Feature

This Used To Be The Future – 30 Years of Brazil and Back To The Future

Published

11 years ago

October 27, 2015

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Tripwire’s contributing writer EDWARD HIPKISS takes a look at two very different portrayals of the future, Terry Gilliam’s Brazil and Robert Zemeckis’s Back to the Future, which both celebrate 30th anniversaries this year…

30 Years ago this year (that’s 1985 for the hard of maths), cinema goers were introduced to 2 films with very different visions of the future – Terry Gilliam’s Brazil and Robert Zemeckis and Bob Gale’s Back To The Future. So 30 years on how do these competing visions stand up?

Brazil director Terry Gilliam shooting the film

bob-gale-robert-zemeckis-back-to-the-future

Screenwriter Bob Gale and Robert Zemeckis on set for Back to the Future

Predicting the future in film can leave you wide open to ridicule, or even just show up a glaring lack of foresight. Take Star Wars for example, currently flavour of the month once more. The original 1977 film is built around a chase across space to deliver enemy plans to the Rebel Alliance, which would be rendered instantly pointless if only they had predicted the invention of the internet. Were it being made now, the plans to the Death Star would have been instantly uploaded and re-tweeted a thousand times over by every wannabe rebel or political activist, or posted on JediLeaks. Presumably then, the plot of the film would be of Darth Vader storming the Alderaanian embassy on Naboo in order to bring Princess Leia into custody for stealing state secrets.

So what did Brazil and Back To The Future get wrong? What did they get right? Whilst it’s undoubtedly a cliché to describe Brazil as basically Monty Python does 1984, it’s certainly a good starting point. We have a totalitarian state obsessed with bureaucracy taken to the ultimate comic extreme; the pen pushers having taken over the asylum. Anyone who has worked for the police or in the NHS in recent years, or probably most businesses in fact, would find Brazil’s vision of the future chillingly real. The amount of signatures, counter- signatures, referrals for approval, counter-referrals for amendment and no one seemingly able to make a decision have become all too real. In fact, Brazil was simply a product of its time. By all accounts Brazil was intended as a reflection of Gilliam’s frustration with the way the television and film industries were run. Whilst the dark future posited in his film might not yet have become a reality in terms of how countries are run (North Korea aside perhaps), the levels and layers of bureaucracy in day to day life have certainly increased exponentially. Thankfully it was wrong about the intricate system of invasive grey ducts that carry paperwork into every room in every home (so far). The postal service seems quite happy just to ring your doorbell and run away rather than deliver anything.

Of course, our first glimpse of the future as depicted in Back To The Future comes right at the end, the first film in the trilogy using the present day as the future when Marty McFly accidentally sends himself back to 1955

Of course, our first glimpse of the future as depicted in Back To The Future comes right at the end, the first film in the trilogy using the present day as the future when Marty McFly accidentally sends himself back to 1955. Aside from the “Mr Fusion” power convertor on the back of the Delorean that Doc Brown fits in his (off screen) visit to 2015, and his futuristic looking glasses and clothes, it’s not until the sequel in 1989 (the imaginatively titled Back To The Future Part II) that we get our first proper look at how things have changed over 30 years. The flying cars remain firmly in the realms of science fiction, and whilst hoverboards are not in common usage there are encouraging signs that they may not be too much further away with various prototypes and competing designs being recently tested. Whilst 80s themed cafes are still not a big thing in the US, one recently opened in the UK after being inspired by the film. Presumably this does not include the video waiters, but as the UK equivalents of Ronald Reagan and Ayatollah Khomeini would almost certainly be Margaret Thatcher and Arthur Scargill that’s perhaps for the best. 80s themed club nights however are all the rage, but thankfully Pepsi does not cost $50 a bottle still even in the most expensive nightclubs. At least until a sugar tax comes in.

It is interesting to compare and contrast the fashions of both (three?) films. Back To The Future Part II is very obviously a product of its time and manages to scream 80s even though it’s set in the future. Many of the outfits worn by extras on set would not look out of place in a De La Soul or Redhead Kingpin and the FBI music video. Mercifully, wearing 2 ties as a fashion statement has never caught on. Brazil on the other hand depicts a future based on 1940s fashion, managing to look more retro than the actual 1950s shown in Back To The Future. A statement on a grey, austere future lacking creativity? Or fashion failing to evolve and being incapable of moving forward in a society that is being choked by a lack of originality? Either way, it is a future that abhors change and embraces conservatism in all things.

So which future are we living in? Whilst it’s easy to dismiss Brazil as a comically exaggerated vision, the amount of surveillance we are all under from our respective governments suggests otherwise. An important marker on the road to the totalitarian state we were threatened with. Likewise the rise in terrorist activities in an increasingly connected world suggests the nightmare scenario is becoming very real. But I prefer to think the more upbeat and optimistic vision presented in Back To The Future Part II is the one that is winning out. We might not be all be buying flying cars just yet, but the endless invention and ingenious gadgets that make our lives easier (some would argue too easy – the huge increase in obesity levels something that would fit perfectly in Brazil, sadly missed from their future predictions) suggest we are a long way from being worn down into complete servitude and having mountains of paperwork pumped into our offices and houses like pulpy sewage.

The future is here. Just not as either film imagined or any of us quite remember it.