From: wlrc@uhura.neoucom.edu (William R. Cruce)
Subject: BRAZIL -European Cut.  Technical notes.
Keywords: Gilliam, laserdisc 
Organization: Northeastern Ohio Universities College of Medicine
Date: Tue, 15 Dec 1992 19:15:03 GMT


*See QUERIES TO THE NET at the end of these notes*

[This was also posted to rec.arts.movies, but some of the technical
comments may be of interest to video fans].

Terry Gilliam's marvelous film has previously only been available
in two forms in the United States:  Gilliam's 131 minute "American"
version and Universal's 90 minute television atrocity.  However in
the last year or so the 142 minute "European" version has begun to
appear in museums, film clubs, and art theaters.  This is of great
interest to fans of Gilliam and the movie because it is the 'first'
or 'original' editing of the film that he did.  And IMHO it is the 
best of the three, by far.

I recently had an opportunity to see this version at the Cleveland
Cinematheque and since I was familiar with it from the Japanese
laserdisc release I was able to study some of the finer details of
the film.  Even though the print was ratty (more on that below), dirty,
and littered with splice-points it was still delightful;  I found many
details that I had totally missed in repeated viewings of the laserdisc
(again being reminded of how inadequate even good video is).  The
Dolby stereo soundtrack was in pretty good shape and worth hearing over
a good theatrical sound system (which the CC has).

Interesting trivia.  The opening logo was from Universal not 20th
Century Fox (who have rights to the 'European' version).  According to
a source at the Cleveland Cinematheque the film was released by Universal
to museums and non-commercial showings about a year ago and at the time
still had the FOX logo.  It did so well that Universal negotiated with
FOX for further distribution rights and it can now be shown commercially
as in art theaters, etc.  For this distribution they inserted the UNIVERSAL
logo at the beginning.  But according to my source, the print is the same
- there is only one!  It originated in England, where it may have already
seen some use, and has been circulating in the U.S. for about a year.  That
explains the condition.  All of this is of some interest since the Voyager
company is currently negotiating with Universal and Gilliam to do a
Criterion laserdisc release of the film.  I do hope they use the "Euro-
pean" version (though not this print :-).

Aspect Ratio.  The film is hard matted at 1.85:1, according to my source
who looked at the actual print.  Strange, if it originated in England...
The sides of the image are virtually identical to the Japanese laserdisc
release (I checked positions of characters at the extreme edges in 3
different scenes and later compared them to the laserdisc).  So my guess
is that the negative must exist in an unmatted full-frame version (and
that was used for the video transfer).

Timing.  The version I saw was about 137 minutes long, not 142!  I may have
missed small trims, but, with one exception, all scenes were intact when
compared to the Japanese laserdisc.  As mentioned above, there were numerous
splices which caused small time glitches -perhaps a few minutes worth.
The major loss I noticed:  the bedroom scene near the end is missing
the "christmas bow" and "wig" segments.  The scene appeared more as 
it does in the American release, rather than in the European release.
I haven't timed it on the disc because I can't rely on my memory to
say exactly where the movie was different -but the parts I know were
missing amount to less than a minute.

---------------------------
QUERIES TO THE NET:
(e-mail or post, either way I'll see it)

1) If any of you have seen or do see this "European" release of BRAZIL
I would be interested in knowing what you thought/noticed.

2)  One person attending the Cleveland showing insisted
he had seen a 6 HOUR version of BRAZIL at a film festival in PARIS.  This
does not fit with anything I know about the movie and its checkered history.
Has anyone on the net ever heard of this?


-- 
	The answer is never simple and is always changing.
    William L.R. (Bill) Cruce       INTERNET: wlrc@uhura.neoucom.edu 
Newsgroups: rec.video.releases