Monty Python's The Meaning of Life
Monty Python's The Meaning of Life | |
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Directed by | Terry Jones |
Written by |
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Produced by | John Goldstone |
Starring |
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Cinematography | Peter Hannan |
Edited by | Julian Doyle |
Music by | John Du Prez |
Production companies |
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Distributed by | Universal Pictures |
Release dates |
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Running time | 90 minutes[1] |
Country | United Kingdom[2] |
Language | English |
Budget | $9 million[3] |
Box office | $42.7 million |
Monty Python's The Meaning of Life, also known simply as The Meaning of Life, is a 1983 British musical sketch comedy film written and performed by the Monty Python troupe, directed by Terry Jones. The Meaning of Life was the last feature film to star all six Python members before the death of Graham Chapman in 1989.
Unlike Holy Grail and Life of Brian, the film's two predecessors, which each told a single, more-or-less coherent story,[3] The Meaning of Life returned to the sketch format of the troupe's original television series and their first film from twelve years earlier, And Now for Something Completely Different, loosely structured as a series of comic sketches about the various stages of life. It was accompanied by the short film The Crimson Permanent Assurance.
Released on 23 June 1983 in the United Kingdom,[4] The Meaning of Life was not as acclaimed as its predecessors, but was still well received critically and was a minor box office success; the film grossed almost $43 million against a $9 million budget. It was screened at the 1983 Cannes Film Festival, where it won the Grand Prix. The film appears in a 2010 list of the top 20 cult films published by The Boston Globe.[5]
Plot
Six fish in a restaurant's
In "Growth and Learning", a class of boys learn school etiquette before partaking in a sex education lesson, which involves watching their teacher have sex with his wife. One boy laughs and is forced into a violent rugby match pitting pupils against the school masters as punishment. "Fighting Each Other" features three scenes concerning the British military. First, during the Battle of the Somme in World War I, a British officer tries to rally his men during an attack, but they instead present him with going-away gifts. Second, a modern army RSM bullies his soldiers to say what they'd rather be doing than drill practice, then dismisses each in turn. Lastly, in 1879 during the Anglo-Zulu War during the Battle of Rorke's Drift, a soldier finds his leg has been bitten off. Suspecting a tiger, the soldiers hunt for it and find two men in a tiger costume.
An announcer introduces "The Middle of the Film," during which bizarre characters challenge the audience in a segment called "Find the Fish." "Middle Age" involves an American couple visiting a
"The Autumn Years" starts off with a musician in a French restaurant singing about the joys of having a
"Death" features a condemned man choosing the manner of his own execution: being chased off the
The song ends abruptly for "The End of the Film". The hostess from "The Middle of the Film" opens an envelope and blandly reveals the meaning of life: "It's nothing very special, really. Try and be nice to people, avoid eating fat, read a good book every now and then, get some walking in, and try and live together in peace and harmony with people of all creeds and nations".
Cast
- Graham Chapman as Chairman / Fish #1 / Doctor / Harry Blackitt / Wymer / Hordern / General / Coles / Narrator #2 / Dr. Livingstone / Transvestite / Eric / Guest #1 / Arthur Jarrett / Geoffrey / Tony Bennett
- John Cleese as Fish #2 / Dr. Spencer / Humphrey Williams / Sturridge / Ainsworth / Waiter / Eric's Assistant / Maître D' / Grim Reaper
- Terry Gilliam as Window Washer / Fish #4 / Walters / Middle of the Film Announcer / M'Lady Joeline / Mr. Brown / Howard Katzenberg
- Eric Idle as Gunther / Fish #3 / 'Meaning of Life' Singer / Mr. Moore / Mrs. Blackitt / Watson / Blackitt / Atkinson / Perkins / Victim #3 / Front End / Mrs. Hendy / Man in Pink / Noël Coward / Gaston / Angela
- Terry Jones as Bert / Fish #6 / Mum / Priest / Biggs / Sergeant / Man with Bendy Arms / Mrs. Brown / Mr. Creosote / Maria / Leaf Father / Fiona Portland-Smythe
- Michael Palin as Window Washer / Harry / Fish #5 / Mr. Pycroft / Dad / Narrator #1 / Chaplain / Carter / Spadger / Regimental Sergeant Major / Pakenham-Walsh / Rear End / Female TV Presenter / Mr. Marvin Hendy / Governor / Leaf Son / Debbie Katzenberg
- Carol Cleveland as Beefeater Waitress / Wife of Guest #1 / Leaf Mother / Leaf Daughter / Heaven Receptionist
- Simon Jones as Chadwick / Jeremy Portland-Smythe
- Patricia Quinnas Mrs. Williams
- Judy Loe as Nurse #1
- Andrew MacLachlan as Groom / Wycliff / Victim #1 / Guest #3
- Mark Holmes as Victim #2 (Cheerful Severed Head) / Troll Waiter / Guest #2
- Valerie Whittington as Mrs. Moore
- Jennifer Franks as Bride
- Imogen Bickford Smith as Nurse #2
- Angela Mann as Wife of Guest #2
- Peter Lovstrom as Brown's Son
- George Silver as Diner Eating Howard the Fish
- Chris Grant
Production
According to Palin, "the writing process was quite cumbersome. An awful lot of material didn't get used. Holy Grail had a structure, a loose one: the search for the grail. Same with Life of Brian. With this, it wasn't so clear. In the end, we just said: 'Well, what the heck. We have got lots of good material, let's give it the loosest structure, which will be the meaning of life'".[3]
After the film's title was chosen, Douglas Adams called Jones to tell him he had just finished a new book, to be called The Meaning of Liff; Jones was initially concerned about the similarity in titles, which led to the scene in the title sequence of a tombstone which, when hit by a flash of lightning, changes from "The Meaning of Liff" to "The Meaning of Life".[3]
Principal photography began on 12 July 1982 and was completed about two months later, on 11 September. A wide variety of locations were used, such as
The film was produced on a budget of less than US$10 million, which was still bigger than that of the earlier films. This allowed for large-scale choreography and crowd sequences, a more lavishly produced soundtrack that included new original songs, and much more time able to be spent on each sketch, especially The Crimson Permanent Assurance. Palin later said that the larger budget, and not making the film for the BBC (i.e., television), allowed the film to be more daring and dark.[3]
The idea for the hospital sketch came from Chapman, himself a doctor,[7] who had noticed that hospitals were changing, with "lots and lots of machinery".[3] According to Palin, the organ transplant scene harked back to Python's love of bureaucracy, and sketches with lots of people coming round from the council with different bits of paper.[3]
During the filming of the scene where Palin's character explains Catholicism to his children, his line was "that rubber thing at the end of my sock", which was later overdubbed with cock.[3]
The Crimson Permanent Assurance
The
The short was intended as an animated sequence in the feature,[8] for placement at the end of Part V.[9] Gilliam persuaded the other members of Monty Python to allow him to produce and direct it as a live action piece instead.
Release
The original tagline read "It took God six days to create the Heavens and the Earth, and Monty Python just 90 minutes to screw it up"[10] (the length of The Meaning of Life proper is 90 minutes, but becomes 107 minutes as released with the "Short Subject Presentation", The Crimson Permanent Assurance). In an April 2012 re-release held by the American Film Institute, the tagline is altered to read "It took God six days to create the Heavens and the Earth, and Monty Python just 1 hour and 48 minutes to screw it up".[11]
Ireland banned the film on its original release as it had previously done with
Reception
Box office
The film opened in the United States on 31 March 1983. At 257 cinemas it ranked number six at the US box office, grossing US$1,987,853 ($7,734 per screen) in its opening weekend. It played at 554 cinemas at its widest point, and its total gross in the United States and Canada was $14,929,552.[13] Internationally it grossed $27.8 million for a worldwide total of $42.7 million.[14]
Critical reception
In 2004, acclaimed director Quentin Tarantino once stated "The only time I've ever had to look away, because I couldn't bear to watch, was The Meaning of Life, when that fat b***ard keeps being sick. I felt really nauseous – it was just too much. I was looking around and I thought, 'If anyone here is sick and I have to smell vomit, I'm going to hurl'. I just about held onto my lunch in the end, but I still can't think about that scene without retching."[21]
In 2007,
Accolades
The Meaning of Life was awarded the Grand Jury Prize at the 1983 Cannes Film Festival.[27] While the Cannes jury, led by William Styron, were fiercely split on their opinions on several films in competition, The Meaning of Life had general support, securing it the second-highest honour after the Palme d'Or for The Ballad of Narayama.[28]
At the
Home media
A two-disc DVD release in 2003 features a documentary on production and a director's cut,[30] which adds deleted scenes into the film, making it 116 minutes. The first is The Adventures of Martin Luther,[31] inserted after the scene with the Protestant couple talking about condoms. The second is a promotional video about the British army, which comes between the marching around the square scene and the Zulu army scene. The third and last is an extension of the American characters performed by Idle and Palin; they are shown their room and talk about tampons. In Region 1, it was released on Blu-ray to mark its 30th anniversary.[32] In May 2020, it was released on Netflix in the United Kingdom.
References
- ^ a b "Monty Python's The Meaning Of Life (18)". United International Pictures. British Board of Film Classification. 26 April 1983. Retrieved 21 July 2013.
- ^ "Monty Python's the Meaning of Life (1983)". BFI. Archived from the original on 13 January 2018. Retrieved 26 July 2021.
- ^ a b c d e f g h Michael, Chris (30 September 2013). "How we made Monty Python's The Meaning of Life". The Guardian. Retrieved 1 October 2013.
- ISBN 9780786478118.
- ^ Boston.com Staff (27 December 2010). "Top 20 cult films, according to our readers". boston.com. The Boston Globe. Retrieved 1 February 2016.
- ^ Douglas, McCall (2013). Monty Python: A Chronology, 1969-2012, 2d ed. McFarland. p. 958.
- ^ Ess, Ramsey (20 September 2013). "Dick Cavett's Semi-Serious Talk with Graham Chapman". Splitsider. The Awl. Archived from the original on 1 October 2015. Retrieved 21 September 2015.
- ISBN 978-0-415-66667-1.
- ISBN 0-7893-0265-9.
- ISBN 978-1503602311.
- ^ "Monty Python at the Movies". American Film Institute. Retrieved 22 July 2017.
- ^ a b Canby, Vincent (31 March 1983). "MONTY PYTHON, 'THE MEANING OF LIFE'". The New York Times. Retrieved 20 July 2017.
- Internet Movie Database. Retrieved 27 July 2014.
- ^ "UIP's $25M-Plus Club". Variety. 11 September 1995. p. 92.
- ^ Ebert, Roger (1 April 1983). "Monty Python's The Meaning of Life Movie Review (1983)". Chicago Sun-Times. Retrieved 22 February 2016.
- ^ Staff (31 December 1982). "Review: Monty Python's The Meaning of Life". Variety. Retrieved 20 July 2017.
- ^ Siskel, Gene (1 April 1983). "Python 'Meaning of Life' tingles with high-voltage shocks". Chicago Tribune. Section 3, p. 1.
- ^ Benson, Sheila (31 March 1983). "Python's 'Life' Raunchy But Funny". Los Angeles Times. Calendar, p. 1.
- ^ Arnold, Gary (4 April 1983). "'Life' Without Meaning". The Washington Post. p. B1, B2.
- ^ Jenkins, Steve (June 1983). "Monty Python's Meaning of Life". The Monthly Film Bulletin. 50 (593): 163.
- ^ "Tarantino shocked by Python scene". Irish Examiner. 29 April 2004. Retrieved 16 November 2021.
- ^ Nathan, Ian (1 March 2007). "Monty Python's The Meaning of Life Review". Empire. Retrieved 20 July 2017.
- ^ Chilton, Martin (20 April 2014). "Monty Python's The Meaning of Life, review". The Daily Telegraph. Retrieved 22 February 2016.
- ISBN 978-0698183612.
- ^ "8 TV Shows and Comedy Stars Inspired by Monty Python". BBC America. Retrieved 30 September 2019.
- ^ "Monty Python's The Meaning of Life". Rotten Tomatoes. Flixster. Retrieved 27 July 2014.
- ^ "Festival de Cannes: Monty Python's The Meaning of Life". festival-cannes.com. Archived from the original on 21 January 2012. Retrieved 16 June 2009.
- ^ Dionne, E.J. Jr. (20 May 1983). "JAPANESE FILM AWARDED TOP PRIZE AT CANNES". The New York Times. Retrieved 1 March 2017.
- ^ "Original Song Written for a Film in 1984". British Academy of Film and Television Arts. Retrieved 1 March 2017.
- ^ Murray, Noel (22 September 2003). "Monty Python's The Meaning Of Life (Special Edition DVD)". The A.V. Club. Retrieved 22 July 2017.
- ^ "Monty Python's The Meaning of Life: 2-Disc Collector's Edition". DVD Talk. 2 September 2003. Retrieved 22 July 2017.
- ^ Heilbron, Alexandra (8 October 2013). "Monty Python's The Meaning of Life 30th Anniversary Blu-ray". Tribute. Retrieved 22 July 2017.