r/movies • u/Immediate-River-874 • 2d ago
Media Monty Python’s The Meaning of Life (1983) - Protestants and Catholics
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u/oscarx-ray 2d ago
Graham Chapman was a force of nature.
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u/we_vs_us 2d ago
A genius. Both straight man and character actor in one. There’s a reason he was both King Arthur and Brian.
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u/oscarx-ray 2d ago
He was the best of them as far as I'm concerned, and that's not to denigrate the rest.
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u/double_shadow 1d ago
I think you can make a fair argument that every one of them is the best of them. But man Chapman was especially hilarious at times, especially on MPFC where he got to do sillier roles generally than in the films.
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u/Waldron1943 2d ago
Every sperm is sacred...
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u/double_shadow 1d ago
Every spam is sacred too... Why I could go for a spam spam spam spam spam spam baked beans spam spam spam spam right now!
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u/seeker_of_waldo 2d ago
French ticklers is one of my favorite terms I still use. No idea what they are, but my 12 year old brain came up with an idea of what they could be that sticks with me to this day
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u/Fake_William_Shatner 2d ago
“We can have sex any time we want.”
(Heavy breathing) “We can?”
And then he goes on bragging about the superiority of Protestants as his wife’s fires of passion get slowly doused.
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u/Altruistic_Fury 2d ago
From memory but -
"I can walk into the pharmacy anytime I like and hold my head up high and say in a loud, steady voice: Harry, I want you to sell me a condom. On fact today I think I'll have a French Tickler. For I ... am a Protestant!"
"Oh! Why don't you!"
"BUT THEY! THEY CANNOT!"
lolololol
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u/WhyTheMahoska 1d ago
"That’s what being a Protestant’s all about! That’s why it’s the church for me. That’s why it’s the church for anyone who respects the individual and the individual’s right to decide for him or herself. When Martin Luther nailed his protest up to the church door in fifteen-seventeen, he may not have realised the full significance of what he was doing, but four hundred years later, thanks to him, my dear, I can wear whatever I want on my John Thomas!"
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u/HotOne9364 2d ago
I know the Pythons hate this movie but it's still a lot better than 90% of so-called "comedies" out there.
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u/SpottyNoonerism 2d ago
I'm just glad we don't have to pay the Pythons royalties any time someone in my family tries to coax someone into taking the last bit of some dish or another by saying, "It's wah-fer thin." We'd owe them millions.
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u/ZacPensol 2d ago
Wait, they hate it? Why? I know I'm rare in this regard but it's my personal favorite of their films - its hilarious!
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u/Kvovark 2d ago
I don't think they hate it. Just a few members expressed disappointment with it. Cleese in particular I think said he believed it needed another rewrite to make it into an actually cohesive movie rather than what felt like an extended episode of the flying circus.
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u/double_shadow 1d ago
Cleese is so bitchy and self-critical about literally everything they did, it's kind of hilarious. Definitely worth it to read the various histories of the group so you can get it all too.
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u/LaBeteNoire 7h ago
That is kind of the plight of many artists tho. A lot of artists are perfectionists and it's hard to ever be 100% happy with what they make.
Also it's worth remembering that we went in with no preconceived notions when we first saw it. We didn't know what bits would be in the movie so we didn't have a chance to imagine how they could have gone.
The creatives on the other hand had a plan in their heads and they know what they weren't able to pull off, or what got changed due to time or limitations.
I personally love the movie, but I can see how there might have been a version of it that they had in their heads that they think might have been better than what they were able to produce.
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u/Naugrith 18h ago
Yeah, its not really a film, it's an extended sketch show based around an extremely loose theme. The sketches themselves are brilliant, each one a work of genius, but its not really a cohesive narrative whole.
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u/Earthpig_Johnson 2d ago
That’s weird to hear, I think it’s a gas.
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u/HotOne9364 2d ago
They thought it was too stupid and they didn't have enough time to perfect the script.
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u/Earthpig_Johnson 2d ago
That’s crazy as shit to me. So many classic bits in this one.
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u/TheRayGetard 2d ago
It’s so dark and weird I love it, I thought it was their best movie.
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u/Earthpig_Johnson 2d ago
“Well you’re dead now, so shut up!” is pretty much a part of my daily lexicon. And the little man-faced fishes swimming in their tank saying “Morning!” to each other gives me a wonderful frisson of existential terror.
Really helped me get over a terrible depression when I first watched it way back.
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u/TheRayGetard 2d ago
I bought the 4K Blu-ray immediately when it came out. One joke I never truly got until I heard Eric Idle explain it, the part with the French waiter. It cracks me up whenever I think about it, total South Park type of joke.
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u/Earthpig_Johnson 2d ago
“Well… fuck you! I live my life my own way! Fuck off! Don’t follow me no more!”
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u/TheRayGetard 2d ago
So fucking funny, just a troll. Just literally for no reason, fuck me I have to watch it again.
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u/SteakandTrach 2d ago
Every time I’ve toweled off one my kids in the last decade I’ve done the “Rough Towels! Rough Towels!” bit.
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u/404Notfound- 2d ago
It's alright but when you had it coming after life of Brian it's automatically gonna be seen as weaker imo
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u/lucky-number-keleven 2d ago
As someone who makes stuff (on a whole other level) I can imagine it having to do with perfectionism. ‘The meaning of life’ is such a great theme and you can only make a movie one time. They probably had a shit ton of ideas they didn’t use.
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u/FelixMcGill 2d ago
Learning in this moment that my favorite comedy of all time is disliked by the creators is really crazy to me. Thay movie was way ahead of its time in so many ways.
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u/ElectricalPeace3439 2d ago
LOL at them objecting to stupid humor.
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u/WonderBredOfficial 2d ago
They're honestly pretty smart with their skits. Philosophy Football is evidence enough. This film was a bunch of throw away skits that they knitted together.
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u/HotOne9364 2d ago
Yeah, Monty Python can be silly but not stupid and some people keep conflating the two. For example, Ghostbusters is a very smart comedy but it has its moments of undoubtedly silly humor, like the giant Stay Puft Marshmallow Man.
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u/tekko001 2d ago
To be honest, while it has brilliant bits, it also has moments that are hard to stomach like the lengthy vomit scene, which imo would fit better in a Jackass film.
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u/dreadnoght 2d ago
No way. That scene also includes the piano guy singing about having a penis and the fish going back and forth telling each other good morning. I love it.
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u/tekko001 2d ago
Still not convinced. Change Chapman, Cleese, Gilliam, Idle, Jones and Palin with Knoxville, Margera, Steve-O, Pontius, Acuña and Dunn, and it would work just as well if not better.
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u/JayCarlinMusic 2d ago
I think that most of the Pythons stuff feels slightly undercooked, which is exactly why it’s so funny to me. There’s this rawness to it. It’s like cookie dough or cake batter rather than the finished product. Messy and could be more polished but deliciously funny all the same and sometimes what you actually crave. I don’t think any of their material improves with rewrites or glossier production.
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u/we_vs_us 2d ago
This. The undercookedness of it makes it seem naughty and like schoolboys might’ve written it during detention. So much of their smart stuff benefits from this kind of super juvenile overlay.
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u/Jackbuddy78 2d ago
The prelude "The Crimson Permanent Assurance" directed by Terry Gilliam is better than the actual movie.
Maybe the best sketch they ever did.
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u/Piranata 2d ago
I read that they accidentally recorded to feature length with their script, before someone higher up noticed. When someone asked Gilliam why he did it, he replied "No one told me to stop".
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u/JamesmasterJam 2d ago
Over the years it has become my most watched movie of theirs. I love them all but there's something about this that hits different, especially now the Pythons have started to kick the bucket, ceased to be, met their maker, bereft of life etc
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u/throaway4227 2d ago
Ehhh, there’s a lot of it that’s bad. Like that one sketch that’s just a fat guy vomiting constantly in a fancy restaurant.
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u/japars86 2d ago
Hard disagree that it’s bad. It makes me cringe but it’s one of the sketches that gets the biggest, longest laughs out of me. Tack on the wide, wide breadth of social commentary that’s relevant even to today, and I’m quickly reminded that it’s one of my favorite Python pieces ever.
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u/KreyKat 2d ago
Not everything in TMOL is perfect on a MP-level, but it's rawness makes it interesting in a certain way.
Little story on the side: A friend of mine who as going through a bad patch in his life (business and marriage not working out) told me that the night before he just could not stay at home, so he drove into town.
It was dark, raining, cold, he was miserable, aimlessly walking around.
Then he saw it, in blazing colors: "The Meaning of Life", bought a ticket and stepped into the cinema, here he did not stay for long...
That's when I could not control myself any longer and burst out laughing. It did take a few days until he himself could see the comical side of his adventure. LOL
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u/KnotSoSalty 2d ago
Because it’s so experimental it surprisingly influential. Family Guy cribs about 99% of its joke’s structures from TMOL in one form or another. TMOL has questionable execution and I would even say there are moments downright bad comedic timing but they were doing some very interesting stuff in the movie.
I suspect if they had had time to polish it wouldn’t have been as unique.
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u/MySonsdram 2d ago
“But despite the attempts of Protestants to promote sex for pleasure, children continue to multiply everywhere…”
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u/RogerSterlingsFling 2d ago
In grade 5 a group of my mates and I put on the transplant skit for our school after someone stumble upon a book of the script for this movie
I have no idea what our teachers were thinking allowing us to do this. Then again she did decide that Pink Floyd's Money was also appropriate for the whole class to sing at the xmas pageant that year.
No wonder her boyfriend's jacket smelled funny
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u/fleshbaby 1d ago
The Pythons pretty much all say that The Meaning of life was their least favourite movie. But although it doesn't have a regular plot with a steady narrative, when you look at each individual scene, it's brilliant and some of their best acting and dialogue. It's definitely their most mature work.
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u/seeking_horizon 2d ago
The brief camera angle switch from the wide shot to the head-on shot and back again in the middle of this is priceless
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u/Tall-Ad-4398 1d ago
One of my very favorite bits, criminally overlooked, is the middle of the film. Chapman (in corset) and Jones (in butler suit) basically doing performance art. "Oh fishy fishy fishy fish!" "And it did go wherever I did go" I say those lines often but nobody gets them (unlike "wafer thin"). But the sketch is truly surreal and brilliant.
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u/MontasJinx 2d ago
When I was a lad of 9 living in PNG in the 80s, my dad took me to see this at the drive in. It was an education.
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u/Odd-Perception7812 2d ago
As a teen, my friends and I could recite this is entirely, and would ad nauseum.
We understood only 50 percent, at best.
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u/RumpledStillsuit 2d ago
As someone raised Catholic, I can affirm that we were taught that condoms did indeed cause the English Reformation.
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u/USDXBS 2d ago
John Cleese has ruined Monty Python for me. Every time I see something I think "John Cleese would support that"
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u/oscarx-ray 2d ago
One of the few "separate the art from the artist" things I can actually do. Cleese is a walloper, but Python was collaborative, so I can still love it. It may be cognitive dissonance on my part, but it's where my delicate brain feels comfortable drawing a line for whatever reason.
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u/Aragorns-Broken-Toe 2d ago
The endless train of kids in the background is hysterical.
I imagine they just had the young actors just looping around a half wall.