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More Python Works
a) Python on film Monty Python's Flying Circus soon became a cult, at least a minority cult since as we mentioned before it was difficult for the Pythons to get a regular audience because of the shifts in the transmission times. The success of the series caught the attention of numerous entrepreneurs including Victor Lownes. The latter - himself a Python fan - felt that the group would do well in the States and that a feature film would be the best way to introduce Monty Python to the American audience. This is how the project of a first Python film was undertaken. The film, And Now For Something Completely Different was shot at the end of the second series of the TV show and mainly consisted of a collection of sketches from the first and second series, refilmed for cinema, except for some new linking material. The film opened in Britain in December 1971 and received good reviews even if it can arguably be said than it is not better than the original television shows. The Pythons themselves were not completely happy with this first film experience. one reason for this can be that Lownes tried and exerted more control over the group's creativity than the BBC at that point. In fact, the film failed in America where it was released in 1972 and it would only surface again two years later to become a favourite while the television series caught on in the States. The real turning point for Monty Python was the success of Holy Grail , their second film in 1975. By that time, Monty Python's Flying Circus had come to an end and the members of the group were about to go their separate ways. In fact, John Cleese had already left the group at the end of the third series to write and perform with his wife Connie Booth in another television series : Fawlty Towers. But at that time the group's popularity was also at its peak including in the States and the group decided to assemble again and work on the writing of a second film, probably encouraged by the commercial possibilities of such a project should it prove successful. As a reaction to their first screen experience, the Pythons decided to direct their first original feature themselves so as to retain as much control as possible.
Monty Python and the Holy Grail was released in 1975 and proved to be a great success. The action was set in the Middle-Ages and consisted of a new Python version of the Myth of Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table. And it was certainly not innocently that the Pythons chose to parody the adventures of King Arthur. This legend which bears many symbols is still very present in the British culture, even in 1996. Adrian Mourby gave his opinion on the question in The Guardian :
"So what brings us back to the round table again and again? Mythical characters need enough defining characteristics to be distinct, but few enough to leave us scope for reinterpretation. Here is a modest king of high aspiration who briefly established an ideal brotherhood of all the great (eg Lancelot) and good (eg Percifal)."[1]
Thus King Arthur represents a character with whom the English can easily identify their own aspirations for an ideal especially in difficult times as Mourby continues :
"But Arthur was also a focus for more intelligent narratives exploring the politics of succession and the courtly tradition. These elements of statecraft, failed idealism and infidelity must account for the resurfacing of Arthur in the 20th century, a period in which we have seen a growing pessimism about politics and a growing, even morbid, fascination with adultery."[2]
Arthur's adventures being respected as part of the chivalric tradition and as representing an ideal heroic spirit to the English people was a sufficient reason for the members of Monty Python to put it down. Thus, Monty Python and the Holy Grail, more than just being a mere comedy, insists on the gory stupidity of ancient but still potent fancy. Richard Schickel once wrote :
"Grail is as funny as a movie can get, but it is also a tough-minded picture - as outraged about the human propensity for violence as it is outrageous in its attack on that propensity."[3]
Thus, Holy Grail can be considered as a determinedly anti-war film, even if it must be acknowledged that Python fans probably did not see anything in it but a very funny and entertaining film.
The preparation of the film also contributed to reveal the problems the group encountered at the end of the fourth series of the Flying Circus. Terry Jones commented on those difficulties :
"Gradually the organization of the shows and the engineering of the product took over, leaving less and less time for writing. That in fact, may also be one of the problems of the Holy Grail film... So much of our time was spent organizing and arranging and financing that there was very little left for the actual filming."[4]
This was probably the price to pay to get this freedom of creativity so precious for the Pythons. Even before they had finished filming Holy Grail, the Pythons began talking about a followup to the film. The original idea was that of a Python Bible. Little by little, the concept of a Python life of Christ evolved into the story of Brian. "The Gospel According to St Brian" was to be the story of a thirteenth disciple who would have missed the most significant events, such as being late for the Last Supper because his wife had friends over that evening. The writing continued and the film finally turned into the story of a man called Brian whose life would parallel Christ's. As Cleese wrote : "It is now called The Life of Brian. Brian is no longer a disciple, just a bloke in Judea in 33 A.D..." The film was shot in Tunisia and released in August 1979 in the United States. The Life of Brian proved to be the most controversial production of Monty Python and was banned in various places as we will mention later. The film was called "crude and rude mockery, colossal bad taste, profane parody" by the Lutheran Council, and referred to as "blasphemous, sacrilegious and an incitement to possible violence" by the Rabbinical Alliance. After Life of Brian, the members of the group began drifting even further apart. Still, they would reunite in the early 80's for a stage show released on film in 1982 ; Monty Python Live at the Hollywood Bowl. The film was recorded during the four nights Monty Python performed live at the Hollywood Bowl in 1980. It consisted of sketches from the Flying Circus rearranged for live performance, and included contributions by Carol Cleveland and Neil Innes. At that point, the Pythons all thought they would not do anything else together again. Although they had enough material for another film, they could not agree on a storyline. Then the idea came of a life story
which could be anybody's life and Eric Idle came up with "It's the meaning of life!" The result was The Meaning of Life, released in 1983, a movie that resembled a sketch film but which had a strong connecting theme running through it with the Python version of the Seven Ages of Man. Palin said :
"Although the structure is much looser than Brian, there is a theme, a certain unity to it. I think 'sketch film' sounds dangerous as though we'd put together bits of our old material. I've been saying to people that it's more of a sketch film, but that's wrong. It has a unity and a theme."[5]
Reviewing The Meaning of Life in The Times, Michael Watts analysed the Python satire : "Although, as with all Python films, the point of attack is concealed in silliness and fantasy, The Meaning of Life […], is in such savage breach of good taste that it satirizes taste itself […]."[6] As a matter of fact, The Meaning of Life is the Python film which satirizes the widest range of topics. With the general theme of the Seven Ages of Man, the film makes no concessions ; the British officer class, modern sex education, sanitized visions of death, organ transplants and also Catholic attitudes to birth control with the song "Every Sperm is Sacred". Everybody can feel got at. Despite the success of The Meaning of Life at the box office, it was to be the last Python film and the members separated for good, each of them beginning a solo career in various activities. Still the question of another film production was occasionally raised in spite of the individual successes of the Pythons. Michael Palin said :
"I regard Python as something I can only do with the five other Pythons. It brings something out in me as a writer/performer, a satisfaction I can't get in the same way from doing my own stuff. For me, it's terrific if Python keeps going. However successful anything I do, I would love to have the fact that I can go back to Python."[7]
Certainly, any chance of a new Python film definitely vanished on 4th October 1989, when Graham Chapman died of a cancer, on the eve of Python's 20th Anniversary. In addition to their films, the Pythons published several books such as Monty Python's Big Red Book (which is blue-covered!) or Monty Python's Brand New Papperbok which carried very realistic greasy fingerprints on the cover. Various audio recordings were also released. The films and the complete series of Monty Python's Flying Circus are equally available on video tapes and video compact discs. A few years ago, Monty Python entered the world of computers with computer games and a CD-ROM ; Monty Python's Complete Waste of Time. Since then, several CD-ROMs have been made. However funny all those products may be, Monty Python was never better than on film or television, a medium they exploited to its limits and maybe sometimes beyond.
b) Python-related works After Monty Python's Flying Circus, and between two films, the Pythons worked separately on individual projects. Thus Eric Idle made two series for BBC-2, under the title Rutland Weekend Television in 1975. The general idea was that the show was presented by a small local television company in Rutland. As for Michael Palin and Terry Jones, they associated to write a television comedy programme called Ripping Yarns, also for BBC-2 in 1977. But John Cleese and Terry Gilliam are probably the ones whose individual works are as famous as the ones with Monty Python. As we know, John Cleese left the group at the end of the third series of Monty Python's Flying Circus and began to write a comedy for television with his wife Connie Booth. John Cleese had got the idea when the Monty Python team was filming near Torquay in 1972 and stayed in a hotel run by a disastrous manager :
"American Terry Gilliam's table manners were criticised for being too American ; Eric Idle's briefcase was thrown into the street because it probably contained a bomb. 'He thought that the guests were sent along to annoy him and to prevent him from running the hotel.' [in the words of John Cleese]."[8]
Fawlty Towers, the BBC's best selling programme overseas for 1977-78, going to 45 stations in 17 countries, started on
September 19th, 1979.[9] This series - in my opinion, one of the funniest television series ever - starred John Cleese, as the guest-hating manager, Basil Fawlty ; Prunella Scales as his dragon-like wife, Sybil Fawlty ; Andrew Sachs as the incompetent Spanish waiter, Manuel ; and Connie Booth as the sane chambermaid. This programme perhaps like no other before it virtually stunned its audience with its non-stop humour and remains for some critics "a high-water mark of finely-crafted British comedy that will probably never be bettered."[10] Each episode took four months to write and went through about ten drafts. Probably never before had thirty minutes been packed with so many gags both visual and verbal with plots carefully and epically constructed. Countless superlatives have been used to describe or label Fawlty Towers : "Funniest gag on television since his Ministry of Silly Walk" some people say, "The Fawlty Towers Half-Hours are little miracles of invention, characterisation, and comic timing and in them Cleese proved himself a master of sarcasm and one of comedy's great escalating panickers […] John Cleese was perhaps the funniest British star of his generation", others reply.[11] John Cleese's film or TV appearances are also quite numerous though they are probably too few for the liking of the majority of his fans. After Fawlty Towers, he played Petruchio in "Taming of the Shrew" for the BBC Shakespeare series, directed by Jonathan Miller. He also proved again that unsympathetic characters can be as funny as loveable idiots in the films Privates on Parade in 1982 and Clockwise in 1985. He also acted in a variety of documentaries but he had his really big box office hit in 1988 with a film he had written himself, A Fish Called Wanda. More recently he appeared on screen in Frankenstein and the rumour has it that there should be a sequel to A Fish Called Wanda.
The American Terry Gilliam is the other Python whose solo works are at least as famous as his Python works. In fact Terry Gilliam has now achieved celebrity as a brilliant film director and many people are unaware of his former attachment to Monty Python. Terry Gilliam made his first attempt as film director in 1977. He teamed up with the novelist Charles Alverson whom he had succeeded as assistant editor of Help! in New York. They chose as their starting point the poem by Lewis Carroll which Alice finds in the looking-glass house in Through the Looking-Glass - "Jabberwocky" :
'Twas brillig, and the slithy toves Did gyre and gimble in the wabe; All mimsy were the borogroves, And the mome raths outgrabe.
'Beware the Jabberwock, my son! The jaws that bite, the claws that catch! Beware the Jubjub bird, and shun The frumious Bandersnatch!'[12]
Onto Lewis Carroll's original poem, Gilliam and Alverson built a sardonic mediaeval legend, telling how a slow-witted cooper's apprentice kills the monster which is terrorizing the land, and thus wins the hand of a princess.
Even if the surrealism of the film and its source of inspiration can remind one of Monty Python and even if Michael Palin acted in it, Jabberwocky is definitely NOT a Python film. But Terry Gilliam's most famous production is without any doubt Brazil, released in 1985. Brazil, a film in the purest surrealistic and eccentric Gilliam style won the 'Best Picture', 'Best Director' and 'Best Screenplay' Awards at the Los Angeles Film Critics Association Awards without being released in the U.S.A.. The following year it won two BAFTA Awards, a London Standard Award, a British Film Institute Special Award and was the only British film nominated for an Oscar. In 1989, Gilliam's new epic ; The Adventures of Baron Munchausen opened in the States, in Europe and later in Japan and Australia and got the BFI Award for 'Technical Achievement' as well as BAFTA Awards for 'Production Design', 'Costume Design' and 'Make-up' and four Oscar nominations in 1990. His latest productions include The Fisher King, also nominated for four Oscars in 1992 and more recently Twelve Monkeys, released in 1995 in the States and in February 1996 in France.[13] It is therefore no surprise that with such a prize list, Terry Gilliam's popularity is now essentially due to his personal works as film director. Thus Terry Gilliam and John Cleese are the two members of Monty Python whose careers outside the group are internationally as famous as their performances within Monty Python. However the other Pythons have also pursued various activities in solo. It would be endless and devoid of interest to make an inventory of all their works. However on can mention Graham Chapman's novelistic biography ; A Liar's Autobiography, Vol VII, or Terry Jones's historical (and serious) book ; Chaucer's Knight, both published in 1980, and Michael Palin's travel shows ; Pole to Pole, in 1991. But again, as good as all those individual works may be, nothing the former Pythons can do outside the group will ever have the same impact on comedy and the same uniqueness as Monty Python.
[1] Adrian Mourby, "Arthur to the Rescue", The Guardian, August 10. 1995, p.5. [2] Ibid. [3] Richard Schickel, Time, May 26. 1975, quoted in Monty Python. Complete and Utter Theory of the Grotesque, BFI, 1982, by John O. Thompson. [4] Terry Jones quoted by Sheridan Morley "The Complete and Utter Palin and Jones in a two man Python Team", The Times, March 29. 1975, p.9. [5] Kim "Howard" Johnson in The first 20Ø Years of Monty Python, Plexus, 1990, p.215. [6] Michael Watts, "Python's Meaning of Life is that Life Makes No Sense", The Times, June 10. 1983, p.12. [7] Johnson, op.cit. , p.217. [8] Paul Cornell ; Martin Day ; Keith Topping, The Guinness Book of Classic British TV, Guinness Publishing Ltd, 1993, p.106. [9] Kenneth Passingham, Television Facts and Feats, Guinness Superlatives Ltd, 1984, p.256. [10] Cornell ; Day ; Topping, op.cit., p.127. [11] David Quinlan, Quinlan's Illustrated Directory of Film Comedy Stars, Batsford Ltd, 1992, p62. [12] Lewis Carroll, "Jabberwocky" (extract), quoted by Roger Wilmut in From Fringe to Flying Circus, Eyre Methuen Ltd, 1982, p.234. [13] Mainly based upon material provided by Python (Monty) Productions (No author or date given).
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