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The Iron Cage of Brazil
George Orwell’s 1984. ... Add to these ingredients a healthy dose of black comedy and the result would very likely be something akin to Terry Gilliam’s cinematic masterpiece Brazil. ... Through an examination of Brazil it can be seen that many of Gilliam’s cinematic elements in fact give physicality to the theories of Weber. This essay will discuss Brazil’s filmic worldview as it pertains to the Weberian theories concerning bureaucracy, rationalization, authority, oligarchy and sociocultural evolution and how they relate to the theme of society pitted against the individual.
Brazil’s main focus is the plight of the protagonist, hero-cum villain Sam Lowry. ... Through Sam and his everyday activities we are drawn into the complex bureaucratic state that is the world of Brazil. ... 2) Brazil is a highly mechanized and rational world, a world that is rife with rampant industrialism and insane consumerism. ... The consequences of the growth in power and scope of organizations such as the Ministry of Information is key to understanding the world of Brazil and our own. ... With an air of menace similar to that of Orwell’s Big Brother, the Ministry of Information is presented as Gilliam’s symbol of rational-legal authority exerted over the population in Brazil. ... In one of Brazil’s opening scenes we see the Buttle residence marauded by storm troopers. ... This reduction of a human to a mere cog in a great machine defies the power of individuality and it is a phenomenon that exists in the fictional world of Brazil and one that Weber warned would happen in ours. ... The world of Brazil is one in which leaders have access and control over information and facilities that are not available to the rank and file. ... Ministry of Information posters loom within the cityscape of Brazil. ... 12) However, Brazil shows the irrational side of this process and how it functions to oppress individual nature. ... Much of Brazil is shot within a bleak and unnatural environment populated by a labyrinth of monolithic skyscrapers and buildings. ... Weber states that in a society of such a bureaucratically organized nature like Brazil, everything becomes a component of the expanding machine, even people:
. ... Thus we have the paradox of the nightmarish bureaucracy of Brazil. ... 22) Our world and the world of Brazil could not have reached their pinnacle goals of wealth without this form of social technology. Weber wrote of the evolution of a technically ordered, dehumanized, and rigid society that he called the “iron cage.” He feared, as Gilliam echoes in the film, that our probable future would be even more strictly organized and governed, an iron cage that put great limits on human potential rather than a technological utopia that would liberate us. ... 21) Gilliam uses the image of the cage and similar themes of confinement and imprisonment throughout Brazil. In Sam’s fantasies Jill is encapsulated within a cage and is being dragged to her fate by the ominous creatures below. ... The elevator-like transport device Sam takes from work to his home closely resembles a steel cage. The shot of him and others in the elevator is reminiscent of the transportation of prisoners confined inside a cage. ... The torture chamber is the most horrible example of confinement and it resembles one giant iron cage. Sam sits, strapped into the torture chair and begins to hum the tune to Brazil. ... Similarly, while “Weber had a foreboding of an iron cage of bureaucracy and rationality, he recognized that human beings are not always mere subjects molded by sociocultural forces.
Approximate Word count = 2897
Approximate Pages = 11.6
(250 words per page double spaced)
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