Life of Brian
The Life of Brian (1979) was a film made by the Monty python team.
The film was set in first century Palestine and centred on a character called Brian, whose life paralleled that of Jesus Christ. It’s now hard to imagine the furore that surrounded the film's release, especially as it appeared to end on such a positive finishing song. Up to that point, no film had received the ferocity or amount of protests by religious groups as the Pythons did. Of course most of the protesters never saw the film – they had only heard rumors [1]. The film was banned in several countries as blasphemous [2]. In the United States, for example where Catholic groups wanted attendance to be declared a sin, according to Richard Stern , the film was condemned by "no less than three rabbinical organizations as 'a crime against religion'" [3].
The Python team always denied categorically that the film satirized the life of Jesus.[4]
In fact the film went out of its way to depict Jesus, with Brian foregrounded to make the point that this was about an entirely different character. The film does however satirize both political and religious ideology and what John Cleese (a leading member of the Monty python team) called 'closed systems of thinking' [5]. There are some wonderful episodes in the film which demonstrate this admirably. The "What have the Romans ever done for us?" sequence particularly demonstrates how political ideology can blind people to evidence, and the "Tell us Master" sequence demonstrates within the space of a couple of minutes how religious movements can form, split, and evolve to the point where despite the fact that even the most blatant and abusive insults are being hurled, thinking is twisted around to interpret these statements and insults as revered messages. The "You are all different" section further demonstrates how rigid thinking blinds followers to the actual text of the message. In this sequence, 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 final episode, the crucifiction, which probably caused the most outrage at the time is wonderful example of irony. The character who is singing 'Always look on the bright side of life' is a practical joker and an incurable optimist. He is the kind of person you could willingly strangle after 10 minutes in his company. The fact that he manages to convince a bunch of people who are dying a most agonising death, and end the film on a happy, whistly tune is one of the most perverse endings in the whole of comedy.
References
- ↑ quote from a review: http://www.toxicuniverse.com/review.php?rid=10000748
- ↑ cited in: http://www.georgetown.edu/users/aws23/LOB%20controversy.htm
- ↑ Stern, Richard C., Clayton Jefford, and Guerric DeBona, 1999, Savior on the Silver Screen. Boston: Paulist
- ↑ The Pythons always countered accusations of blasphemy by remarking it was simply an allegorical tale of people who follow religions without question. “We worked very hard not to blaspheme — because it’s really about this guy next door — but the bishop of Southwark didn’t understand this, Malcolm Muggeridge didn’t understand it and the people of America didn’t understand it either; but my mother, who’s an avid churchgoer, had no problem with it.” quote taken from http://www.fortunecity.com/lavendar/sydenham/306/mplob.html
- ↑ Dyke, Carl., 2002, "Learning from The Life of Brian: Savior for Seminars." Screening Scripture: Intertextual Connections Between Scripture and Film. Ed.George Aichele and Richard Walsh. Harrisburg, PA: Trinity
