Efficacy and Efficiency in the World of Terry Gilliam’s Brazil

Abstract

Abstract The film Brazil, directed by Terry Gilliam (1985), is usually described as something of absurdist theater. It is also, more implicitly, a conversation about bureaucracy, administrative regulation, and dynamic relations of art vis-à-vis everyday life. This article explores that conversation, drawing in part on Hegel and Max Weber, along with the screenplay of this and other films by Gilliam, guided by the question, “How would one know whether ‘life imitates art’ rather than the reverse?”