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Talking about Monty Python's The Meaning of Life

Started by madhair60, June 11, 2018, 11:54:01 AM

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saltysnacks

Quote from: Cold Meat Platter on June 11, 2018, 07:59:14 PM
No, the opposite of face blindness is arse blindness. Not quite as debilitating but still inconvenient.

To blow my own trumpet again, I'm quite good at recognising people by their arse. I spend a lot of time observing them, never forgetting that everyone (besides the most unfortunate) has an arse. Clint Eastwood has an arse, it's weird to think that the Man With No Name owns an arse.

Sexton Brackets Drugbust

Quote from: Revelator on June 11, 2018, 07:44:45 PM
From what I remember, it was placed in the rejects pile during the script read-through, until Cleese called Palin and Jones and said the sketch has possibilities. He wanted to play the waiter and liked the idea of one little mint causing Mr. Creosote's blow-up.

Yeah, Cleese twigged that the unflappability of the waiter in the face of such grotesque excess was where the comedy really lay, and suddenly the sketch was an appealing prospect.

Quote from: Sexton Brackets Drugbust on June 11, 2018, 08:10:13 PM
Yeah, Cleese twigged that the unflappability of the waiter in the face of such grotesque excess was where the comedy really lay, and suddenly the sketch was an appealing prospect.

It never really worked for me, and I don't know why. Maybe it's the French accent. It almost makes me want to see the same scene play out in a Fawlty Towers episode, with Basil so eager to please upper classes he's willing to put up with buckets of vomit, but if one regular bloke complains about the fish he gets screamed at.

Cold Meat Platter

Quote from: saltysnacks on June 11, 2018, 08:02:53 PM
To blow my own trumpet again, I'm quite good at recognising people by their arse. I spend a lot of time observing them, never forgetting that everyone (besides the most unfortunate) has an arse. Clint Eastwood has an arse, it's weird to think that the Man With No Name owns an arse.


If he didn't then he'd be the Man With No Arse and his gun belt would fall down.

Namtab

One of my favourite comedy films and possibly my favourite thing the Pythons have ever done. Certainly the best of their films. As others have said, there's a beautifully dark and melancholy atmosphere threaded through the whole thing that really compliments the comedy.

Twit 2

How old were you when you first watched it? My parents sat me down to watch it when I was about 8, the weirdos.

ASFTSN

Quote from: madhair60 on June 11, 2018, 01:56:38 PM
I find the whole film to be very melancholy.

This is what I love about it too.  Christmas in Heaven.  Couple ordering conversations from the waiter.  Death leading the way after the Salmon-mousse fatalities at the dinner party. 

Really underrated film.

idunnosomename

Uh, there are four Python films. I do love And Now For Something Completely Different, it's a great introduction.

Holy Grail is amazing fun, if a bit low budget and silly, with little plot

Life of Brian is hilarious satire on so many levels, especially the student politics stuff, and is utterly brilliant for its setting, captures 1st century Jerusalem as much as you'd expect a serious Jesus film too

Meaning of Life is disturbing on so many levels, but to its benefit. It's a tough watch, but enough laughs to make it bearable. Also can we praise the cinematography in Every Sperm Is Sacred? It's spectacular. And hilarious.

neveragain

There are technically five films, since Live At The Hollywood Bowl was released commercially (or 6 maybe if you count One Down Five To Go but that was only live-screened really). Anyway, since that and ANFSCD contain previously seen material, I tend just to count the three.

Shit Good Nose

I love Meaning of Life.  Gilliam as a white rasta.  "SHUT UP!  You always talk you Americans and say 'lemme tell ya something' and 'I just wanna say this', well you can't now cos you're dead so shut up!"  The Galaxy Song.  Ocarina.  Goodbye gifts during battle.  Love it.

saltysnacks

Quote from: Cold Meat Platter on June 11, 2018, 09:16:10 PM

If he didn't then he'd be the Man With No Arse and his gun belt would fall down.

I suppose he could dangle his gun on a string suspended by his poncho, although it could swing and hit his gentlemen's area. He'd be the Man With Nothing At All.

It is definitely a melancholy film. It feels pissed off and middle-aged in the best possible way, like Derek & Clive. I love it. Their most Buñuelian film by far. Aggressive disjunction. Throwing bombs until the very end. A manifesto against good temperament and civility.

Kelvin

Obviously just repeating what other have said, but yeah, I think of it as the most variable, and most interesting of the films, with the highest highs and the longest lows. Some sections, like the catholic family, organ transplant and Mr Creosote, still feel relatively shocking, even by the standards of today. Or at least, shocking in a way that's also interesting and funny, not reliant purely on the initial shock value.

I disagree with the posters upthread who enjoyed the Crimson Permanent Assurance section, though. I think it's absolutely interminable; the sort of thing that Gilliam would have made a 60 second sketch in the TV show, but dragged out for an eternity. Even the Every Sperm song drags towards the end, and the finale in heaven is the weakest section in the entire film.

Ferris

The over-zealous traditional pompous nature of the school section (as a grammar school man myself) always amused me. I love it.

The clock and the slice of cake in the trenches ("how many plates?" "Seven! Well... six now"), the person being dead even though they didn't touch the salmon mousse ("fucking Americans"). It's all excellent.


Shaky

MoL was the first Python thing I ever saw (late one school night) so I've got a massive soft spot for it. What it lacks in consistent laughs compared to Grail and Brian it makes up for in scope and general irreverence. Apparently Michael Caine is in the Zulu sequence but not sure it's ever been confirmed.

I'd love to get my hands on the reams of unused sketches and earlier scripts. Bound to be some good stuff in there.

Ferris

Quote from: Phil_A on June 12, 2018, 07:16:50 AM
"Oh Lord...OOOH you are so big..."

The toadying delivery of "we're all very impressed down here, I can tell you" always made me laugh.

TheMonk

At that stage of their career it so easily could have been rubbish. It's odd and great.
Considering his ordinary output afterwards I never understand why Cleese seems to always shit on it.


famethrowa

Have you thought of the drawers in the bureau?

I was always impressed that the scene was filmed in the control room of Battersea power station... it makes no sense but then it makes perfect sense.

madhair60

Quote from: famethrowa on June 12, 2018, 02:03:48 PMI was always impressed that the scene was filmed in the control room of Battersea power station... it makes no sense but then it makes perfect sense.

How do you know this?


madhair60

Right on, sorry, I wasn't trying to be snide there. I want to consume as much Python information as possible.

Any book recommendations?


Brundle-Fly

Actually, this thread gives me another opportunity to smugly show off a signed copy of The Meaning Of Life book I found in a Highgate charity shop last year.

Oh Jackie, how could you?




up_the_hampipe

Meaning of Life is what I loved about Python. Easily my favourite film they did. I was less fond of their sillier stuff. I think MOL represented who they really were, filthy dark souls. There were glimpses in Flying Circus with Salad Days and whatnot, but the loosened constraints of the movie world allowed them to set it all free. It's their Derek & Clive.

McChesney Duntz

I love it and always will - one of the most brutal, vicious satires ever to be bankrolled by a major studio (and a good pairing with Lindsay Anderson's [or was it L.F. Dibley's?] roughly contemporaneous BRITTANIA HOSPITAL). Only moment that truly falls flat for me is Idle's speech in the middle of the Zulu-war/missing-leg sequence, the whole "here, they give me a fucking medal, sir!" bit. Even as a thirteen-year-old, I found that cringeworthily on-the-nose (which is where Eric should have been punched for that). Otherwise, a magnificent festering.

Revelator

Quote from: Shaky on June 12, 2018, 07:57:25 AMI'd love to get my hands on the reams of unused sketches and earlier scripts. Bound to be some good stuff in there.

Yes, that's the Holy Grail of unpublished Python material. Since it took the Pythons a while to settle on the concept for the movie, more unused material and drafts were generated than for any other film of theirs. So there's the World War III material and sketches like the Cleese/Chapman effort about an Ayatollah Khomeini figure who bans toilet paper. 
What I don't understand is why the unused Grail and Brian material was published in the books of those films while the MOL outtakes weren't. At the time of the O2 reunion shows someone in the Python camp raised the possibility of performing some unused MOL sketches, but of course that never came to pass.

St_Eddie

Quote from: TheMonk on June 12, 2018, 01:06:14 PM
At that stage of their career it so easily could have been rubbish. It's odd and great.
Considering his ordinary output afterwards I never understand why Cleese seems to always shit on it.

I think that Cleese has changed his tune in more recent years, as I'm fairly certain that on my 2 disc DVD set of The Meaning of Life, he says something to the affect of...

Quote from: John Cleese (paraphrased)I used to think that The Meaning of Life was the weakest thing that we did as Python but the older I get, the more convinced I am that it's the best thing that we ever did.

...I remember this because it's a viewpoint that I share (like Cleese; ever more so, the older I get).

Quote from: famethrowa on June 12, 2018, 02:03:48 PM
I was always impressed that the scene was filmed in the control room of Battersea power station... it makes no sense but then it makes perfect sense.
Quote from: madhair60 on June 12, 2018, 03:31:05 PM
Right on, sorry, I wasn't trying to be snide there. I want to consume as much Python information as possible.

I assume that you're already aware that the elephant creature in the Fishy Fish Fish skit is a repurposed costume from Time Bandits (it can just about be spied in the little hut, having an argument, before promptly getting crushed by the giant's foot).

Quote from: McChesney Duntz on June 12, 2018, 04:35:39 PM
I love it and always will - one of the most brutal, vicious satires ever to be bankrolled by a major studio (and a good pairing with Lindsay Anderson's [or was it L.F. Dibley's?] roughly contemporaneous BRITTANIA HOSPITAL). Only moment that truly falls flat for me is Idle's speech in the middle of the Zulu-war/missing-leg sequence, the whole "here, they give me a fucking medal, sir!" bit. Even as a thirteen-year-old, I found that cringeworthily on-the-nose (which is where Eric should have been punched for that). Otherwise, a magnificent festering.

I completely agree with this.