Friday, March 22, 2013
QUESTION 3: THE FUTURE IN THE PAST
Terry Gilliam’s “tech noir” Brazil (1985), is uneasily pitched somewhere between past and
future, generally identifiable yet also quite specific: the opening text reads “8:49 pm: Somewhere in the 20th
Century.” This strange future-past
setting of the film is unusual for science fiction which, as a genre,
tends to look unapologetically forward.
Even the song ‘Brazil,” which gives the film its title, is from
the 1930s. For this post,
contemplate Gilliam’s decision not put forth a vision of the future
clearly set in the future as we saw in Things to Come (1936).
Perhaps consider another film, The
Matrix (1999), which is much more futuristic and also deals with the
idea of humans being a cog in the wheel in a world overrun with
machines. Don’t compare the films,
but rather contemplate what you get from Gilliam’s approach that you
can’t get from the Wachowski brother’s representation of the future.
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I think that by not putting forth an exact moment in time Gilliam is suggesting that this might not only be the unfortunate future, but similar situations may even be going on in our present. In Things to Come the future is clearly portrayed as a technologically advanced world compared to the 1930's when the film first came out. I feel as though this aspect of Gilliam's film makes the concept all the more gripping because this type of distopian society may not be a far stretch from our realities. However, Gilliam also incorporates scenes where the reality of the day seems to be stretched and from that we deduce that this is his portrayal of what is to come from machines if we continue to entangle ourselves in their web.
ReplyDeleteI think that the ambiguity of the timing and setting in Brazil really drives home something that we've been saying about all of the sci-fi films we have watched so far. And that is that the problems and issues that are dealt with in these films are universal and will exist no matter the date or how far science has advanced. Specifically, in Brazil there is the issue of corruption, insensitivity, disorganization and general dystopia. These are things that have been dealt with for centuries and in the years to come, which is made clear by the fact that Brazil is still praised almost 30 years after it was released.
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