TODAY'S NUGGET: Brazil (1985) - When You Need Funny, Imaginative, Inventive Inspiration

[Quick Summary:  Sam, a lowly employee, disrupts the intrusive, bureaucratic Ministry of Information Retrieval, as he pursues a woman he had dreams of.]

Sometimes you just need examples of how far you could push being funny, imaginative, inventive.

If so, read this script. Here are three (I underlined my favorite parts):

FUNNY: 

CUT to group of tables with diners. At one of them sits a wealthy-looking OLDER WOMAN with a rather plain-looking DAUGHTER in her 20s. The OLDER WOMAN is easily distinguished from the other clientele by a large bandage that covers a goodish part of her head. The two of them (the MOTHER and DAUGHTER, not the MOTHER and bandage) are perusing the menus.

IMAGINATIVE:

Before he can really take in where he is the phone rings. He staggers over to it.

SAM: Hello...hello...

PHONE VOICE: Hello. Mr. Lowry?

SAM: Who's that? 

A sound at the kitchen door turns SAM'S head - and ours - just in time to half see a quick blurred movement, but then a rap voice in his ear-piece brings his head back.

PHONE VOICE: Put the phone down and your hands up.

SAM (into the phone): What? Who is this?

SAM realizes that the voice is also in the room behind him. He turns round and sees TUTTLE. TUTTLE is middle-aged, a short tough figure dressed in dark clothes suggesting a cross between a cat burglar and  a night-raid commando. In one hand he holds a gun pointed at SAM. The other hand is holding a telephone receiver which TUTTLE is in the act of placing in the large capacious bag at his feet. SAM puts down his phone, and his hands up.

INVENTIVE: 

From SAM'S POV, a piece of broken mirror lying on the floor reflects the hole in the ceiling...with JILL's head and shoulders framed in the hole. The moment is unreal for SAM in his dazed condition. The vision seems unreal too. JILL is staring at SAM out of the piece of mirror and she's very much the GIRL from his dream now.

WHAT I'VE LEARNED: Despite the heaviness of topic (bureaucracy), it was easy to follow because of 1) the simple thorough line (guy pursuing girl); 2) humor.

Brazil (1985)(1983 draft)
by Terry Gilliam