The Lost Clockwork Children of Brazil

(back on topic!)

One of the important things in those 3 films, is how the camera is used. 

There is a large "abuse" to how the camera sees things, from a tripod to a handheld camera in those days, when it was ... held by a hand, that did not have counter weights to keep it steady. And the close up got a completely different look that was, in many ways, closer to the English theatrical "aside", than it was a part of the story in the film, something that violates the fourth wall in theater and film, and is well used anywhere except in English Theater, which perfected it.

BRAZIL, did not exactly have "asides" but it was full of moments when the main character takes a turn, or a step, that does not appear to be staged or directed, and I think that this was Jonathan Price using his ability to implement the adlib so easily, something that we know Terry Gilliam allowed Robin Williams to go free in both of his films, and credit would go to Robin Williams for staying in character in New York, and then going crazy as "Re di Tutto". In his later films this is not as visible anymore, and I think that it is the quality of the actors that is not as visible as before. The folks he used in the earlier days, were better suited for free form work, whereas in the past 10 years, no actors he has chosen have this ability, since they have been groomed, strictly, by the film camera, and not a theatrical design of their performance.

The close ups, in Kubrick, are almost all a character's true personal feelings. When it is more external, the camera has a tendency to step out. This, seeing a couple of his films 30 years later, ends up creating a sort of thought that the observer, really does not care ... and the only exception to this rule would be Jack Nicholson, that I think was given a free reign, because what he was doing goofing around, was way better than the script itself, even if some parts of the script are included, which Jack is a strong/good enough actor to include and make use of.

In Jeunet's 2 main films, this is a bit more hidden, and seeing one of the adults kinda talk to the camera as if he were talking to a child, is a bit ... not scary, but makes you feel uncomfortable at times. And you get the idea and feeling of what this adult, the representative of some social order, is really trying to do to the child ... how about this is a comment about the very audiences in "entertainment" films? Then, all of a sudden this takes a lot more depth and it becomes scary! Admonished for not enjoying the crap that the social milieu (the media) tells you is the valuable movie to watch because it has already ripped up more than half a billion dollars, and Roger Waters is getting too old (and rich!) to even fight it, now!

But, in one of the most breathtaking shots, is Gilliam's "Munchhausen" film ... when they are on the stage and the actor turns left and they are on the desert ... in one take/shot, your imagination switches to somewhere else, something that American audiences are not used to, and Paul Lazarus (a professor at UCSB in screenwriting - he had written for Stanley Kramer) always specified that we should not jerk the audience's mind with our ideas, and guess what some of these directors were doing? 

This was one of the things that the "new wave" and other film scenes, were doing ... and they were quite visible and valuable as an artistic movement and development at the time. I still see them as important, but find it scary that most film go'ers, like a lot of music listeners here, do not see or can relate to the historical side of many of these arts and how they helped and affected so many others in the arts ... and rock music, was very late behind theater, and film.

These films, for me, merely make it clear what the theater and arts "over there" were doing, that we were not aware of.