Monty Python's Life of Brian
Life of Brian is a film from 1979 by Monty Python which deals with the life of Brian (played by Graham Chapman), a young carpenter who coincidentally lived at the same time and place as Jesus Christ. The film is essentially a classic farce and is eloquently summed up by Brian's mother (played by Terry Jones) saying, "He's not the messiah; he's a very naughty boy." This notwithstanding, the film is widely seen as a stunning critique of organised religion as a racket of hypocrisy and religious zealots, or just a very funny movie, or a sacrilegious film deserving censorship.It also pokes fun at leftist grouplets of the 1970s by featuring several factions nominally protesting against the Roman occupation of Judea, but are in fact more at loggerheads with one another (examples include 'The Judean People's Front', 'The People's Front of Judea' and (with only one member) 'The Popular Front of Judea').
Protests against the film were organized based on its perceived blasphemy, and indeed the film makes a comical song number of the crucifixion itself ("Always Look on The Bright Side of Life") (not "Always Look on the Bright Side of Death", as sometimes stated, although this phrase also occurs in the lyrics.) On its initial UK release the film was banned by some town councils. This was proved to be rather pointless since people who wanted to see the film just went to the places where it wasn't banned. According to the IMDb trivia page for the film (see external references below), the film was also banned for eight years in Ireland and for a year in Norway. The film was also released in Italy only in 1990, eleven years after the making of the film. Accusations of blasphemy also centred around an off-the-cuff comment made by Eric Idle who, when asked about the name of the Pythons' forthcoming feature, replied "Jesus Christ: Lust for Glory".
The fact that Jesus Christ appears in the film on two occasions (In the opening sequence at a Bethlehem stable and speaking the Beatitudes (Matt 5:1-48)) and the widespread use of Crucifixion in Roman times remove any serious accusation that Brian is supposed to be Christ.
Brianism is essentially a doctrine of individual humanism:
- Brian (to adoring crowd): You are all individuals, you've just got to work it out for yourselves! You're all different!
- Crowd (in unison): Yes, we are all different!
- One Man in Crowd: I'm not.
The film contains cameos by Spike Milligan and George Harrison
(There is no connection with the identically-named pseudo-religion Brianism).
