MONTY PYTHON - ALMOST THE TRUTH ABOUT THE LIFE OF BRIAN

script of the video

...and there was a question from a journalist, he said "So, what's your next movie?' and I said, "Jesus
Christ - Lust For Glory" and, you know, there was laughter. And then a few months later we went off to
open the movie in Amsterdam...

...and we were all on a little pub crawl that evening, all except for John, who scarpered off, I don't know
what became of him. But Eric was talking... 'cause Eric's always got... kind of...Eric is a forward thinker,
and that' s when he came up with “Jesus Christ - Lust for Glory”. I fell off the stool I was on.

We did a series of very blasphemous jokes about... loved the idea that Christ was a carpenter, but it
was very bad joinery and it kept falling over. "No, you need to put a 2x4 divot, you know... Just...you
know... No! Wedge it. Yeah. Fuck!” Just get this... that was a whole riff we did. It was like, Well, we
can't...This can't possibly be it.

We thought at the time, God, it made us laugh, but we thought, hang on, this is... We've got to decide
how we deal with the character of Jesus. Do we make jokes about Jesus or do we have Jesus in the
film but make the jokes somehow sort of separate from him?

The interesting thing was we found out that Jesus Christ was not pervious to comedy. There's nothing
he says that is ... you can laugh at. You know, look after the poor, the meek, the sick. You know, well,
that's not... He said, ' Look after the meek! We got near it, but not...nobody ever mocks what's said in
the Sermon on the Mount.

We wanted to focus on what was funny. What is funny isn't what Jesus says, it's about how people
misinterpret that.

What was that?

I don't know.
I was talking to Big Nose.
I think it was “Blessed are the cheese makers”.
What's so special about the cheese makers?
It's not meant to be taken literally. It refers to any manufacturers of dairy products.

Its intention was kind. In fact, it really was getting at the people that we really thought must have
bugged Christ. People who constantly got the message wrong.

Hear that? Blessed are the Greek.

The Greek?
Apparently, he's going to inherit the earth.
Did anyone catch his name?

So then, whoever it was or however it was, the idea of having an alternative person who lived exactly
the same life at the same time, but wasn't Jesus, but was this Messiah who got put upon all the time,
came up, and that was the key thing.

I'm not the Messiah!

I say you are, Lord, and I should know, I've followed a few.
Hail, Messiah!
I am not the Messiah! Will you please listen? I am not the Messiah! Do you understand? Honestly!
Only the true Messiah denies his divinity.
What? Well, what sort of chance does that give me? All right! I am the Messiah!
He is! He is the Messiah!
Now fuck off!
Before Graham started filming Brian, he had been told that if he ever drank alcohol again, probably he'd
be dead within two years.

Once I decided to stop, it was easy, except for the three days of unpleasantness. Then, after that, a
week in hospital just cooling off on Valium, and I've been fine ever since.

He had been given a reprieve and a totally new life. The reborn Graham was part of the character he
put into Brian.

Look! There he is! The Chosen One has woken!

The writing, I think, is the best writing in Python. Particularly its political writing is what so brilliant about
it, because it's not really about Jesus. It's about prejudices, unions, terrorists, it's all that nonsense. In
those five minutes of the sandal, the shoe, the gourd, it tells you everything about the history of religion.

Follow the Gourd! The Holy Gourd of Jerusalem!

The Gourd!
Hold up the sandal as he has commanded us!
It is a shoe!
It's a sandal!
No, it isn't!
Cast it away!
Put it on!
And clear off!

Boom, it's the most concise, wonderful bit of prejudice, heresy and everything and punishment.

Up you go, Big Nose!

I'll get you for this, you bastard.
Oh, yeah?
Oh, yeah.
Don't worry. I never forget a face.
No?
I warned you. I'm going to punch you so hard, you Roman git!
Shut up, you Jewish turd!
Who are you calling Jewish?.
I'm not Jewish! I'm a Samaritan!
A Samaritan?. This is supposed to be a Jewish section.
It doesn't matter! You're all going to die in a day or two.
It may not matter to you, Roman, but it certainly matters to us. Doesn't it, darling?.
Oh, rather.
Under the terms of the Roman occupancy, we're entitled to be crucified in a purely Jewish area.
Pharisees separate from Sadducees. And Swedish separate from Welsh!
All right, all right, all right! We'll soon settle this! Hands up, all those who don't want to be crucified here.
Right. Next!

Now we come to, how to end a movie where all of the characters have been arrested and are about to
be crucified. Because, anyone on a cross, it's a significant figure, that's the symbol of Christianity.
That's when Eric came up with Always Look On The Bright Side.

I said, "What they should do is we should have a song, we should end with a song." Everybody said,
"Then we can have the feet kicking and all of that." I said, "It should be cheery, like a Disney song, a
whistly song. "

When you're chewing on life's gristle

Don't grumble, give a whistle
And this'll help things turn out for the best
And...Always look on the bright side of life
I went straight home when I wrote it. I got my guitar out. I had these jazz guitar chords, and I did the
little whistle song.

If life seems jolly rotten

There's something you've forgotten
And that's to laugh and smile
and dance and sing
When you're feeling in the dumps
Don't be silly, chumps
Just purse your lips and whistle,
that's the thing

I remember saying to the guys at the time, "You know, we might get people, religious nutheads, sort of
taking pot shots at us and, you know, it might be quite tricky, difficult when it comes out."

The first time I was really aware of...the greatness of the moment of what we'd done was with Mike and
John on the television show.

Our guest reviewers are Malcolm Muggeridge and Mervyn Stockwood, the bishop of Southwark.

The great event was the interview on the Tim Rice show where the bishop of Southwark and Malcolm
Muggeridge were brought in to attack the film with John and myself defending it.

I know people of Clifton College of exactly your own period who are now priests in my diocese.
I remember the sermons.
You don't remember mine. Tell me what I preached on.
No idea. I only remember the bad ones. I remember a gentleman coming and telling us how very
difficult it had proved to get the Bible into Tibet. Seven occasions. The first time there were landslides,
the second time, rains and the pages got stuck together, the third time... No, this is true. The third time
the mules had fallen off the mountain side, the fourth time, there were thunderbolts, and the seventh
time, he said, "God helped us and we got the Bibles into Tibet”. The obvious conclusion was that he
was trying to stop them getting the Bibles.

And I thought, OK, this is good. We've started the controversy. And then I loved, in New York is where it
really got interesting.

The new Monty Python film is entitled The Life Of Brian. It is a spoof of the life of Christ and has
managed to offend just about every religious group in this city.

Monty Python's Life Of Brian, a film attracting much attention today outside the Warner Brothers
building in Rockefeller Center. Demonstrators gathered to call the film blasphemous. Catholic, Jewish,
Greek Orthodox and Protestant religious leaders have all condemned the film, the New York
Archdiocese officially on record against it.

And people were walking up and down with billboards outside the cinema, which of course did us
tremendous good, and got millions of people to watch it who wouldn't otherwise. One billboard said,
"Monty Python is an agent of the devil." I remember thinking, "God, I'd like to be getting 10% of what he
makes. "

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.
Yes, we're all individuals.
You're all different.
Yes, we are all different.
I' m not.

The Life Of Brian isn't blasphemous, because it doesn't touch on belief at all. It's heretical because it
touches on dogma and it touches on the priesthood and the interpretation of belief, rather than belief
itself.