Monty Python's The Meaning of Life

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.

This article is about the film. For the soundtrack of the same name, see Monty Python's The Meaning of Life (album). For the book, see Monty Python's The Meaning of Life (book). For the video game, see Monty Python's The Meaning of Life (video game).

Monty Python's
The Meaning of Life
Theatrical release poster
Directed byTerry Jones
Written by
Produced byJohn Goldstone
Starring
  • Graham Chapman
  • John Cleese
  • Terry Gilliam
  • Eric Idle
  • Terry Jones
  • Michael Palin
CinematographyPeter Hannan
Edited byJulian Doyle
Music byJohn Du Prez
Production
companies
Distributed byUniversal Pictures
Release dates
  • 31 March 1983 (1983-03-31) (United States)
  • 23 June 1983 (1983-06-23) (United Kingdom)
Running time
90 minutes[1]
CountryUnited Kingdom[2]
LanguageEnglish
Budget$9 million[3]
Box office$42.7 million

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 tank greet each other, then see their friend being eaten. This leads them to question the meaning of life. In the first sketch, "The Miracle of Birth", maternity doctors ignore a woman in labour while trying to impress the hospital's administrator. In Yorkshire, a Roman Catholic man loses his job and informs his numerous children that he must sell them for scientific experiments ("Every Sperm Is Sacred"). A Protestant man looks on disapprovingly and proudly remarks that Protestants can use contraception and have sex for pleasure (although his wife observes that they never do).

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 Hawaiian restaurant with a medieval torture theme, where, to the interest of the fish, the waiter offers a conversation about philosophy and the meaning of life. The customers are unable to make sense of it and move on to a discussion of live organ transplants. In "Live Organ Transplants", two paramedics visit an organ donor and remove his liver while he is alive. His wife is reluctant to donate her liver, but she relents after a man steps out of a refrigerator and reminds her of humanity's insignificance in the universe ("Galaxy Song"). Executives of an American conglomerate debate the meaning of life before a raid by The Crimson Permanent Assurance briefly interrupts them.

"The Autumn Years" starts off with a musician in a French restaurant singing about the joys of having a penis ("The Not Noël Coward Song"). As the song ends, the ill-tempered glutton Mr. Creosote enters the restaurant, causing the fish to scatter and hide. He vomits continuously and devours an enormous meal. After the maître d'hôtel persuades him to eat an after-dinner mint, Creosote's gut explodes, splattering the other diners. In "The Meaning of Life", the restaurant's cleaning woman proposes that life is meaningless before revealing that she is a racist. A waiter leads the audience to the house where he was born, recalls his mother's lessons about kindness, and then becomes angry when his point trails off.

"Death" features a condemned man choosing the manner of his own execution: being chased off the Cliffs of Dover by topless women in sports gear and falling into his own grave below. In a short animated sequence, despondent leaves commit suicide by throwing themselves from the branches of a tree. The Grim Reaper enters an isolated home and convinces the hosts and dinner guests, with difficulty, that they are all dead. They accompany the Grim Reaper to Heaven, revealed to be the Hawaiian restaurant from earlier. They enter a Las Vegas-style hotel where it's always Christmas and meet the characters from the previous sketches ("Christmas in Heaven").

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: "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 No. 1 / Doctor / Harry Blackitt / Wymer / Hordern / General / Coles / Narrator No. 2 / Dr Livingstone / Transvestite / Eric / Guest No. 1 / Arthur Jarrett / Geoffrey / Tony Bennett-esque singer
  • John Cleese as Fish No. 2 / Dr Spencer / Humphrey Williams / Sturridge / Ainsworth / Waiter / Eric's assistant / Maître D' / Grim Reaper
  • Terry Gilliam as Window Washer / Fish No. 4 / Walters / Middle of the Film announcer / M'Lady Joeline / Mr Brown / Howard Katzenberg
  • Eric Idle as Gunther / Fish No. 3 / 'Meaning of Life' singer / Mr Moore / Mrs Blackitt / Watson / Blackitt / Atkinson / Perkins / Victim #3 / Man in Front / Mrs Hendy / Man in Pink / Noël Coward / Gaston / Angela
  • Terry Jones as Bert / Fish No. 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 No. 5 / Mr Pycroft / Dad / Narrator No. 1 / Chaplain / Carter / Spadger / Regimental Seargeant Major / Pakenham-Walsh / Man in Rear End / Female TV Presenter / Mr Marvin Hendy / Governor / Padre / Leaf Son / Debbie Katzenberg

The main company of Monty Python members, who appeared in multiple roles in nearly every section of the film, was supported by featured cast mates:

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]

The grounds of Cartwright Hall in Bradford (pictured) was used as a location for the dancing nurses singing "Every Sperm Is Sacred"

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 Porchester Hall in Queensway for the Mr Creosote sketch, where hundreds of pounds of fake vomit had to be cleaned up on the last day due to a wedding being scheduled hours later. The Malham Moors were chosen for the Grim Reaper segment; the countryside near Strathblane was used for the Zulu War; and "Every Sperm Is Sacred" was shot in Colne, Lancashire, with interiors done at Elstree Studios.[6] The school chapel scene with the song "O Lord, Please Don't Burn Us" was shot at Churchill College, Cambridge.

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
Main article: The Crimson Permanent Assurance

The short film The Crimson Permanent Assurance introduces the feature. It is about a group of elderly office clerks working in a small accounting firm. They rebel against yuppie corporate masters, transform their office building into a pirate ship, and raid a large financial district. One of the boardrooms raided reappears later in the film, from shortly before the attack begins until the narrator apologises and a skyscraper falls and crushes the marauders.

The short was intended as an animated sequence in the feature,[8] for placement at the end of Part V.[9] Gilliam convinced 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 Monty Python's Life of Brian, but later rated it 15 when it was released on video. In the United Kingdom the film was rated 18 when released in the cinema[1] and on its first release on video, but was re-rated 15 in 2000. In the United States the film is rated R.[12]

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

Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times gave the film two and a half stars out of four, calling it a "a barbed, uncompromising attack on generally observed community standards".[15] In The New York Times, Vincent Canby declared it "the Ben Hur of sketch films, which is to say that it's a tiny bit out of proportion", concluding it was amusing, but he wished it were consistently amusing.[12] Variety staff assessed it as disgusting, ridiculous, tactless, but above all, amusing.[16] Gene Siskel of the Chicago Tribune awarded 3 stars out of 4, calling it "fresh and original and delightfully offensive. What more can you ask of a comedy?"[17] Sheila Benson of the Los Angeles Times wrote that the film was full of "raunchy talk, blasphemy (well, sacrilege) and one example of what kids call a totally gnarly, gross-out scene. The problem for the reviewer (to be specific, this reviewer) is when you are laughing this much it makes logging all the fast-flying offenses almost impossible."[18] Gary Arnold of The Washington Post was negative, writing that "The strongest impressions left by this picture have less to do with its largely tedious attempts to burlesque human weakness and pomposity than with the group's failure to evolve a coherent satiric outlook."[19] A review by Steve Jenkins in The Monthly Film Bulletin was also negative, writing that the return to a sketch format constituted a "great leap backwards" for the troupe and that the film's outrageous moments "cannot disguise the overall air of déjà vu and playing it safe."[20]

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, Empire's Ian Nathan rated it three of five stars, describing it as "too piecemeal and unfocused, but it possesses some of their most iconic musings and inspired madness".[22] In 2014, The Daily Telegraph gave the film four stars out of five.[23] In his 2015 Movie Guide, Leonard Maltin awarded it three stars, calling it "A barrel of bellylaughs", identifying the Mr. Creosote and "Every Sperm Is Sacred" sketches as the most memorable.[24] In 2022, Far Out Magazine praised Jones' directorial skills: "If Life of Brian was fundamentally Graham Chapman’s film, then The Meaning of Life is Jones’ finest hour, and what an hour it is too, creating a mad sense for the eyes and ears."[25] Family Guy creator Seth MacFarlane states: “I view Monty Python as the great originator of that combination [provocative humour and high-quality original music]. The Meaning of Life in particular comes to mind, and my favorite example is "Every Sperm Is Sacred." It's so beautifully written, it's musically and lyrically legit, the orchestrations are fantastic, the choreography and the presentation are very, very complex – it's treated seriously."[26] The review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes gives the film a rating of 86% based on 34 reviews, with an average rating of 7.30/10. The website's critical consensus reads, "Monty Python's the Meaning of Life is rude, ribald, and unafraid to take comedic risks -- which is to say it should more than satisfy fans of the titular troupe."[27]

Accolades

The Meaning of Life was awarded the Grand Jury Prize at the 1983 Cannes Film Festival.[28] 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.[29]

At the 37th British Academy Film Awards, Andre Jacquemin, Dave Howman, Michael Palin and Terry Jones were also nominated for Original Song for "Every Sperm is Sacred." The award went to "Up Where We Belong" in An Officer and a Gentleman.[30]

Home media

A two-disc DVD release in 2003 features a documentary on production and a director's cut,[31] which adds deleted scenes into the film, making it 116 minutes. The first is The Adventures of Martin Luther,[32] 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.[33] In May 2020, it was released on Netflix in the United Kingdom.

References
  1. "Monty Python's The Meaning Of Life (18)". United International Pictures. British Board of Film Classification. 26 April 1983. Retrieved 21 July 2013.
  2. "Monty Python's the Meaning of Life (1983)". BFI. Archived from the original on 13 January 2018. Retrieved 26 July 2021.
  3. Michael, Chris (30 September 2013). "How we made Monty Python's The Meaning of Life". The Guardian. Retrieved 1 October 2013.
  4. McCall, Douglas (12 November 2013). Monty Python: A Chronology, 1969-2012, 2d ed. p97. McFarland. ISBN 9780786478118.
  5. Boston.com Staff (27 December 2010). "Top 20 cult films, according to our readers". boston.com. The Boston Globe. Retrieved 1 February 2016.
  6. Douglas, McCall (2013). Monty Python: A Chronology, 1969-2012, 2d ed. McFarland. p. 958.
  7. Ess, Ramsey (20 September 2013). "Dick Cavett's Semi-Serious Talk with Graham Chapman". Splitsider. The Awl. Retrieved 21 September 2015.
  8. Hunter, I. Q.; Porter, Laraine (2012). British Comedy Cinema. Routledge. p. 181. ISBN 978-0-415-66667-1.
  9. McCabe, Bob (1999). Dark Knights and Holy Fools: The Art and Films of Terry Gilliam: From Before Python to Beyond Fear and Loathing. Universe. p. 106. ISBN 0-7893-0265-9.
  10. Birkinshaw, Julian; Ridderstråle, Jonas (2017). "Linking Strategy Back to Purpose". Fast/Forward: Make Your Company Fit for the Future. Stanford University Press. ISBN 978-1503602311.
  11. "Monty Python at the Movies". American Film Institute. Retrieved 22 July 2017.
  12. Canby, Vincent (31 March 1983). "MONTY PYTHON, 'THE MEANING OF LIFE'". The New York Times. Retrieved 20 July 2017.
  13. "Monty Python's The Meaning of Life". Box Office Mojo. Internet Movie Database. Retrieved 27 July 2014.
  14. "UIP's $25M-Plus Club". Variety. 11 September 1995. p. 92.
  15. Ebert, Roger (1 April 1983). "Monty Python's The Meaning of Life Movie Review (1983)". Chicago Sun-Times. Retrieved 22 February 2016.
  16. Staff (31 December 1982). "Review: Monty Python's The Meaning of Life". Variety. Retrieved 20 July 2017.
  17. Siskel, Gene (1 April 1983). "Python 'Meaning of Life' tingles with high-voltage shocks". Chicago Tribune. Section 3, p. 1.
  18. Benson, Sheila (31 March 1983). "Python's 'Life' Raunchy But Funny". Los Angeles Times. Calendar, p. 1.
  19. Arnold, Gary (4 April 1983). "'Life' Without Meaning". The Washington Post. p. B1, B2.
  20. Jenkins, Steve (June 1983). "Monty Python's Meaning of Life". The Monthly Film Bulletin. 50 (593): 163.
  21. "Tarantino shocked by Python scene". Irish Examiner. 29 April 2004. Retrieved 16 November 2021.
  22. Nathan, Ian (1 March 2007). "Monty Python's The Meaning of Life Review". Empire. Retrieved 20 July 2017.
  23. Chilton, Martin (20 April 2014). "Monty Python's The Meaning of Life, review". The Daily Telegraph. Retrieved 22 February 2016.
  24. Maltin, Leonard (2014). Leonard Maltin's 2015 Movie Guide. Penguin. ISBN 978-0698183612.
  25. "Hear Me Out: 'Monty Python's The Meaning of Life' deserves more respect". Farout Magazine. 7 April 2022.
  26. "8 TV Shows and Comedy Stars Inspired by Monty Python". BBC America. Retrieved 30 September 2019.
  27. "Monty Python's The Meaning of Life". Rotten Tomatoes. Flixster. Retrieved 27 July 2014.
  28. "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.
  29. Dionne, E.J. Jr. (20 May 1983). "JAPANESE FILM AWARDED TOP PRIZE AT CANNES". The New York Times. Retrieved 1 March 2017.
  30. "Original Song Written for a Film in 1984". British Academy of Film and Television Arts. Retrieved 1 March 2017.
  31. Murray, Noel (22 September 2003). "Monty Python's The Meaning Of Life (Special Edition DVD)". The A.V. Club. Retrieved 22 July 2017.
  32. "Monty Python's The Meaning of Life: 2-Disc Collector's Edition". DVD Talk. 2 September 2003. Retrieved 22 July 2017.
  33. Heilbron, Alexandra (8 October 2013). "Monty Python's The Meaning of Life 30th Anniversary Blu-ray". Tribute. Retrieved 22 July 2017.
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