent a lifetime of corporate drudgery and bureaucratic frustration, I watched it recently through these tired eyes and finally got it.
@Texas Chainsaw Jesus Well, as a general rule (at least for me), I take any reviewer (even the ones that I seem to be more 'in sync' with) with a grain of salt. Ultimately, you have to check it out for yourself and form your own opinion.
Critics are not supposed to tell you about their personal opinion. They're supposed to objectively evaluate something with their professional knowledge. Something these two sacks of potatoes often struggled with.
@Nathan Allen People are mad because they didn't even give the film a chance. They're not even judging it for what it is. Siskel says it's about technology overwhelming society..........like did he fall asleep during the movie? The technology doesn't work, and that's the point because a totalitarian government isn't just powerfully terrifying they're also hilariously incompetent. Sam is a smart imaginative man who should excel in society. But instead he prefers to stay hidden away in archives where he has minimal responsibility but still some freedom since his boss is so incompetent he needs Sam to help him with everything. How can two "professional" critics miss all that and think the movie is just about technology overwhelming society??????
A compelling and terrifying film. I think they got it wrong here and I’ve seen them be too quick to dismiss other films of this type as well. Perhaps they couldn’t get passed the technological themes given it was the 80s and there were many technological advances happening at the time. I saw it in 2019, in a local art house cinema. I enjoyed the visuals and effects, thought they had aged well but overall I think the tone of hopelessness in the face of society’s “machine” and Jonathan Pryce’s character’s paranoia which got to me the most. I left the cinema thinking Brazil’s horror was in how true to life the experience of the main character was for many of us today. Eery stuff and brave filmmaking.
Nope. Siskel & Ebert saw the original cut and Siskel said he liked the brazil love conquers all cut more . beau is afraid is better then brazil despite being a carbon copy of it. 3:16
This was big budget in 1985. The fastest way to date your own film is to show too much technology of the time. You can look back at this picture now and see how weird and old it is. Doesn't mean it isn't good, but looks creepy and weird with those big magnifying glasses over the computers! The story is inspired and amazing.
its a favorite of mine. love the 2 hour 22 minute original full length version of it. have 2 pressings on laserdisc and love it. its a movie i can watch many times over and never get worn out with it.
This is one of my all time favorite movies. Critics do one thing, they criticize when they have nothing relevant to say. Haven't watched it in years, am going off now to see if I can find it again. I even made a bootleg copy of the video on my Betamax back then.
Like many movies made by visionaries, they are not well understood at the time they come out. In current times it has become clear that despite the warnings we are living in a Brazil like world.
As much as I admired these two critics, I could not disagree more strongly with their assessment of the film, Brazil. Brazil surprises in so many ways. It is don Quixote in 1984. It is Kiss of the Spider Woman in a dark-matter universe, chiral to our own in a dystopic, fun-house way. And beyond its mind-bending sets, there is a story of a bureaucrat who escapes his mundane existence to die a Borgesian dream, his own "secret miracle."
I do wonder which version these guys saw. I saw it in England, where the director's version was released, and it made perfect sense to me. It's in my top five. Not tech, guys: Bureaucracy. How did they miss that????
Except that's not what the movie is about. Seriously what kind of an idiot do you have to be to take that away. Overwhelmed by technology? The technology doesn't work. And that's the point because an all powerful totalitarian government wouldn't just be terrifying but also hilariously incompetent. A literal bug causes a man's death. Sam's alarm clock doesn't work, his breakfast machine can't even make breakfast. His heating system is an overly complicated disaster. The computer screens are literally a magnifying glass. The government's procedures result in talented engineers like Tuttle having to go rogue just to do their jobs. And Siskel thinks the movie is about technology overwhelming society. Seriously what a moron.
That’s what I think. In my opinion, Brazil is an even better adaptation of 1984 than the movie “1984”. It’s exactly as lighthearted and action-packed as it can possibly be when dealing with such horrific subject matter, and that makes it fun to revisit, whereas you only really need to watch 1984 once and if you watch it too many more times you’ll feel dismal for weeks. Man, I should watch this again, even though I just saw it for the first time within the last two years!
When I was a kid, I thought that these two were film experts. This changed when I saw some the movies that they recommended and I was bored. Brazil, Fight Club, The Matrix are masterpieces that that these two didn't get.
It seems the dream or fantasy sequences in the film represented the soaring of the human psyche when stressed, an escape if you will * i had my own dream sequence when i watched this film by falling asleep and escaping to a Land of rainbows and unicorns
I wrote my first film paper in college on Brazil, as it is one of the film's that made me decide to major in film (a dubious choice, in retrospect). I got an A plus, and the prof wrote, "you have a very advanced understanding of film." Most of that understanding came from having watched Brazil so closely and so many times (it came out when I was in England, so I got to see the directors cut, not what was released in the US). I miss films with so much visual subtext. These days everything is very shallow and surface-level, especially in sci-fi films.
Some aspects of the film are not the dialogue but the posters on the wall, like the children playing Information Retrieval, behind them is a poster of a concentration camp... Mellowfields. Top Security Holiday Camps. Luxury without fear. Fun without suspicion. Relax in a panic free atmosphere.... All with security towers, searchlights, barbed wire...
It is discouraging that Both if voted thumbs down, Did not Understand the importance of " Brazil". Then again, both were in 1985 at the time. The Movie touched not hard, yet both Brilliant Critics could NOT understand the "Mocking". Sad De Moi.
I saw this three times when it came out - the only film I’ve done that. I don’t don’t understand how both of these experienced critics could miss the point of this film. It isn’t about technology, which doesn’t work very well. It’s about totalitarian society, but done in an entertaining way instead of merely a grim way, although there are some grim parts, necessarily.
It hurts. Siskel and Ebert hurt me. They hurt me very deeply with this review. They disagree with me, and IT HURTS. It is not right that they should be able to do this. It hurts like hell, and we shouldn't let them get away with this. IT HURTS.
Brazil was certainly a work of art but very overwhelming and confusing if you’ve only viewed it once. It’s easy for us to say they’re wrong because we’ve seen it a dozen times. Gilliam is a genius, but I can see their point that this film needed to be a little watered down for the casual viewer to grasp what’s going on.
I don’t get it… it’s already a lighthearted, less esoteric spin on 1984. I mean if heady story content just isn’t your thing then I get it… but this review is coming from the guys who said Home Alone 3 was better than 1 or 2. They just have bad taste sometimes
I am never put off by critics not liking a movie that time has shown is great. It is a confusing movie. It takes more than one viewing to really get it. I also imagine they might have seen the happy ending cut back then that did not pack the wallop the intended cut did. If I were to cut out something from the movie, it would be the mom's plastic surgeries and the getting so young she is younger than the main character was. It did not fit the theme of the movie at all and needlessly confused it. I think that was the only instance where Gilliam maybe went too far and indulged with something because he thought it was cool and the effect was cool. Plastic surgery and its overuse really had nothing to do with what this film was about.
Ebert was a hardline democrat during his life. By today's standards he would be a big government progressive. I imagine he was somewhat offended by this Orwellian satirical take on bureaucracy.
the scene of DeNiro being consumed by paperwork was, alone, worth the entirety of the movie
“Nowadays they got the whole country cordoned off, can’t get anywhere without a form. Bloody paperwork!”
" Deniro " was portraying a " Republican ". I think that it disturbed him and caused to snap in real life.
@@clutchpedalreturnsprg7710 no, he was an anthropomorphization of the free market
@@CR055FIRE Ah, so you agree that he has snapped.
@@clutchpedalreturnsprg7710i'm not sure what you mean but if your talking about deniro in real life: he has always been a liberal democrat
They were very wrong about Brazil. 30 years later it's still brilliant.
Brazil is a little dull in too many places for me to call it a great film, but it is fun in many places as well. I think Gilliam became a much better filmmaker starting with The Fisher King. The humanistic digressions are still there throughout his later films, but they're better-focused and contribute more to the actual story being told.
You can’t be wrong about an opinion
@@nickparadies350 well...that's your opinion, but you're wrong.
Agreed! Brazil is a masterpiece!
It ages well!
Brazil wasn't about "technology". It was about the dehumanization by bureaucracy, corporations, and the government, and how they make it impossible to survive if they get past a certain point. The technology in this film is actually decaying. Computer screens are tiny, and have to be viewed through magnifying glasses. The air is polluted, the buildings are decaying, and there is a continuous war by the rebels that the government and the citizens pretend isn't happening. I don't know how Siskel and Ebert saw a completely different film than everyone else...
there are so many beautiful and horrifying scenes in this movie... i love the christmas scene with the swat team crashing through the windows cutting a hole in the ceiling throwing Buttle in a straightjacket giving the wife a receipt... then the following scene in the department of records being like a beautifully choreographed dance only to be undermined as Kurtzman goes in his office and everyone just stops and watches old films... the dream sequence with the buildings erupting from the ground... the interrogation room is unnerving... could these guys really not see all that?
Maybe the reviewers were simply overwhelmed by the movie (as I was initially). Hindsight is always 20/20 and I’m sure they would’ve picked up more as we did, after viewing it a dozen times. It was a work of art, but you shouldn’t have to watch it more than once to put it all together.
The problem is there were no rebels or terrorists. It was, as you said, the technology decaying and subsequently exploding. The government didn't want to admit this, assuming they knew about it in the first place because of all the bureaucracy that was suffocating the system so they invented "terrorists" to explain what was happening.
The biggest "terrorist" we meet is Henry Tuttle. A guy that hated the fact he couldn't do anything without all the proper forms filled out. So he went against the system just so that he could repair heating units. That's the kind of guy the government wanted to get rid of. Somebody that ignored the layers of unnecessary paperwork to simply get the job done.
Very well said.
@@umachan9286 , Actually, there were rebels, it's just that we never see them. I don't think the government was fabricating their existence.
I believe that Terry Gilliam deliberately kept them anonymous and faceless so the picture wouldn't get off track into a war between two sides, but kept the focus on one poor schmuck just trying to survive in such a hopeless world.
Brazil is still better than 95 percent of the movies made every year by hollywood.
99.99%
That’s not a good enough metric. Maybe the ideas are better than 95% of movies made but the execution and story are so derivative of so many other movies before.
"Brazil" was a bit loose at the joints, but it was a portrayal of an incompetent but tyrannical England of the future, a sort of "1984" with a grin.
After thirty-six years, it Looks a bit like the " united States " to me. Where it's headed to if the trajectory is not corrected.
100% correct!!!
It's alright Siskel and Ebert. You two were allowed to be wrong.
The film isn't just about technology. It's about the bureaucratization of society and the loss of individuality and freedom.
The dream sequences perfectly illustrate that idea and the film wouldn't be the same without them
And people ignoring the horrors of Everyday society, it’s even more relevant now than then imo
Agree, they totally missed the mark on that technology bs.. Maybe bureaucracy was not a issue in 1985.
Wow, I've never seen Siskel and Ebert more off about a picture than this one.
The movie was Not about "technology out of control". If anything, the technology was decaying, because of the constant warfare. It was about absolute tyranny combined with absolute pointless bureaucracy taking over, crushing people's dreams or hope for a better life, where your only Escape was into dreams. Siskel said "if they'd thrown out all the dream sequences, it would have been better".
Siskel missed the whole point that the dreams were the poor hero's only escape; and that he finally escaped into madness at the end.
Terry Gillium had a very depressing assessment of his own film; that there is no escape from the system anymore, except into your own fantasies. There is no fighting it or defeating it, or even escaping it; except into your own mind. Great message, Terry. I think a better moral for it (if there is one), is that we must never allow our world to get to this point in the first place, or there is no escape.
One of my theories is there are no terrorists. We never see them. Let's say the decaying technology you mention is the CAUSE of the explosions, and government is either 1) too inept to realize it or 2) too corrupt to speak the truth.
I think our world is already there... And if you've lived in the UK, as I did in the mid to late '80s when this film came out, the bureaucracy is even worse. Getting anything fixed in a timely fashion was a nightmare! He wasn't far off.
your fantasies are just as part of the system as anything else.
Those two missed the point of good films rather often, if you ask me...
@@arturojimenez7087 to be fair a lot of people didnt get it when it came out it demanded multiple viewings it is only in the later years it has become more understood
Throw the dream sequences out? Those are the prelude to his "escape" and are extremely important to that point.
Got to disagree with them both this time. "Brazil" is an amazing experience - Orwellian in its themes. It is a relentless film too though, but that's part of its strength. You walk out of this film feeling exhausted due to its impact (especially seeing it in a theater).
Brazil is a FANTASTIC film - there's a reason it's in the Criterion collection. What got released in the states had parts hacked out toward the end because the American studio execs wanted to give it a happier ending. That added greatly to the confusion. What Gilliam originally intended makes more sense.
I saw the film again not too long after 9/11. I was stunned by its prescience.
although I agree you cant use criterion as a reason. keep in mind they gave the treatment to Armageddon and the Rock
@@badreligionbombum the rock is one of the best action movies of all time it deserves to be there
violent, satiric comedy with staggering special effects. sounds like a great film to me.
It is great. See my comments to this video somewhere here.
This should be taught in schools: "Losing The Point 101"
The film was waaaaaaaay ahead of its time.
It's examples like this that showed me that film critics don't always get it right and yet too many people will go see a movie, or not see a movie, based on what their favorite critic said. Use them as a guide if you must but make up your own mind on what you want to see.
Generally, if film critics pan a film, I try to see it.
@@howieduwit2551 Did you make time to watch White Chicks, Freddy Got Fingered, or Movie 43?
@@Thagomizerwhite chicks is a good movie
Watched this movie for the first time yesterday. I'm 43 years old. It's a fantastic movie!!
Sometimes SIskel would thumbs down a great movie and sometimes Ebert would, this is a very rare instance where they both did.
They thought technology was an issue then. The fools!
It wasn't about man being overwhelmed by "technology". It was about bureaucratic fascism. The idea that bureaucracy can, in its extreme, become a form of fascism. I have some of the same complaints that they did. It is sometimes confusing and meandering. The special effects can be almost a distraction from the film itself. It is also brilliant and beautiful and demoralizing. It is definitely worth seeing.
Remember when Ebert gave Home Alone 3 a thumbs up?
Yeah, he called it the best of the original three, Ebert could be wrong at times
Siskel was wrong on every count. It wasn't a movie about "technology". If anything, the technology had gone backwards, not forwards, because of the constant warfare. It's about the dystopian government that lies continually to its people that are happy to live in the fantasy propaganda that the government sells. It's like 1984, except the people are even more enthusiastic about avoiding the reality they are living in. Siskel says that if Gillium had "removed All of the dream sequences in the movie, it would improve the film a little bit". Genius statement there, Siskel. The entire point of the film as stated by Gillium is that in this world, fantasy is the only way to escape the harsh reality they live in, and so Pryce uses his daydreams to escape the oppression they live in. At the end, when he is being brutally tortured to death for information, he makes his final escape.... into his own mind.
I thought it was a depressing statement, and is what set off the battle between Gillium and the studio, that thought it was too depressing for audiences. (For a fascinating behind-the-scenes breakdown of this battle of wills, read the book "The Battle of Brazil", which in its own way is just as weird as the film was). However, it was the statement that Gillium wanted to make.
But Siskel was way out to lunch, and smugly so, on this one. Which is a common dodge by critics; if they don't understand something, dismiss it smugly without analyzing it. Ebert was guilty of this himself at times.
Superbly summed up.
How they can say the shorter version (the love conquers all version) criterion dvd) is better is just astounding ,the full version is amazing and today more real than ever
The US theatrical release was inferior. Perhaps the European version would have reviewed better for these guys. But I know that in those times, US audiences could not handle "sad" endings. They wanted a happy ending to go with their movies as they pranced on home as they left the theater.
2 years late but the US theatrical release was the director's. I saw it the weekend it finally came out. It was the television version that was edited to end happily.
@@Susang It depends on the concept of psychology. I thought Sam - mentally - was very happy living with his partner in a Cumbrian ideal location, sure he was a vegetable but mentally he's the happiest man. He's in his zone and it's a happy place. It isn't reality but it is his reality. I thought that K-Pax tried to copy that psychology in it's ending.
It’s funny I agreed with Ebert when I first watched it but years later after re-watching the film I now think it’s brilliant and before its time. It would have been interesting if these two were to re-examine the film which of course isn’t going to happen.
I agree, i also find stupid to have a strong opinion on something you clearly didn’t get or even tried to understand, if you want to be a critic imo you should be a bit more humble.
How could you be confused by Brazil ? I thought it was a straight forward dark comedy about a dystopian future in which a massive government bureaucracy regulated everyone's lives.
The movie was confused, which is slightly different than confusing. Confused means it is less consistent. Confusing things can be vacuous-confused tends to mean it’s stuffed with somewhat odd and out of place choices.
That said, they did interpret the movie wrong.
@@benabaxter As David Lynch once stated "Why should film make any sense ? Life makes no sense !". A Hollywood entertainment should be consistent. That should not be a requirement for something that is truly ambitious.
Ricardo Cantoral if you want films that are like they are by David Lynch, that is very good advice. However, life does make sense. Storytelling is the art of making sense of life. If you want a story that manages to be about something, lean towards the Unities.
@@benabaxter Life makes sense ? Are you kidding me ? Dude, you are lucky to be breathing right now. The world is chaos. Regarding film, I have enjoyed plenty of classically structured stories but I also enjoy films that don't place a great of importance on narrative like the films of Tarkovsky, Sharunas Bartas, Jem Cohen, and Peter Hutton. Film is not limited to just telling stories and they are not bereft of meaning just because they are outside of the norm.
Ricardo Cantoral In that case, I think we are at a fundamental philosophical difference between us! Attentiveness to the moral dimension of reality will always produce something coherent, I believe. I would point this out: Without coherence, you limit the possibility of art. Meaninglessness and purposelessness and chaos is the only message possible in a story which rejects the purpose, coherence, and order of life. Wouldn't that get dull after a while---and miserable immediately? Still, I respect your polite disagreement. Thanks for engaging!
I saw this at the theater and it instantly became one of my all time favorites. And it still is. I'm surprised how many great films they didn't like.
From what I’ve read of Ebert in particular the range of films they could consider good where strictly relegated to the realms of the banal, anything fantastical, avant garde or ridiculous was over indulgent. I’m sure there are exceptions, but I’ve never found any.
Ebert is wrong about Brazil.
Most reviewers, including Gene Siskel and Robert Ebert totally miss the point of "Brazil" by missing it's most obvious main characters -- the unseen terrorist foes of the seemingly hapless society. And for some reason, many people don't get that the main theme of "Brazil" is "escape".
"Brazil" takes place "Somewhere in the 20th Century" because the film largely focuses on tragi-comical responses, both large and small, to terrorism and terrorist threats, in which every aspect of the society is transformed from something like 1940 to 1984 UK (i.e., the world of you and me), into a modern, distrustful, materialistic and authoritarian machine (though error-ridden and inefficient), that has dehumanized everyone and sucked all life out the protangonist, Sam Lowry. In "Brazil" the problem is not technology itself but how technology was arrayed to improve security. Unlike "1984" in which Big Brother has an aspect of technical perfection, "Brazil" rejects the idea that humans can ever achieve such perfection and ingeniously demonstrates technical imperfection and vulnerabilities as comical (like "Tuttle" to "Buttle") even while humans and their freedoms are being violently put to death. (Terry Gilliam intended to have "Brazil" released in 1984, which would have synchronized it with the title of the George Orwell novel "1984".)
Overall, the movie's title means the real Brazil, popularly known as a tourist destination, because the plot is all about escapes from reality by Sam Lowry (whose escape is the main plot) and, to some obvious extent, each of the film's characters -- each escape having some tragi-comical aspect. The theme of "escape" is eveywhere as an aspect of everyday human desire-- illustrated by advirtising and realized as fantastic air ducts, convenience appliances, telephones, vacuum tube document communications, robotic surveillance cameras, body modification, etc., that fail before our eyes in hilarious ways. I think the film and screenplay (written by Gilliam, Charles McKeown and Tom Stoppard) are masterpieces because "Brazil" is a hoot that empathizes with each character, who try to adapt to oppression, while providing an essential warning to viewers who value individual liberty.
Or they just didn't like it. Thats the problem with film nerds these days. They act like a critics has to praise high brow stuff and get mad when they dont
Whatever. Whatever. Whatever. The first time I saw it-I was mesmerized, blown away, and could not believe what I had just seen. Each time since, it became more rich, hysterical and wonderful. I love, love, love this movie. Sometimes people read too much into something; when they really just need to sit back, relax, and simply enjoy the smorgasbord before them.
I think the movie worked on both of them. The overwhelming feeling of living in a totalitarian society where everything is up in the air and you can’t made heads or tails of what’s going on around you and can’t question anything lest you be lost in the mix yourself and get declared dead - like Tuttle... That’s the point of the film... It’s a brutal, inhuman society... That ‘beats you over the head’...
Think Roger & Gene missed the point of the film. It wasn't about technology it's about pencil pushing geeks who have the power to send anyone to their death. They murder a guy because of a typo and then give his wife a check for damages. A truly disgusting moment that captures the 1984-esqe society of Brazil. It is one of Gilliam's greatest films.
It wasn’t even for damages. They were refunding his interrogation charges.
One of the greatest films of all time.
The clip from the movie is so damn long. Jesus christ
Brazil is one of my all time favorite movies so I disagree with their assessment but it does depend on which version they viewed.
That scene with Sam fighting over his desk is one of my all time favorites in comedy, right up there with the best from Chaplin, Fawlty Towers, Monty Python, Lucille Ball, Laurel & Hardy, etc. -- brilliant and gets me laughing every time!
The co-desk fighter was also a the co author of the screenplay...
Just goes to show: we all make mistakes.
"The character of Sam needed more attention."
98% of the movie is told through his point of view!
Great film. Both Siskel and Ebert do have a point of the film but it's still fantastic.
And now this is considered a classic. Get the Criterion version on DVD/Bluray
Ebert and Siskel notoriously hate Gilliam, and only gave him one thumbs up ever, that being for Munchausen.
His work has always rubbed me the wrong way, to be honest.
@@Thagomizerwhy?
Not a bad office.
This movie is genius. Odd that both Gene and Roger miss this easily observable fact.
The film is brilliant. It is a nightmare and is overwhelming the way nightmares are overwhelming and surreal. I saw it in the theater when it was first released and I still laugh and ultimately die inside when I see how completely this film describes the human condition.
"Violent"? There's literally one scene of actual violence in the entire film.
The violence in Brazil was psychological.
There was like two explosions but roger said there was a large number
I can't believe they both didn't even grasp the meaning of the film. Technology is not the enemy here. Brazil depicts a society filled with bureaucracy and propaganda which, while always stifling and frustrating to the citizens, is now evolving into a deadly menace. And there is always the "enemy" out there....the terrorists.... for the state to use as a distraction from the real threat. And the ending is amazing, for it can be interpreted in two completely opposite ways. If it had been made today, I think it would make a lot of sense to most people.
I think it went over their heads.
Don't blame Terry Gilliam for the North American EDITED release of Brazil. It has been cut down from the original Award-Winning European version to allow more showings per day. However, much of what was cut would actually allow the audience to follow the plot better.
I became a big Python fan at 18, and watched Brazil then expexting a Python movie (and, I hoped, some nudity, since it was rated R). For 30 years, I considered this film a huge disappointment, but after having spent a lifetime of corporate drudgery and bureaucratic frustration, I watched it recently through these tired eyes and finally got it.
Every one of these S &E clips has crybabies in the comments section complaining that they didn't like their favorite film.
@Texas Chainsaw Jesus Or maybe, just maybe, they have different opinions than you?
@Texas Chainsaw Jesus Well, as a general rule (at least for me), I take any reviewer (even the ones that I seem to be more 'in sync' with) with a grain of salt. Ultimately, you have to check it out for yourself and form your own opinion.
Texas Chainsaw Jesus so let me understand... You like the film if the premise and cast is good?
Critics are not supposed to tell you about their personal opinion.
They're supposed to objectively evaluate something with their professional knowledge.
Something these two sacks of potatoes often struggled with.
@Nathan Allen
People are mad because they didn't even give the film a chance. They're not even judging it for what it is.
Siskel says it's about technology overwhelming society..........like did he fall asleep during the movie?
The technology doesn't work, and that's the point because a totalitarian government isn't just powerfully terrifying they're also hilariously incompetent.
Sam is a smart imaginative man who should excel in society.
But instead he prefers to stay hidden away in archives where he has minimal responsibility but still some freedom since his boss is so incompetent he needs Sam to help him with everything.
How can two "professional" critics miss all that and think the movie is just about technology overwhelming society??????
Roger didn't like it after seeing it twice? See it three times then!
A compelling and terrifying film. I think they got it wrong here and I’ve seen them be too quick to dismiss other films of this type as well. Perhaps they couldn’t get passed the technological themes given it was the 80s and there were many technological advances happening at the time.
I saw it in 2019, in a local art house cinema. I enjoyed the visuals and effects, thought they had aged well but overall I think the tone of hopelessness in the face of society’s “machine” and Jonathan Pryce’s character’s paranoia which got to me the most. I left the cinema thinking Brazil’s horror was in how true to life the experience of the main character was for many of us today. Eery stuff and brave filmmaking.
Looks like they're reviewing the Love Conquers All cut. Which was the inital release of the film explaining their negative reaction.
Nope. Siskel & Ebert saw the original cut and Siskel said he liked the brazil love conquers all cut more . beau is afraid is better then brazil despite being a carbon copy of it.
3:16
It was only released for TV showings and as an extra for the dvd sets. "Love conquers all" never had a theatrical run.
I wonder if Ebert ever revisited this movie and had a change of heart. This movie is so fantastic and way ahead of its time.
The weird thing about their review is that this is a movie where one would watch, not understand and think the Eberts of the world would love it. LOL!
Brazil is one of the most well made films of the 80s
Siskel:Take out all the dream sequences in brazil😂
I’m sure if you asked them their opinions on Brazil now they’d be too embarrassed by this to say anything at all
Aren't there 3 different versions of Brazil? Which one did they see?
mightisright its obviously the theatrical cut.
Haha, look at siskel's face, right after they show the movie part. lol
This was big budget in 1985. The fastest way to date your own film is to show too much technology of the time. You can look back at this picture now and see how weird and old it is. Doesn't mean it isn't good, but looks creepy and weird with those big magnifying glasses over the computers! The story is inspired and amazing.
its a favorite of mine. love the 2 hour 22 minute original full length version of it. have 2 pressings on laserdisc and love it. its a movie i can watch many times over and never get worn out with it.
This is one of my all time favorite movies. Critics do one thing, they criticize when they have nothing relevant to say. Haven't watched it in years, am going off now to see if I can find it again. I even made a bootleg copy of the video on my Betamax back then.
Yea, thanks a lot for the upload.
Like many movies made by visionaries, they are not well understood at the time they come out. In current times it has become clear that despite the warnings we are living in a Brazil like world.
As much as I admired these two critics, I could not disagree more strongly with their assessment of the film, Brazil. Brazil surprises in so many ways. It is don Quixote in 1984. It is Kiss of the Spider Woman in a dark-matter universe, chiral to our own in a dystopic, fun-house way. And beyond its mind-bending sets, there is a story of a bureaucrat who escapes his mundane existence to die a Borgesian dream, his own "secret miracle."
Es fundamentalmente Buñuel!
@@Orielzolrak Sí, y también Borges, como su cuento, "El Milagro Secreto."
It warms my heart to see that I'm not alone in rejecting Brazil.
***** Glad to see I'm not the only one.
It's not for everyone.
Brazil is a fantastic and brilliant film. You and Roger couldn’t have been more wrong. You just didn’t understand the film.
Thats an odd thing to have your heart warmed by
I do wonder which version these guys saw. I saw it in England, where the director's version was released, and it made perfect sense to me. It's in my top five. Not tech, guys: Bureaucracy. How did they miss that????
Best Libertarian film of all time !
I'm surprised to learn I am better at understanding film than the legendary duo.
"It beautifully beats to death one point" That about nails it. I love these guys.
Except that's not what the movie is about.
Seriously what kind of an idiot do you have to be to take that away.
Overwhelmed by technology?
The technology doesn't work.
And that's the point because an all powerful totalitarian government wouldn't just be terrifying but also hilariously incompetent.
A literal bug causes a man's death.
Sam's alarm clock doesn't work, his breakfast machine can't even make breakfast.
His heating system is an overly complicated disaster.
The computer screens are literally a magnifying glass.
The government's procedures result in talented engineers like Tuttle having to go rogue just to do their jobs.
And Siskel thinks the movie is about technology overwhelming society.
Seriously what a moron.
Siskel & Ebert being wrong was the norm.
That’s what I think. In my opinion, Brazil is an even better adaptation of 1984 than the movie “1984”. It’s exactly as lighthearted and action-packed as it can possibly be when dealing with such horrific subject matter, and that makes it fun to revisit, whereas you only really need to watch 1984 once and if you watch it too many more times you’ll feel dismal for weeks. Man, I should watch this again, even though I just saw it for the first time within the last two years!
siskel was wrong about the dream sequences, too.
Desk job in room without window my nightmare
Jeez they were such hacks
When I was a kid, I thought that these two were film experts. This changed when I saw some the movies that they recommended and I was bored. Brazil, Fight Club, The Matrix are masterpieces that that these two didn't get.
Masterpiece.
It seems the dream or fantasy sequences in the film represented the soaring of the human psyche when stressed, an escape if you will
* i had my own dream sequence when i watched this film by falling asleep and escaping to a Land of rainbows and unicorns
Maybe they saw the wrong cut.
I wrote my first film paper in college on Brazil, as it is one of the film's that made me decide to major in film (a dubious choice, in retrospect). I got an A plus, and the prof wrote, "you have a very advanced understanding of film." Most of that understanding came from having watched Brazil so closely and so many times (it came out when I was in England, so I got to see the directors cut, not what was released in the US). I miss films with so much visual subtext. These days everything is very shallow and surface-level, especially in sci-fi films.
Some aspects of the film are not the dialogue but the posters on the wall, like the children playing Information Retrieval, behind them is a poster of a concentration camp...
Mellowfields. Top Security Holiday Camps. Luxury without fear. Fun without suspicion. Relax in a panic free atmosphere.... All with security towers, searchlights, barbed wire...
Did you see Terry Gilliam in the film? He's in it twice
@@TheManwithaview Yes!! And the homage to The Odessa Steps sequence from Battleship Potemkin was also amazing.
@@sharpeslass5452 The Prince Charles Cinema in Leicester Place usually shows the film annually
@@TheManwithaview if I could get there, I would!!
So two people out of 330 million have an opinion. WHAT is the point of critics?
It is discouraging that Both if voted thumbs down, Did not Understand the importance of " Brazil". Then again, both were in 1985 at the time. The Movie touched not hard, yet both Brilliant Critics could NOT understand the "Mocking". Sad De Moi.
I saw this three times when it came out - the only film I’ve done that. I don’t don’t understand how both of these experienced critics could miss the point of this film. It isn’t about technology, which doesn’t work very well. It’s about totalitarian society, but done in an entertaining way instead of merely a grim way, although there are some grim parts, necessarily.
A more subtle, realistic version of 1984
They would have been better off showing the office scene leading up to Ian Holm holding a fob watch. That's more emblematic of the movie.
Ebert really missed on a lot of off the wall films. Brazil is beyond brilliant
It hurts. Siskel and Ebert hurt me. They hurt me very deeply with this review. They disagree with me, and IT HURTS. It is not right that they should be able to do this. It hurts like hell, and we shouldn't let them get away with this. IT HURTS.
It's going to be okay
@@ResistanceQuest the world needs more nice people like you.
Both of them wrong, as they so often were.
Love the Chicago Boyz...even when they break my heart!
This movie was way ahead of them. They missed big time here.
Wish me luck, I'm on a TH-cam spiral
Pull out!!!! ⚙️
one of my favorites flims
Brazil was certainly a work of art but very overwhelming and confusing if you’ve only viewed it once. It’s easy for us to say they’re wrong because we’ve seen it a dozen times. Gilliam is a genius, but I can see their point that this film needed to be a little watered down for the casual viewer to grasp what’s going on.
I don’t get it… it’s already a lighthearted, less esoteric spin on 1984. I mean if heady story content just isn’t your thing then I get it… but this review is coming from the guys who said Home Alone 3 was better than 1 or 2. They just have bad taste sometimes
We’re finally here/ COVID-19 December 2021
I am never put off by critics not liking a movie that time has shown is great. It is a confusing movie. It takes more than one viewing to really get it. I also imagine they might have seen the happy ending cut back then that did not pack the wallop the intended cut did.
If I were to cut out something from the movie, it would be the mom's plastic surgeries and the getting so young she is younger than the main character was. It did not fit the theme of the movie at all and needlessly confused it. I think that was the only instance where Gilliam maybe went too far and indulged with something because he thought it was cool and the effect was cool. Plastic surgery and its overuse really had nothing to do with what this film was about.
Always remember: The Powers That Be ALLOW Siskel and Ebert to have a show; they were very "well-behaved and obedient" slobs.
Ebert was a hardline democrat during his life. By today's standards he would be a big government progressive. I imagine he was somewhat offended by this Orwellian satirical take on bureaucracy.
Oh be quiet Ebert. :-)
The two could be kinda slow at times.
both of these guys were dead wrong about many films.
Wonder what they'd think now... they did NOT get this movie at all....
"Confused"? Haha... This refreshing genius film obviously went right over both of your BORING heads!