Monty Python's Life of Brian

Life of Brian
File:Lifeofbrian.jpg
Directed by	Terry Jones
Written by	Graham Chapman John Cleese Terry Gilliam Eric Idle Terry Jones Michael Palin
Produced by	John Goldstone
Starring	Graham Chapman John Cleese Terry Gilliam Eric Idle Terry Jones Michael Palin
Music by	Geoffrey Burgon
Distributed by	Warner Bros./ Orion Pictures Corporation (USA) Handmade Films (UK)
Release date	1979
Running time	94 min.

Monty Python's Life of Brian is a 1979 comedy written and performed by the Monty Python comedy team. It tells the story of Brian Cohen (played by Graham Chapman), a young man born on the same night and the same street as Jesus Christ.

The film was controversial due to its combination of comedy with religious themes. However, it has also been very popular with viewers: in 2000, readers of Total Film magazine voted it the greatest comedy film of all time; in 2004, the same magazine named it the 5th greatest British film of all time; in 2006 it was voted the best comedy movie of all time on two separate polls conducted by the British TV channels Channel 4 and Five; and on the Internet Movie Database, the film is consistently ranked among the top 100 films of all time.

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Brian (Graham Chapman) is born in the stable a few doors down from the one in which Jesus was born (a fact which initially confuses the three wise men who come to praise Him, as they must put up with Brian's boorish mother Mandy, played by Terry Jones, until they realize their mistake). Brian grows up to be an idealistic young man who resents the continuing Roman occupation of Judea. While attending Jesus' Sermon on the Mount, he becomes infatuated with the attractive young rebel Judith (Sue Jones-Davies). His desire for Judith and hatred for the Romans lead him to join the People's Front of Judea, one of many factious and bickering separatist movements, who all have similar names (such as the Judean People's Front). His first assignment as a rebel is an attempt at scrawling some graffiti ("Romanes eunt domus") on the wall of the governor's palace. This succeeds beyond his wildest expectations when he is caught by a passing Roman guard who, in disgust at Brian's faulty Latin grammar, forces him to write out the 'corrected' message ("Romani ite domum", which can also be translated to "Romans Go Home") one hundred times.(cf Mark 5 on "Legion").

Unfortunately, a series of coincidences resulting from a failed raid on the palace, and culminating with some meaningless babble Brian recites in an attempt to avoid the Roman guards, leads a small army of people to come to regard Brian as the Messiah. Despite his best efforts to convince people that this isn't the case, and his attempts to use his influence to get people to embrace their individuality and not rely on authority figures (advice which is merely parrotted back at him, reverentially), he is arrested, sentenced to death, crucified, and abandoned by anyone who could possibly help him. Still, by the closing credits, he is persuaded to "Always Look on the Bright Side of Life".

File:Chapman as Brian.jpg

The following is a list of all the characters given actual names in the script, or with a spoken role. Each Python (especially Terry Gilliam) also played various bystanders and hangers-on. The Pythons themselves are listed first (in alphabetical order) followed by the rest of the cast in order of appearance.

• Graham Chapman - Brian, Biggus Dickus, 1st wise man
• John Cleese - Reg, Jewish official at stoning, Centurion of the Yard, Deadly Dirk, Arthur, 3rd wise man.
• Terry Gilliam - Blood and Thunder prophet, Geoffrey, Jailer
• Eric Idle - Mr Cheeky, Stan called Loretta, Harry the Haggler, Culprit woman who casts first stone, Intensely dull youth, Otto, Jailer's assistant, Mr Frisbee IIIrd
• Terry Jones - Mandy, Colin, Simon the Holy Man, Bob Hoskins, Saintly passer by.
• Michael Palin - Mr Big Nose, Francis, Mrs A, Ex-leper, Ben, Pontius Pilate, Boring Prophet, Eddie, Nisus Wettus, 2nd wise man.
• Ken Colley - Jesus the Christ
• Gwen Taylor - Mrs Big Nose, Woman with sick donkey, young girl
• Terence Baylor - Gregory, Dennis
• Carol Cleveland - Mrs Gregory, Elsie
• Charles McKeown - Man further forward (at Mount), Stig, Blind Man
• Sue Jones-Davies - Judith Iscariot
• John Young - Matthias
• Bernard McKenna - Stoner's Helper, Parvus
• Spike Milligan - Spike
• George Harrison - Mr Papadopoulis

Several characters are never named during the film but do have names which are used in the tracklisting for the soundtrack album and elsewhere. There is no mention in the film of the fact that Eric Idle's ever-cheerful joker is called 'Mr. Cheeky', or that the terribly well-meaning Roman guard played by Michael Palin is named 'Nisus Wettus'.

Spike Milligan had an unplanned cameo as a prophet ignored because his acolytes are chasing after Brian. By coincidence he was visiting World War II battlefields in Tunisia where the film was being made, turned up one morning, was promptly included in the scene that just happened to be being filmed, and disappeared again in the afternoon before he could be included in any of the close-up or publicity shots for the film.^[1]

There are various stories about the origins of Life of Brian. Shortly after the release of Monty Python and the Holy Grail (1975), Eric Idle suggested that the title of the Pythons' forthcoming feature would be Jesus Christ – Lust for Glory.^[2] It has been variously reported, however, that this idea was merely one of a number abandoned at an early brain-storming stage, when it became clear that a parody of Jesus' life just would not work "because he's not particularly funny, what he's saying isn't mockable, it's very decent stuff..."^[3] According to the DVD commentary, Eric Idle and Terry Gilliam, while promoting Monty Python and the Holy Grail in Amsterdam, came up with a sketch in which Jesus' cross was falling apart because of the idiotic carpenters who built it and he angrily tells them how to do it correctly. Another idea considered was that of St. Brian, "the thirteenth disciple".^[2] The focus eventually shifted to a separate individual born at a similar time.

Writing began in December 1976, with a first draft completed by mid-1977. The final pre-production draft was ready in January 1979, following "a concentrated two week writing and water-skiing period in Barbados".^[4] The film would not have been made without George Harrison, who set up Handmade Films to help fund it, after the subject matter scared off the original backers, EMI Films.^[2] Terry Gilliam later said, "They pulled out on the Thursday. The crew was supposed to be leaving on the Saturday. Disastrous. It was because they read the script... finally."^[5] Harrison appears in a cameo role but his voice is dubbed by Michael Palin.

The film was shot on location in Monastir, Tunisia, which allowed the production to reuse sets from Franco Zeffirelli's Jesus of Nazareth (1977).^[6] Many locals were employed as extras on Life of Brian. Director Terry Jones noted, "They were all very knowing because they'd all worked for Franco Zeffirelli on Jesus of Nazareth, so I had these elderly Tunisians telling me, 'Well, Mr Zeffirelli wouldn't have done it like that, you know.'"^[5] Graham Chapman, an alcoholic, was so determined to play the lead role that he dried out in time for filming.^[1]

Following shooting between 16 September and 12 November 1978,^[4] a two-hour-long rough cut of the film was put together for its first private showing in January 1979. Over the next few months Life of Brian was re-edited and re-screened a number of times for different preview audiences before the final cut was complete, losing a number of filmed sequences entirely (see Lost scenes below).^[2]

The film has been seen as a critique of excessive religiosity, a religious satire depicting organised and popular religion as hypocritical and fanatical. The film's satire on the unthinking nature of religious devotion is epitomised by Brian's attempt to persuade an enormous crowd of his followers to think for themselves:

Brian: Look, you've got it all wrong! You don't NEED to follow ME, you don't NEED to follow ANYBODY! You've got to think for yourselves! You're ALL individuals!

The Crowd (in unison): Yes! We're all individuals!

Brian: You're all different!

The Crowd (in unison): Yes, we ARE all different!

Man in Crowd: I'm not...

The Crowd: Shhh!

The film also implies that many cryptic "signs" from Jesus Christ were instead bizarre accidents which people interpreted as religious (as when Brian loses his shoe and his over-zealous followers declare it to be a sign).

The representation of Christ alongside comedy proved controversial. Protests against the film were organised based on its perceived blasphemy, not the least of which because the film ends with a comical song sung by the victims of a mass crucifixion ("Always Look on the Bright Side of Life"). On its initial release in the UK, the film was banned by several town councils – some of which had no cinemas within their boundaries, or had not even seen the film for themselves. A member of Harrogate council, one of those that banned the film, revealed during a television interview that the council had not seen the film, and had based their opinion on what they had been told by a Christian protest group, of which they knew nothing.^[1] In New York, screenings were picketed by both rabbis and nuns ("Nuns with banners!", contends Michael Palin)^[3] while the film was banned outright in some U.S. states.^[2] It was also banned for eight years in the Republic of Ireland and for a year in Norway (it was marketed in Sweden as 'The film that is so funny that it was banned in Norway').^[7] The film was not released in Italy until 1990, eleven years after it was made. It was not shown in Jersey until 2001; the Bailiff of Jersey, Frank Ereaut's government, wanted it to be watched only by adults, even though the BBFC rated it suitable for those aged 14 or over.

In the UK, Mary Whitehouse and other campaigners launched waves of leaflets and picketing at and around cinemas that showed the film, ironically boosting the publicity. Leaflets arguing against the film's representation of the New Testament (for example, suggesting that the Wise Men would not have approached the wrong stable as they do in the opening of the film) were documented in Robert Hewison's book Monty Python: The Case Against. Shortly after the film was released, Cleese and Palin engaged in a debate about it on the BBC2 discussion programme Friday Night, Saturday Morning, in which Malcolm Muggeridge and the Bishop of Southwark put the case against the film. Muggeridge and the Bishop had arrived 15 minutes late to see a screening of the picture prior to the debate, missing the establishing scenes which demonstrated that Brian and Jesus were two different characters, and hence contended that it was a send-up of Christ himself.^[3] Cleese has frequently said that he enjoyed the debate, since he felt that the film was "completely intellectually defensible." The debate itself was then sent up the following week in a sketch on Not the Nine O'Clock News, entitled "General Synod's Life of Christ.", where Rowan Atkinson portrayed a bishop who had produced a film about the life of a John Cleese-like individual named Jesus Christ in a world where everyone worshipped Cleese and his works. Mel Smith played an intellectual protesting against it.

The Pythons contend on the DVD audio commentary that the film is heretical because it lampoons the practices of modern organised religion, but that it does not blasphemously lampoon the God that Christians worship. When Jesus does appear in the film – as he does on two occasions, in the stable and speaking the Beatitudes (Gospel of Matthew 5:1-48) – he is portrayed according to Christian beliefs and distinct from the character of Brian. The comedy occurs as members of the crowd mishear his statement "Blessed are the peacemakers…": "I think he said, 'Blessed are the cheesemakers'". Later, there is some debate on whether "the Greek" should inherit the earth.

The film also pokes fun at revolutionary groups opposing the Roman occupation of Judea, who are in fact more at odds with one another, trying to out-do each other in charisma and infamy, and calling each other "splitters" – examples include "The Judean People's Front", "The People's Front of Judea", and (with only one member) "The Popular Front". According to the DVD commentary, this part of the story is a satire on the multiplication of ineffectual left-wing parties in Britain during the 1970s: these revolutionary groups would splinter every few weeks, and be angrier at each other than they were at the British government.

The film attracted some complaints about Michael Palin and Graham Chapman's portrayals of characters with speech impediments (e.g. Biggus Dickus), but Palin insisted that this was solely for humorous purposes. Indeed, his father had a stammer, and he has since both given his name and support to The Michael Palin Centre, which offers "specialist assessment and therapy service in stammering". Nearly 10 years after Life of Brian, Palin would play the role of a stammering convict in A Fish Called Wanda.

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File:Romani ite domum.jpg

"Romani ite domum" Latin for "Romans go home!" is a major theme in a scene in the film.

The scene features John Cleese as a centurion and Graham Chapman as Brian, at that stage a would-be member of the People's Front of Judea. To prove himself worthy to be a member of this rather ineffectual group, Brian has to daub an anti-Roman slogan on the walls of the Governor's Palace in Jerusalem under cover of darkness. He has just finished when the centurion sees him. Brian is terrified and clearly expects to be killed on the spot, however, Cleese plays the centurion as an irascible Latin teacher, and instead of killing him he corrects Brian's sloppy Latin grammar (at sword-point).

"What's this, then?" he says. "Romanes eunt domus? People called Romanes they go the house?" Brian is forced to remember the correct forms for each word as if he were a delinquent school boy. "Now", says Cleese when they eventually get to the correct form Romani ite domum, "write it out 100 times! And if it's not done by the morning I'll cut your balls off" Brian does so, and becomes a hero.

In subsequent scenes in the film various Roman soldiers can be seen cleaning it all off. The humor, in typical Python fashion, combines obscure intellectual references with slapstick humor and a surreal, ridiculous situation.

A number of scenes were cut from the movie after filming. Most of these were lost in 1998 when they were destroyed by the Canadian company that bought Handmade Films. However, a number of lost scenes (of varying quality) were shown in 1999 on Paramount Comedy Channel in the UK; it has not been disclosed how these scenes were saved or where they came from, presenter Jonathan Ross merely claiming they had been found "in a black bin bag".

The scenes shown included the shepherds' gathering, which would have been at the very start of the movie; a segment showing the kidnap of Pilate's wife (a huge mountain of a woman played by John Case); a scene introducing Otto, leader of the Judean People's Front (played by Eric Idle); and a scene in which Pilate's wife alerts Otto to Brian's capture. The shepherds' scene has badly distorted sound, and the kidnap scene has poor colour quality.^[8] All can now be found on the Criterion Collection DVD.

The most controversial cut was the scenes involving Otto, the leader of the Judean People's Front Crack Suicide Squad, who had a thin moustache and spoke with a German accent. Otto was to have been a recurring character. The logo of the Judean People's Front was a Star of David with a small line coming from each point as in a swastika. The official reason for the cutting was that Otto's dialogue slowed down the narrative; however, Terry Gilliam, writing in The Pythons Autobiography by The Pythons, said he thought it should have stayed, saying "Listen, we've alienated the Christians, let's get the Jews now". Eric Idle was said to have been uncomfortable with the character; he said that Otto could be perceived as "a pretty savage attack on rabid Zionism, suggesting it's rather akin to Nazism, which is a bit strong to take, but certainly a point of view".^[3] The only scene with Otto that remains in the film is during the crucifixion scene. Otto arrives with his squad, sending the Roman soldiers fleeing in terror. Instead of doing anything useful, they commit mass suicide in front of the cross, ending Brian's last hope of rescue. They do however show some signs of life during the famous rendition of "Always Look on the Bright Side of Life" when they are seen waving their toes in unison in time to the music.

Otto's scenes, and those with Pilate's wife, were cut from the film after the script had gone to the publishers, and so they can be found in the published version of the script. Also present is a scene where, after Brian has led the Fifth Legion to the headquarters of the People's Front of Judea, Reg (John Cleese) says "You cunt!! You stupid, bird brained, flat headed..."^[9] The profanity was overdubbed to "you klutz" before the film was released. Cleese approved of this editing as he felt the reaction to the four-letter word would 'get in the way of the comedy'.^[3]

Life of Brian opened on August 17, 1979 in five North American theatres, and grossed an impressive $140,034 USD ($28,007 per screen) in its opening weekend. Its total gross was a strong $19,398,164 USD. It was the highest-grossing British film in North America that year. In addition, the film was the fourth highest-grossing film in Britain in 1979.

On April 30, 2004, Life of Brian was re-released on five North American screens to "cash in" (as Terry Jones put it)^[7] on the phenomenal box office success of Mel Gibson's The Passion of the Christ. It grossed $26,376 USD ($5,275 per screen) in its opening weekend. It ran until October 2004, playing at 28 screens at its widest point, eventually grossing $646,124 USD during its re-release. By comparison, a re-release of Monty Python and the Holy Grail had earned $1.8 million USD three years earlier.

Spin-offs include a script-book The Life of Brian of Nazareth, which is backed by MONTYPYTHONSCRAPBOOK... (The printing of this book also caused problems, since there are rarely-used technical laws in the UK against 'blasphemy' dictating what can and cannot be written about religion - the publisher refused to print both halves of the book, and original prints were by two companies).

"Always Look on the Bright Side of Life" was later re-released with great success, after being sung by British football fans. The increase in popularity became evident in 1982 during the Falklands War when British sailors, injured in an Argentine attack, started singing it. Indeed, many people have come to see the song as a life-affirming ode to optimism. ("Always Look On The Bright Side Of Life" is also featured in Eric Idle's Spamalot, a Broadway musical loosely based upon Monty Python and the Holy Grail, and was sung by the rest of the Monty Python gang at Graham Chapman's funeral.)

An album of the songs sung in Monty Python's Life of Brian has been released on the Disky label.

With the success of Eric Idle's musical retelling of Monty Python and the Holy Grail, called Spamalot, Idle has recently announced that he will be giving Life of Brian the same treatment. The musical, called Not the Messiah, has been commissioned to be part of Luminato, the Toronto Festival of Arts, Culture and Creativity, in June 2007, and is being written/scored by Idle and John Du Prez, who also worked with Idle on Spamalot. It will run approximately 50 minutes, and will be conducted by Toronto Symphony Orchestra music director Peter Oundjian, who is Idle's cousin.^[10]

• In the British sit-com The Return of Shelley, protagonist James Shelley, addressing God in an apologetic manner, says "Sorry I laughed at Life of Brian."
• In the Rowan Atkinson sketch "The Devil", from Rowan Atkinson Live in Belfast (1982), the crowd of people awaiting entrance to Hell includes "everyone who saw Monty Python's Life of Brian... Ah, yes, I'm afraid He can't take a joke after all..."
• Atkinson also appears in a Not the Nine O'Clock News sketch, in which a bishop who has made a scandalous film called "The Life of Christ" is raked over the coals by a representative of the "Church of Python", claiming that the film is an attack on "Our Lord, John Cleese." and on the members of Python, who, in the sketch, are the subjects of Britain's true religious faith.
• Naughtius Maximus, the supposed name of Brian's father which is given by his mother Mandy, is also the name of a Malaysian hip hop band.
• In the Bible-critical episode of Bullshit!, "The Bible: Fact or Fiction?", Penn jokes after having told about the numerous other "messiahs" by the time of Jesus, that Monty Python's The Life of Brian was probably more historically correct than Mel Gibson's The Passion of the Christ.
• A BBC TV series What The Romans Did For Us, written and presented by Adam Hart-Davis and first broadcast in 2000, takes its title from John Cleese's rhetorical question "What have the Romans ever done for us?" in one of the film's most famous scenes. Hart-Davis has subsequently presented a number of similar series about other periods in history using the same formula for the title (What The Tudors Did For Us etc.).
• British Prime Minister Tony Blair in his Prime Minister's Question Time of 3 May 2005 made a shorthand (and mistaken) reference to the political groups "Judean People's Front" or "People's Front of Judea" lampooned in Life of Brian.^[11] This was in response to a question from the MP David Clelland, asking "What has the Labour government ever done for us?" – itself a parody of John Cleese's "What have the Romans ever done for us?"
• In parts of Northern Ireland graffiti can sometimes be seen supporting the "PFJ" (and sometimes denouncing the "JPF") this is a parody of the widespread graffiti in support of real life Loyalist paramilitary organisations.^{[citation needed]}
• A statue of the Roman Emperor Nerva in Gloucester, England was defaced with the words "Romani ite domum", possibly in homage to the movie.^[12]
• In the DC comics project Kingdom Come, the two Mad Jailers of the Crucifixion scenes with Nissus Wettus appear on Apokolips, drawn by Alex Ross as part of the peasant crowd.
• On New Year's Day 2007, UK television station Channel 4 dedicated an entire evening to the Monty Python phenomenon during which an hour-long documentary was broadcast called The Secret Life of Brian about the making of The Life of Brian and the controversy that was caused by its release. The Pythons featured in the documentary and reflected upon the events that surrounded the film such as the run-in with Mary Whitehouse and the debate with Malcolm Muggeridge and the Bishop of Southwark. This was followed by a screening of the film itself.

• Hewison, Robert. Monty Python: The Case Against. New York: Grove, 1981. ISBN 0-413-48660-5. This book discusses at length the censorship and controversy surrounding the film.

• Life of Brian at IMDb
• Keith Short - Film Sculptor Image of giant feet sculpted for this film
• Criterion Collection essay by George Perry
• Graffiti vandal strikes in Gloucester

• Filmcritic.com review of Life of Brian
• James Berardinelli's Review on Life of Brian
• Life of Brian at Rotten Tomatoes
• Silver Screen Reviews