World Cinema Classic: Monty Python's The Meaning Of Life

Known for their intellectually sick and twisted sense of humor, the members of Monty Python are masters at satire. There is no better example of this then their 1983 film The Meaning Of Life. No one is safe as the Pythons pick apart everything from the Catholic Church to War. As the tag line states "It took God seven days to create earth, and Monty Python 90 Minutes to screw it up." So how is it a classic?


The film starts in very typical Python fashion, with a completely unrelated short film entitled The Crimson Permanent Assurance which tells the story of an office of old men who rebel against their corporate oppresses and turn their building into a moving pirate ship. They travel to the financial center of the world and pillage. This last for twelve hilarious minutes, and then the the actual film starts. The Pythons (John Cleese, Graham Chapman, Micheal Palin, Terry Jones, Eric Idle and Terry Giliam) are all fish in a tank. They see their friend Howard being eaten. Cleese remarks "Really makes you think." Thus begins The Meaning Of Life.This is by far the Python's darkest film with a mix of brilliant black humor and spectacular violence as well as a few interesting musical numbers. The film covers the Seven stages of a man's life: The Miracle of Birth, Growth and Learning, Fighting Each Other, Middle Age, The Autumn Years, and Death. Part I: The Miracle of Birth parodies how fast birth happens, yet how meticulous the process and why it costs so much (see here the meaningless machine that goes 'PING'). The section ends by parodying the catholic church's birth (or non birth) control methods and attitude towards conception with the elaborate musical number "Every Sperm Is Sacred". A man has to sell his kids to scientific research because he has too many (about 100) and has no way to feed them. The Pythons cover their bases by showing a protestant couple across the street denouncing the catholics because "Every time they have intercourse they must have child" to which his wife replies "But Thomas, we have two children, and we've only had intercourse twice.". He rants to her about the Catholics tolerance of having intercourse for fun, although his frustrated wife points out that they never do. Python brilliance.


Part II: Growth and Learning dives into school. A group of school boys are attending an Anglican Church where they recite the hymn "Oh Lord, Please Don't Burn Us". Again they Python's use a satirical approach to they schooling they were all brought up in. The act includes John Cleese as a headmaster leading the students in a sex ed. class to which he goes as far as actually physically demonstrating techniques with his wife as the students watch with bored expretions. Cleese berates the students for wanting to "Move too fast in the process." and asks the question "What's wrong with starting her out with a kiss boy? What's wrong with a simple kiss?" again Python satire at it's best but in a surprisingly subtle way. This section ends in a hilarious rugby game between the school children and the masters (an actual rugby team) who violently destroy the school children on the field.

Part III: Fighting each other is the Python's take on war and how silly it is. A commander (Jones) is trying to lead his troops through a battlefield in World War I. They feel this is the last time they will see him alive, plus it's his birthday so they reveal they have bought gifts (two clocks because "There was a mix up sir. Alan thought he was getting the clock") and they even made him a cake. This is revealed as a war film as an officer (Chapman) the plus side of a military because "If you don't share the same beliefs as one another than military action is absolutely necessary. And may God strike me down if I am wrong" to which God strikes him with a bolt of lightning. Outside a drill Sergent (Palin) is attempting to drill a platoon of soldiers, but dismisses them for their own personal leisure's. He then complains about the poor quality of the military. The power of authority is mocked in next scene when we flashback to the Anglo-Zulu War of 1879. After a horrific attack by the Zulus, the officers brush the death toll off in lieu of a more pressing matter, one of the officers has lost a leg, presumably to a Tiger (to which everyone who is told remarks "In Africa?!"). They begin to hunt for the leg and in typical Python fashion, the scene is cut off by a celebration of The Middle Of The Film. This includes a classic scene where the audience is told to find the fish. Jones appears in a tux and two disjointed, elongated arms and says, "I wonder where that fish did go? That fishy, fishy, fishy, oh." The fish from the beginning of the film return to comment "They haven't really said much about the meaning of life yet."


Part IV: Middle Age consists of an American couple (played by Palin with Idle as his wife) who visit a strange restaurant set in a Medieval dungeon but set to Hawaiian music. They order a conversation about the meaning of life. They feel that the topic is too boring and order another. Part V: Live Organ Transplants follows two paramedics (Chapman and Cleese) as they collect a donation of a liver (Gilliam as a Rastafarian Jew with a Hitler moustache). Being that he is still alive he initially refuses but the two paramedics burst through the door and violently and brutally disembowel him (All off screen. All the audience see is Chapman's face and white coat begin to have blood squirted on it and all we hear is Gilliam's comical yells and his legs and hands flailing) This is the peek of the Pythons violent humor in the film as we the audience finds themselves unable to not laugh at what they see the way it is presented. The execution is what makes it hilarious. Idle then appears in a pink suit and sings the infamous "Universe Song" about the wonders of our universe.


Part VI: The Autumn Years and the final section Part VII: Death go hand in hand. The Autumn Years includes the classic scene in which an overly outrageously large man devours all the food in a fancy French restaurant, only to explode when he eats a "Waffer" thin mint. This leads into Part VII: Death which starts by showing a funeral with an empty casket at the bottom of a cliff. A man (Chapman) is running because he is about to die. He has been convicted of "telling gratuitous sexist jokes in a moving picture" and has chosen his method of death. His method: to be chased off a cliff by a pack of topless roller derby women. The final scene is a parody of Swedish films (Particularly Igmar Bergman's The Seventh Seal) showing Death come collect a a group of people from a dinner table. He brings them to Heaven where the film ends on a massive musical note "Everyday Is Christmas in Heaven" (Which is bitter sweetly lead by Chapman who would die 6 years later). Then comes The End Of The Film where a lady in a chair (Palin) is handed an envelope containing the meaning of life which is:

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.

Monty Python takes all of the serious matters in life and pumps out a satirical look at them. This is the brilliance behind Monty Python, particularly The Meaning Of Life. It shocked and offended when it came out but as Eric Idle put it, it shocked all the right people who take life too seriously. Monty Python showed us that if we are bottled up all our lives and take it way too seriously, then whats the point? The meaning of life is exactly that: Life. We should live it, enjoy it and it's surprising that we should be taught this lesson from the likes of Monty Python but it happened. It's at times silly, but also at times intellectually brilliant. It's punk cinema at it's best. This makes Monty Python's The Meaning Of Life not only a British Cinema Classic, and a Punk Cinema Classic, but a World Cinema Classic.

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