Even now, society is dominated by bureaucracies. This form of organization has been applied to many important facets of modern life, including government, the military, education, and religion, with the thought that these bureaucracies promote control, efficiency, effectiveness, and fairness. However, the organic nature of bureaucracies can cause them to take on a life of their own; they become ends unto themselves rather than means to desired ends, and they dehumanize the individual - demoting him/her to the role of a cell in the bureaucratic organism.
The fact that almost everyone can relate personally to some frustrating experience when dealing with or working for a bureaucracy attests to the growing domination of bureaucracies and their dehumanizing nature. The movie Brazil recognizes the increasing influence of bureaucracies and extends this trend into the future. It shows the form of future organization, their effects upon the individual, and some rather amusing side effects - such as future society's infatuation with youth. Each of these aspects of a "bureaucratic future" will be examined in detail.
FUTURE ORGANIZATIONS
As depicted in Brazil, future organizations will completely embrace the bureaucratic form of organization and operation. This means that organization, especially the government, will be arranged into a dizzying hierarchy of departments and supervisors, each operating within rigid, prescribed bounds of conduct, and each dealing only with departments directly above or below them in the vertical structure of the organization. Supposedly, this form of organization has several advantages, each of which are refuted by the movie.
First, bureaucracies are assumed to be fairer and more objective in their dealings both inside and outside of the organization. This fairness results from the rigidly defined duties of each individual and department within the bureaucracy. There is no freelancing, no favoritism, and no personal judgment involved in the operation of a bureaucracy and thus, no prejudice. All persons dealing with the bureaucracy are evaluated purely with regard to their function and how they relate to the bureaucracy.
Second, a bureaucracy is more efficient because each individual or department knows his/her exact job and what duties that job entails. This way, labour is allocated effectively to jobs that need to be done. Two persons are not both doing the same job while neglecting another job.
Finally, bureaucracies promote control, since the vertical structure of the bureaucratic organization allows for any activity performed by a lower level department to be evaluated (albeit in abbreviated form) by a succession of top managers. Furthermore, since each person and department has such rigidly defined duties, it is easy to spot deviations.
These "ideal" bureaucracies are not the bureaucracies of Brazil. As the movie shows us, the bureaucracies of the future have become so out of control that they actually promote unfairness, inefficiency, ineffectiveness, and poor control.
The bureaucracies envisioned by Brazil promote unfairness through the very rigidness that was designed to promote fairness. When the bureaucracy makes a mistake, its methods for instituting correction are so ponderous that, in certain cases, it is as if no correction too place. Witness, if you will, the case of poor Mr. Buttle, who, at the behest of a dead bug, is mistaken for Tuttle and arrested, interrogated, and killed. The bureaucracy, so convinced of its own effectiveness and efficiency, requires unstinting and immediate action on the part of its departments. Thus, the lawmen arrest Buttle without question, there is no trial, and there is no chance for Mrs. Buttle, Ms. Layton, or anyone else to institute the corrective procedures in time to save Buttle. The bureaucracy is unfair because it has no compassion, no intuitive sense, and little recognition of its own inherent weaknesses.
These bureaucracies also promote inefficiency and ineffectiveness for several different reasons. Most apparent in the film is the abundance of paperwork, necessitated by the bureaucracy's penchant for control - everything must be properly documented, stamped, or initialed lest some cog slip its gear and the entire structure come crashing down. Jill Layton must spend hours, even days dealing with the Ministry of Information simply to ascertain the whereabouts of Buttle. Every time she completes a bit of paperwork, it seems to generate ten more forms to fill out. This, a piece of information that might be retrievable by the single push of a computer button is lost amid a jumble of red tape and procedure.
Also, since each department is isolated from every other department (except through forms and requisitions) and since the entire bureaucratic mechanism is so incomprehensible to the individual components (much as the earth is too big to notice that it is round), departments cannot coordinate their actions without great effort. When a glitch turns up in a system like this, no single department can fix it, so each department sends the mistake to another department with the hope that they can see the "big picture" and fix the mistake. For example, when the computer notices that a mistake has been made and issues a refund check to Mrs. Buttle, Sam Lawry's supervisor is terrified. He wants to hide the mistake, lose the check, or pass it onto a different department. if he tries to actually fix the mistake or remedy the situation (i.e. pay Mrs. Buttle), he may screw it up even more. The fact is, the supervisor cannot evaluate the full extent or consequences of his actions and so, is paralyzed. Needless to say, paralyzation and passing the buck are anything but efficient.
Finally, the bureaucracies of the future, in their quest for absolute control of their components, have actually lost the ability to control any situations that fall outside of the normal scheme of things. This is exactly what Reich points out in The Next American Frontier:
And:
When Sam Lawry is being hunted by the soldiers of the Ministry of Information, he comes upon a group of soldiers holding Jill at bay. These soldiers are so attuned to obeying anyone with a Ministry badge that they unquestioningly let Sam and Jill escape. The bureaucracy discourages individual volition, but this comes at the price of not being able to react quickly to changes or unusual circumstances.
EFFECT UPON THE INDIVIDUAL
The effect of bureaucracies upon the individual is substantial for those who deal with them and for those who form a part of them. For those who have to deal with them, bureaucracies instill a sense of despair and hopelessness upon even the most mundane situations. When any action is likely to be accompanied by reams of paper, a flurry of procedure, and impersonal treatment, people will tend to dismiss even the most simple solutions as hopeless.
Recall Mr. Lawry's supervisor who becomes terrified at the thought of having to deal with Mrs. Buttle's refund check. His terror results from both his inability to grasp the potential significance of the mistake and his actions to remedy it, and from the intolerable red tape necessary to alleviate the situation.
Similarly, when Sam tries to deliver the refund check to Mrs. Buttle, he finds her in a stupor - emotionally closed. She has no vehicle for satisfaction because of the time and hassle involved in dealing with the bureaucracy and because there is really no single person to blame. There is no one upon whom she can vent her rage.
While despair and frustration are the effects upon individuals who deal with bureaucracies, dehumanization and loss of individual volition (i.e. free thinking) is the effect upon those who work for these organizations.
As stated previously, bureaucracies require rigidly prescribed procedures in order to maintain an air of fairness and control. Individuals are prohibited from freelancing, brainstorming, and from generally being their own person. They come to consider themselves a part of some greater whole rather than individuals with individual preferences, methods, desires, and dreams.
Note our first glimpse of Sam's working place at the Ministry of Information. All of the keypunch men have the same haircut, are the same height, wear the same clothing, and even walk to the same rhythm. Similarly, the messenger boys are clones of each other. This serves to blunt individuality, in much the same way today's accountants are required to wear their "three-piece uniforms" and have the same short haircuts. These mores serve to unify those within a department and separate those from different departments. At an instant, we can tell who belongs to which department (keypunch or messenger) by their appearance and their mannerisms.
This bureaucratic conformity has spread to other aspects of future life in Brazil. When Sam and his mother are dining in the restaurant, the waiter refuses to place Sam's order until Sam specifies the exact number of the desired entree. Things must be done by the book, even though the waiter knows exactly what he wants and could have started to prepare the meal instead of arguing.
Perhaps the most telling effect of bureaucracies upon the personality of the individual is illustrated by an event in the same restaurant, when the terrorist bomb goes off, wounding many of the patrons. While people are screaming in terrible agony, the waiter at Lawry's table, whose function is to provide a pleasant dining experience for his customers, simply apologizes for the inconvenience and draws a screen to block off the nauseating sight. When Sam is asked to do something about the carnage, he replies "...besides, it's not my department..."
Clearly, the bureaucracies in Brazil are vast, mechanical, dehumanizing monsters, and it's no wonder that people feel like cogs in some great machine or, more accurately, cells in some huge organism. The bureaucracies in Brazil are organisms, concerned solely with their own survival. Their end is self-perpetuation rather than aiding society. They have a synergistic existence wherein no one person is responsible for the actions of the bureaucracy.
Consider your own body. We do not really care if our individual cells feel pain, or are destroyed, or are "unhappy". We only care that they perform as designed and that we, the organism, survive. This organic nature also illustrates why no single person can be blamed in a bureaucracy. One cannot blame the arm for an action that the brain initiated and one cannot pinpoint any single brain cell that initiated the arm into action. This explains the hopelessness that confronts those who try to deal with or take retribution upon bureaucracies. When Mrs. Buttle rails at Sam, he simply says that it is not his fault and he cannot help her. This is true; she can blame no one for her husband's death except the entire, incomprehensible bureaucracy itself.
Terry Gilliam, the director of Brazil symbolizes the organic nature of these future bureaucracies through the use of ducts. Ducts are everywhere in the movie, many times in the most incongruous places. For example, in what we presume to be a fancy restaurant, three giant black-green ducts, each at least a foot in diameter, descend from the ceiling through the centre of the dining area. Sam's apartment is likewise bristling with ducts behind the wall paneling, and the method of communication used by the Ministry of Information involves ducts and tubes, although presumably fax machines and computer printouts would be more efficient and more cost effective.
These ducts closely resemble veins, arteries, and bronchial tubes - the lifeblood of the central computer, which represents the brain of the organic megabureaucracy that runs future society. Ducts distribute things (e.g. air, water, freon, etc.) from a central location to areas where they are needed. Through the use of ducts, as opposed to decentralized means, the bureaucracy can maintain greater control over its components and its "constituents". Thus, when Sam's air conditioning is supplied from Central Heating rather than from his own personally purchased air conditioning unit, the bureaucracy can assure itself of two things:
1) Resources (in this case heat and air) can be allocated as the bureaucracy sees fit.
2) The bureaucracy can assure its perpetuation by forming mini-bureaucracies to service and maintain these centralized institutions (i.e. the Department of Central Heating).
Thus, it makes sense for a megabureaucracy to use ducts, and they serve as a symbol for the organic nature of these same institutions.
INFATUATION WITH YOUTH
One quirky side-effect of the bureaucracies presented in Brazil is society's infatuation with youth. This manifests itself through Sam's mother and her friends, who allow themselves to be exposed to the most ridiculous procedures in order to maintain their youthful complexion. In fact, Lawry's mother even regresses in age, until she seems to have the face and body of a twenty year old (although this scene is interspersed with Sam's dream sequence). Even Mrs. Lawry's friend seems unfazed as her "complications develop complications"; it's all part of society's obsession with youth.
Although the director may have included this issue as a simple parody of modern life, it makes sense within the context of the future society as presented by the movie. In a society where true individuals are considered terrorists, where no one is supposed to dream, nor have any form of self-expression, and where a person's only purpose in life is to serve the bureaucracy, against would carry the terrible stigma of uselessness. Everyone would want to feel as though they were a vital part of the "machine", since this is the only goal in life that is available to them. Youth implies vitality, which implies usefulness, and possessing a useful function is the most important quality a person can have in a bureaucratic environment.
Brazil's view of future organizations and their effect upon individuals is anything but reassuring. However, much of what is shown in the movie is actually parody, which implies that the seeds for such a future have been planted and are already growing today. In his book, Reich warns us to abandon the bureaucratic, dehumanizing, mass-production way of thinking in favour of a more personal, flexible, down-to-earth way of organizing our economic institutions and our government. In the movie, Terry Gilliam shows us what will happen if we ignore the warnings of people like Reich.
If that is the case, we can only hope that there will be a few Jill Laytons and Harry Tuttles left to turn all of out Sam Lawry's back into human beings.
1. The Next American Frontier, by Robert Reich, 1983, Penguin Books, pg. 139.
2. ibid, pg. 114.
NB: Reich's book deals with many of the concerns raised in the movie and is recommended reading for any who are interested in bureaucracies and their effects.