Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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20 of 20 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Belongs in your film book library, April 5, 2000
Based on the reviews so far, I bought this book from Amazon.com and received it yesterday. It was so gripping, I finished it that evening. After seeing films like THE PLAYER and talking to aquaintences who like predictable movies with happy endings, I figured the big studios discouraged original, thought-provoking films. But this book shows how they try to rationalize it. I liked how Jack Mathews tried to be objective and show both sides and I was amazed at the differences between LA and NY critics and how they affect films. Talk about too many cooks in the kitchen!Even if you don't think much of the film BRAZIL, if you love interesting films and want to know why it's rare to see one come out, read this book. I'm sure Terry Gilliam isn't alone in his battles with studios and critics. If you did like BRAZIL, you'll also get a glimpse of Gilliam's creativity with some of his storyboards, plus you get the entire script of the film with some annotations. After reading this book, I got a great behind-the-scenes look of not only how a film comes about, but how it gets marketed to the public as well.
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14 of 14 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A great book about a great film, September 26, 2001
Terry Gilliam's satirical film (usually referred to as being science fiction though its actually the furthest from that) Brazil is one of the greatest unseen film of the past few decades. While the film has a strong cult following, most mainstream audiences never had a chance to see this film and the few that did found themselves confronted not with Gilliam's original vision but instead with a severely shortened and defanged bastardization that was edited under the supervision of less-than-visionary studio head Sid Sheinberg.How this came to be is the subject of Jack Matthews' fascinating book, The Battle of Brazil which follows the creation of this masterpiece from the germ of inspiration to the film's triumphant success at the 1985 Los Angeles Film Critics Awards. Along the way, we get a wonderful view into the heads of both Gilliam and Sheinberg. (Though the book is clearly on Gilliam's side, Sheinberg is not presented extremely unfairly. If he comes across as a bit of an unimaginative ogre at times -- well, that's because he was.) We get the full details of Gilliam's battles with Sheinberg over both the length and the tone of the film and, in one of the book's best chapters, an in-depth analysis of the differences between the two versions. This chapter, I think, beautifully illustrates how, just through selective editing, you can change the entire feel of a film without reshooting a single shot. Much as how you can't help staring at a car wreck, there's a sick fascination with how Sheinberg was able to change Brazil from one of the greatest films of all time to a bland, unmemorable love story without any apparent sense of humor. The behind-the-scenes details of the making of the film itself are anecdote filled and a great read with candid details that cover everything from how Gilliam's original vision evolved during the shooting to his on-set difficulties with actress Kim Griest. Especially amusing to me were the lists of actors also considered for the lead role of Sam. One's mind boggles at some of the suggestions (Tom Cruise!?) and makes Jonathan Pryce's sly lead performance all the more appreciated. The last half of the book contains Gilliam's shooting script for his version of Brazil, along with copious footnotes that clear up several of the obscurities (i.e., what the singing telegram girl is singing, what Michael Palin's daughter says to Sam) that have occasionally confused even the most devoted of audiences. Its a brilliant script to boost.
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5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Very readable, biased but apparently fair, August 17, 2001
Neither side comes out as particularly positive in this story of how a furious film director prevented a studio from ripping his work to meaningless shreds in the name of commercial popularism, but there's no doubting where Mathews stands on the subject.The description associated with this item gives some idea of what the story is about (Boy makes film, Boy loses film to studio, Boy fights studio, studio finally releases film.) Mathews presents the story as factually as he can, from the point of view of someone who clearly loves what Gilliam had made. The Battle of Brazil section itself is reasonably brief but manages to capture the spirit of the events, painting portraits of the major players in the events, their backgrounds and concerns. No party is painted either as a monster or a saint, though Mathews isn't shy about suggesting 1984 newspeak parallels for some of Sheinberg's defenses. The second half of the book is a/the script of (almost all) of the final director's cut of Brazil. I spotted a missing sequence or two but for the most part it's there, essentially unabridged, with annotations on opposing pages describing anything from anecdotes, how the script evolved to that point, to differences between the European/American/Final cuts. Both sections are gems, the first gives an insiders glimpse of the politics within Hollywood, the other a view of the guts of a wonderful film.
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