….and now for something completely different!
Print
(Note: This piece is written by Khushboo Ranka. Both Anand & Khushboo post their essays under the nick Recyclewala.)
Monty Python and their Cinema.
Circa 1970. War, blind faith, ignorance, intolerance, institutionalized blandness, monotonous cinema, extreme capitalism, aberrations of socialism and most importantly, failure at finding the meaning of life. The answer? Monty Python. This merry band of one American and five Oxbridge guys went on to break the rules they knew and bend the ones that they had made. Their informed irreverence masqueraded under an almost childish disregard for everything sacrosanct. They were a product of their times and yet timeless; having proven themselves as the rightful heirs of the British comic legacy from Shakespeare to Spike Milligan.
Monty Python is a team of actor/writers, John Cleese, Terry Jones, Terry Gilliam, Eric Idle, Michael Palin and Graham Chapman. Though some of them had worked together before, they actually came together as Monty Python for the first time only in 1969, on a sketch show for BBC, ‘The Flying Circus’. Another very popular sketch show, ‘The Benny Hill Show’ was also launched in 1969 on ITV. The British artistic consciousness had evolved from Spike Milligan to Monty Python and was still evolving as another great comic author, Douglas Adams, surfaced around this time. This movement towards anarchic humor was in keeping with the zeitgeist, as it overlapped with the anti-establishment Hippie movement of the sixties. Adams was influenced by Monty Python and had apparently also written a sketch for them. This is a delightful fact for Monty Python fans as most of them also happen to be Adams’ fans and vice versa. Monty Python and Douglas Adams also dabbled in similar themes in the former’s ‘Meaning of Life’ (1983) and latter’s ‘Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy’ (1979) and ‘So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish’ (1985).
‘The Flying Circus’ got low ratings initially but soon picked up and became a great success in England. However, they were able to enjoy the same amount of adulation in America only after the release of their second film, The Holy Grail (1975). Their first film, And Now for Something Completely Different (1971), was merely a refilmed version of sketches from ‘The Flying Circus’. Life of Brian (1979) was their third film and Meaning of Life (1983) was their last film together.
It is almost impossible to pin down Monty Python films in any straitjacketed genre because true to their iconoclastic spirit they would break away from any artistic moulds. Calling them comedies would be at best only a sweeping statement as they reflected aspects of absurdist, surrealist, existentialist, black and grotesque humor all at the same time. Their films have often been at a risk of being discredited as merely crass and slapstick, but that is an extreme oversimplification. The subtext of the humor in their works has critiques and revelations which can be cast in the form of comedies only by enlightened individuals, much in the vein of Zen Buddhist Koans. Monty Python were among the few filmmakers who trusted their audiences’ intelligence. They didn’t compromise on their artistic license in trying to benefit the lowest common denominator. “As soon as you start trying to do marketing research and start tailoring what you do for a market, you start ending up with bland, TV situation comedies that aren’t going to mean anything specific to anyone, but something to a lot of people” says Terry Jones, one of the Pythons. The result however was that people from different classes and cultures managed to relate to the films at one plane or the other. Though on a surface level, their films seem to be an exaggerated affront to the human race, the presence of a clearly identifiable truth in all their shenanigans cannot be denied. This scene from ‘Life of Brian’ (1979) relates how Brian, a common man is mistaken for the messiah when he’s trying to escape from the Romans.
BRIAN
Ooh! Eh,b– now– now hear this! Blessed are they…who convert their neighbor’s ox, for they shall inhibit their girth…
MAN
Rubbish!
BRIAN
…and to them only shall be given– to them only… shall… be… given…
[Sees Romans leaving]
ELSIE
Shall be given what?
BRIAN
Oh, nothing. ….
ELSIE
You were going to say something.
BRIAN
No, I wasn’t. I’d finished. ….
ARTHUR
Oh, come on. Tell us before you go.
BRIAN
I wasn’t going to say anything. I’d finished.
BLIND MAN
What won’t he tell? Is it a secret?
EDDIE
Must be. Otherwise, he’d tell us.
ARTHUR
Oh, tell us the secret.
BRIAN
Leave me alone.
GIRL
Is it the secret of eternal life?
EDDIE
He won’t say!
BRIAN
Leave me alone.
GIRL
Just tell me, please.
ARTHUR
No. Tell us, Master. We were here first.
GIRL
Tell us, Master. Tell– Is that His gourd? …It is His gourd! We will carry it for you, Master! Master?
YOUTH
He’s gone! He’s been taken up!
ARTHUR
No, there He is. Over there.
[Brian tries to run away from them and in the process his shoe comes off. His followers while chasing him come across the shoe.]
SHOE FOLLOWER
He has given us a sign… His shoe!
ARTHUR
Let us, like Him, hold up one shoe and let the other be upon our foot, for this is His sign, that all who follow Him shall do likewise.
GIRL
Cast off the shoes! Follow the Gourd!
[The followers divide and run in two different directions.. one sect being the shoeites and other the gourdites]
Pick your parallel- this Python piece can be a defining archetype for any religious history. Its depiction of people as being mere secondhanders, waiting to be led by anyone, may offend some, enlighten others. Perhaps it is this candid portrayal of the sometimes ugly reality that led Monty Python films to being banned in some countries, at some time or the other. It can be debated whether Monty Python films are realistic. The best answer to this is possibly given by Brecht. “There are many ways in which truth can be concealed and many ways in which it can be told.” To further extend Brecht’s ideas, there could be a different approach to realism than that illustrated by Cinema Verité. We can probe into this idea a bit further and evolve an abstraction of realism, which, through its constant reinvention and experimentation in form and content, forces viewers out of their passivity, which arises from residual conditioning. This directs them to a holistic perception of reality, as a multi-faceted entity, involving many points of view. ‘Reality changes, in order to represent it, modes of representation must change’ says Brecht. The Pythons have rendered reality in their unique sensibility and this rendering has been so effective that their films have made a distinctive place for themselves in popular culture’s collective consciousness.
Monty Python’s artistic eccentricity is seen in every aspect of their films. Sample a part of the cast credits for their film Monty Python and The Holy Grail:
Graham Chapman King Arthur
Graham Chapman Voice of God
Graham Chapman Hiccoughing Guard
John Cleese Sir Lancelot, the Brave
John Cleese Taunting French Guard
John Cleese Tim the Enchanter
Eric Idle Sir Robin the Not-Quite-So-Brave-as-Sir Launcelot
Eric Idle Roger the Shrubber
Terry Gilliam Sir Bors
Terry Gilliam Animator
Terry Jones Sir Bedevere
Terry Jones Dennis’s Mother
Michael Palin Sir Galahad the Pure
Michael Palin Narrator
Monty Python also seem to imbibe the spirit of our very own nautanki traditions in some ways: Subjective interpretation of myths and legends, an actor playing more than one role, male actors playing female characters, loud accents, improbable characters and situations and songs breaking out. The characters of their films were not insipid cardboard cut outs; instead they were given a multi-dimensional quality through ingenious nuances. The protagonists in the three major Monty Python films are:
1. a king on his quest for the holy grail about which no one cares
2. a man born in a manger next to Christ
3. life itself.
The other characters in these films range from a Jesus cured leper displeased about losing his begging career, a French soldier whose most powerful weapons are his taunts, to a bowlful of goldfish pondering about the meaning of life. Typically, interactions between these characters give rise to oddball situations that are called sketches. One such sketch in ‘Meaning of Life’ portrays the phenomenon of the “appreciative American couple”, a tourist archetype; we come across at least one of these in our travels. They can, most often, be seen embracing the local flavor, while not entirely letting their guard down. Monty Python dig out these internalized stereotypes and bring them in the spotlight. All such sketches are woven together with an inherently hilarious, but contrived storyline, so as to create the illusion of a narrative for those uninitiated ones who walk into a movie theatre expecting a story, and instead come across some completely out-of-the-box sketches actually hanging in their own vacuum.
One of the most endearing aspects of Python films is their ability to catch the viewer unawares by slipping in extremely thought provoking social and philosophical ideas in the most unexpected places. An example would be this scene from ‘The Holy Grail’ (1975), where king Arthur is trying to find his way around and comes across some rag pickers.
RAG PICKER
I told you. We’re an anarcho-syndicalist commune. We take it in turns to act as a sort of executive officer for the week,…
KING ARTHUR
Yes.
RAG PICKER
…but all the decisions of that officer have to be ratified at a special bi-weekly meeting…
ARTHUR
Yes, I see.
RAG PICKER
…by a simple majority in the case of purely internal affairs,…
ARTHUR
Be quiet!
RAG PICKER
…but by a two-thirds majority in the case of more major–
ARTHUR
Be quiet! I order you to be quiet!
WOMAN
Order, eh? Who does he think he is? Heh.
ARTHUR
I am your king!
WOMAN
Well, I didn’t vote for you.
Here the Pythons have described a potential anarchic administrative setup in the span of a passing conversation. That a ragpicker is enlightening a king on a better form of government adds to the effect. Monty Python were anti-censorship in art as well as life. In a scene from ‘Meaning of Life’, the professor is giving practical demonstration in a sex education class and the students are looking on, disinterested. If sex and other topics labeled as taboos are dealt with, in a frank, natural way, there would be no transgressors of ‘morality’. Towards the end of the film an announcer says “And finally, here are some completely gratuitous pictures of penises to annoy the censors and to hopefully spark some sort of controversy” this statement points to the fact about how it’s extremely easy to offend authorities with non-issues.
This is another scene from ‘The Meaning of Life’
CHAIRMAN
[of the Very Big Corporation of America]
… which brings us once again to the urgent realisation of just how much there is still left to own. Item 6 on the Agenda, the Meaning of Life… Now Harry, you’ve had some thoughts on this…
HARRY
That’s right, yeah. I’ve had a team working on this over the past few weeks, and what we’ve come up with can be reduced to two fundamental concepts… One… people are not wearing enough hats. Two… matter is energy; in the Universe there are many energy fields which we cannot normally perceive. Some energies have a spiritual source which act upon a person’s soul. However, this soul does not exist *ab inito*, as orthodox Christianity teaches; it has to be brought into existence by a process of guided self-observation. However, this is rarely achieved owing to man’s unique ability to be distracted from spiritual matters by everyday trivia.
[Pause.]
MAX
What was that about hats again?
There can’t possibly be a better way of describing American imperialist operations than The Very Big Corporation of America working towards owning everything. If the ragpicker scene had socialist leanings, this scene takes the thought a bit further by critiquing capitalist society. The second fundamental concept that Harry goes on to describe in this scene is an effortless shift from materialism to spirituality. The two fundamental concepts, that he comes up with, contrast western way of life and oriental philosophy underlining the spiritual hollowness that pervades our lives in this age of consumerism and related propaganda.
And now welcome to the middle of the article.
Disturbing the sanctity of an academic article seems blasphemous? In the Meaning of Life, a “Zulu Announcer” interrupts a scene and grandly declares “Hallo, Good Evening and welcome to the middle of the film.” While most movies encourage the audience to suspend their disbelief, the Pythons dare the audience to suspend their belief through their self-reflexive acknowledgement of the form. Also their actors step out of characters and speak to the audience directly, in a Godardish fashion. The effect is that the knowledge of cinema being an illusion is shared, thus privileging the audience and involving them in a more conscious manner. Another absurdist technique is the use of Deus ex Machina to resolve a situation without paying due regard to the story’s logic. In ‘Life of Brian’, Brian jumps from a tower and instead of falling on the ground, falls into a passing alien spaceship. The ‘Holy Grail’ is another example, where the film ends with the entire cast being arrested. This abrupt end abuses the audiences’ effort of watching the film, but the filmmakers are attempting a multi-layered approach to engage the mind more than the heart. Monty Python’s use of songs and animation also side-step the traditional set of narrative goals. The songs are interspersed in the films, giving them a musical-like feel. But again the lyrics of their songs are as preposterous as the situations themselves. A song in the Meaning of Life mocks the Catholic Church’s stand on birth control:
Every sperm is sacred.
Every sperm is great.
If a sperm is wasted,
God gets quite irate.
Monty Python films got a distinctive look through the imaginative combination of the live action and animation techniques pioneered by Terry Gilliam. The crude and surreal look of the animations became Monty Python’s stylistic trademarks. Gilliam’s collage stop motion animation involved using handcrafted or cut out images to develop elaborate animation sequences that were used in the title credits or as transitions between sketches. These animations made no logical sense and were uninhibited expressions of artistic disorder. According to Michael Palin, “Terry’s stream-of-consciousness animation was one of the examples of a way of doing things differently.” The wild rough informality of Vanderbeek’s collage animations and the surrealist works of Max Ernst were Gilliam’s earliest inspirations.
Monty Python’s anarchic, anti-format humor was influenced by the alternative comedy of Spike Milligan. It was anti- format because it didn’t necessarily make use of the traditional punchline to end a sketch. Instead, it used many of the devices mentioned above, like self-reflexivity, dues ex machine, animations, songs etc.
Monty Python films are also important to understand the development of the gore-comedy genre. Filmmakers across the world had been depicting explicit violence in their films. But Monty Python were among the first to use bloodshed to a comic end. The “First Zulu War” skit from ‘Meaning of Life’ depicts brash use of bloodshed and mutilation.
Even the dimensions of time and space weren’t a leash to the free spirit of Monty Python’s imagination. They gleefully incorporate anachronistic elements in their make believe narrative. This strips history and legendary characters off their elusiveness. The Holy Grail is set in Arthurian times and Life of Brian in the times of Christ (A.D. 33, Saturday Afternoon, around Tea-Time actually).They don’t look at them as the unspoiled days of far, far away and instead incorporate warped details. Pontius Pilate then, is shown as having a speech impediment and the Lady of the Lake is described as “some watery tart who threw a sword” at King Arthur. Also the track of a historian’s murder is juxtaposed with the story of King Arthur in ‘The Holy Grail’. Due to all this, the characters seem oddly modern. The absurdity of this out of place modernity is heightened by the immaculate look of the films. The depicted eras seem absolutely life-like in the dirty organic environments of Tunisia (Life of Brian) and the Scottish countryside (The Holy Grail). The cinematography also adds to the effect by maintaining a natural, unpolished look of the locations for the films.
Conclusion
The best way to understand Monty Python is to watch their works. Analyzing them is extremely ironic because throughout their careers they looked down contemptuously at everything “serious”. They’ve inspired Douglas Adams, Lorne Michaels, the creator of Saturday Night Live, Trey Parker and Matt Stone, creators of South Park, Eddie Izzard, Austin Powers, Mr. Show and many others. Their brand of humor led to the development of comedy trends down the years and it continues to influence artists even thirty four years after they first started.
Biblio:
@ Wikipedia
Almost official website
A great Monty Python archive
The author
Anurag Kashyap
Abhay Deol
Dibakar Banerjee
Hansal Mehta
Khalid Mohamed
Kundan Shah
Anish Kuruvilla
Jaideep Verma
Manish Gupta
Navdeep Singh
Bhavani Iyer
D. Santosh
Onir
Ashvin Kumar
Ramu Ramanathan
Sudhir Mishra
Pankaj Advani
Revathy
Saurabh Shukla
Shilpa Shukla
Sujoy Ghosh
Suparn Verma
Santosh Sivan
Shashank Ghosh
Shivajee
Pavan Kaul
Partho Sen-Gupta
Prroshant Naryannan
Sam Langoria
Satish Kasetty
Couldnt read it then
was supposed to read it later
almost forgot about it a bit before
thankfully my memory is not as bad as was presumed
so here i am
and thank you for this..khushboo/anand
loading...
OMG….I never knew I had fellow Monty Python fans here. I love all their movies and have a collection of quite a few of their short films and skits too.
Contrary to general public opinion, I always considered The Meaning of Life to be their best creation. Right from the opening short feature about the Crimson Permanent Assurance to the chapter on death, this is one movie that has managed to eke out undivided attention from me even on repeat views.
My favourite scenes from the movie are :
1. The First Zulu war.
2. The song Every sperm is sacred. And the poke at protestants that follows it. Hilarious.
3. The scene with Mr.Creosote in the restaurant. Talk of gore comedy. ;-)
4. The aftermath of Mr.Creosote (The jibe at xenophobia and the personal philosophy of Idle’s french waiter).
5. The Death chapter.
^:)^^:)^^:)^ @ The Monty Python partnership^:)^^:)^^:)^
loading...
Monty Python! Aah. Time to dig into that DVD closet and pull out some old faves and savor them again .
German philosophers vs Greek philosophers football match, anyone?
Nicely written guys.
loading...
I’ve seen that one and its hilarious. Especially the altercation between Nietzsche and Confucious.
Here’s for y’all.
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=xrShK-NVMIU
loading...
And talking of credits, the opening credits of The Holy Grail were simply outstanding. I laugh my butt off everytime I see them.
Here’s the link to the Youtube video.
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=AWHXxmUgMGw
loading...