Comparing Gilliams Brazil and Radfords Adaptation of 1984 :: comparison compare contrast essays

Comparing Gilliams Brazil and. Radfords Adaptation of 1984 While researching for a book on the making of and feud over the American release of Terry Gilliams Brazil, author Jack Mathews read virtually every review of the film printed in the join States and found that very few failed to refer to the film as futuristic or Orwellian. The comparisons are understandable, if inaccurate, says Mathews, There isnt a futuristic element in Brazil. The study is Orwellian, in the sense that it is set in a totalitarian state where individuality is smothered by enforced conformity. But where George Orwell...was envisioning a upcoming ruled by fascism and technology, Gilliam was satirizing the bureaucratic, largely dysfunctional industrial world that had been driving him crazy all his life(Mathews). Terry Gilliams Brazil, made in 1985, at rootage glance, seems much like Michael Radfords film version of George Orwells 1984, made in 1984, in its setting and story. However, upon further examinati on of the two films, there are differences in direction and tone that outdo them from each other. 1984 is dark and gloomy from initiatening to end while Brazil, though still dark, has a much lighter atmosphere. The love stories presented in both films are unmistakably similar and make the plots seem closer to each other, but this is the only strong link they share, for differences in tone distance the films from each other. Because of its dark irritation, Brazil is a satire of the very society in which the story takes place, while 1984, though also a satire, lacks any humor whatsoever and is more of a horror story of a society that might await mankind. In the opening scene, Terry Gilliams Brazil seems to be rather jovial. A shot in which the camera hovers through the sky, passing in and out of clouds, starts the film off while the song Brazil, after which the movie was named, fills the soundtrack. Titles begin to appear over the soaring shot. The titles read, Somewhere in the 20th Century, informing the audience of the time period, but confusing them as well. The world in which the movies important character dwells is a dreary, dystopian, retro-futuristic metropolis, a far cry from anything that has been seen this century. In this world, nobody is protected from the government individuals are executed as a result of administrative errors. The compensation for these wrongful deaths is a simple refund check.