How did the European distributor of BRAZIL react to the film, as opposed to its American distributor?
Fox in Europe behaved just as most film companies would: there's the finished film, it's got its flaws but there it is, and they were really excited by it. And, in fact, in their contract they had the same time clause as Universal had, which is a running time of 2 hours 5 minutes, and they just waived the clause. And unfortunately with Universal, for a variety of reasons – some to do with internal politics, some to do with the fact that it's a different group of people and that Universal is far closer to the bureaucracy that was portrayed in BRAZIL – they were just stunned by it. And they didn't know quite what to make of it. And even though the script was shot as approved and all of those things, they just weren't sure, because they're very nervous people. They're paid enormous sums of money to be able to predict exactly what the public wants. And I think that can lead to real neuroses on their part because it's an impossible task.
And so their immediate reaction was a nervous one: 'We're not sure what we've got, so let's try to change it into something that we do understand.' And I refused to play ball with them. I said, 'Sorry, this is the film that we agreed to make.' And then it got into this legalistic argument. And the only thing they really had over us was the time clause, and that's what they used to try to make us change the essence of the film. There is in fact a cut version of BRAZIL which I haven't seen but I've heard what it is and it's a totally different film. And then it just got into this battle: I wasn't going to budge, and Sid Sheinberg [President of MCA, Inc., Universal's parent company] in particular had to show that the studios were in control. So we were locked in this sort of silly, long, drawn-out war of attrition. I don't think they were expecting me to be as immovable as I was, because they're used to working with people who live in Hollywood, and whose bread and butter is very much dependent upon the whims and friendship of the people at the studios, and I sit here 6000 miles away in London saying, 'Why should I change it if it's the film we agreed to make?' And I don't think they were prepared for that attitude. And on it went. I think what was awful about it was that it wasted a year of my life, when I should have been getting on with the next film. The frustrating thing about it was that it became like a repeat of the film itself.
but I do not agree that having a studio executive change the ending to something more commercial, can be an "improvement".
