Interview with John Cleese and Terry Jones

thank you very much indeed both of you for coming and joining in this conference we've been working on it for a long time when it's fantastic to have people here from all over the world biblical scholars we're already having great debate with Julian Doyle is the editor of the film about all the different various scenes but let me let me start by taking it back to the origins the genesis of the film um the story that jesus christ lust for glory I mean when I looked in the Pythons autobiography as historians do we need to know provenance you see a micropenis has happened in Canada and Eric Idle Saddam in New York and Terry Gilliam says it was Amsterdam Terry Jones says he was absent at the time and you think it was Soho yeah I think it was the old fashionable restaurant it doesn't matter where it was but tell me why don't we just say one thing I'm sorry I don't know you say a job I think I got I have postcards from Amsterdam saying that we decided on the next show oh yeah I thought it was lust without a scratch in juris and because I don't think I was in Amsterdam well if you could remember being them you probably weren't what I'd be but I have no idea what occasion was but I should explain to the audience that the Pythons never agree on anything you know so if you think there's going to be some sort of a party Tata does I can promise you their work because we were just mentioning other what was it called Mahoney Flying Circus yeah which huge Terry loved and I absolutely detest it so you will find there is no use at the fingers at all except in our love of food and our de states of The Daily Bell yeah well two good things he seems to me but I mean obviously the the lust for glory idea came out the pattern lust for glory which was also being premiered at the same time as Life of Brian well you see my recollection is that we've written in in an Indian restaurant and we got the idea about doing a movie we didn't know what but set at the time of Christ just because it would be so interesting nobody'd ever done it through our knowledge only not a comedy and I think Eric suggested the title Eric Idle lust for glory and of course that amused as you normally and it raises terribly interesting question about the egos oh yeah extremely important religious leaders I mean I have met one or two cry for remarkable one it's like a lie you followed a few I think Apollo defeat the night that I might not get at Saudi Olympus she who extraordinary people whose egos are almost completely vanished and where they can wake up and then you meet other people about and figure someone like Ken Wilber or a fellow went you noticed I met him once in Santa Barbara and he was talking in Rubin Celt Ken Wilber you never heard of and this guy was was chatting to me and what I noticed was he'd been to Tibet he'd learned how to speak to bed you know he'd actually worked with the Dalai Lama for a number years any happen or the struggle going on the whole time with his ego because he couldn't wait to tell me how brilliant he was but always in a sort of by accident it told me you know what I mean like you remember that phrase about somebody walking backwards into the spotlight you know it was and I'm fascinated by that because sometimes you think these people if they've been in the religion business long enough you would have thought they'd have got their egos a little bit smaller well it is a constant struggle but I'd like to come back to the egos in a minute but just staying with the lust for eating I was looking in the Panthers autobiography and I noticed it professor George Brooke in his sexual murdered sea scrolls earlier praised Erik because he done more than any of his students because he said you know here we went to read the Bible and I read the Dead Sea Scrolls but you to both say in the or 12 you you quickly discover that Jesus wasn't funny in the sense that as you say Terry you said the humoral laser assembly preaching and talking about peace and love and then people spend the next 2,000 years killing each other about um so fairly quickly the idea of it not being about Jesus Christ unless pretory about but about somebody at the same time yeah I think emerged how does that happen and what did you read and why well you will you you talk to the Queen's chaplain yes Graham Chapman had some connection with the Queen's chaplain whose name I forgot that we went down there we had chats there's all kind of them really yeah the hundred they were they present in very bright red oh I'm trusting what he was just he was delightful and I remember you to explain to us about cue and what a funny me saying that it is since I played well I was coming on to that later but good he explained a bit and I started reading and getting very interested in some of the books I was reading but I think we realized very early on almost instinctively although we could give it intellectual justification but you can't really be funny about Christ because funny behavior is inappropriate they you know it's somebody who is caught in it in motion now it's about stupidity so if you have someone who is at the peak of a sort of spiritual attainments then there can't be anything very funny about you because it's not about being smart and flexible it's about being stuck in right though I mean some of them mean he also had a controlling sense of humor I mean you know a guy with a great login as I've trying to take a speck of dust out of somebody else's you can really sort of play that yeah we know but it never says you laughed it does it in the Bible it says you whip but not even long I'm gonna go and do some more work but I think you may well be right but but IIIi can't imagine I mean certainly when I was training for the priesthood I was involved in a rock band and arts group and salt and some of the parables were being done by whole bunches of people acting them out oh I know this one a lot in fact one of them's here in the organ is here tonight but if the guilties named joe beaser but you also went for extraordinary historical accuracy I mean one of the things that keeps coming back through the conference and we're going to be looking at more and more when it whether it comes to the presence of Roman soldiers or whether it comes back to clothing or all those sorts of things in many ways Brian was much more authentic than the kind of classic Hollywood I I think that's down to hazel petty who did our costumes that's what they're the basis of the reality of the show was above the film was but we were you were saying also about attitude yeah I mean well you said extraordinary accuracy if it's extraordinary it was accidental but we did well there's some debate going on already today show ask me again on Sunday afternoon yeah but I mean I was stuck very much at the time well we did we did wrong is that guys I'm glad somebody grouchy wrote books about my Cobra I remember reading a couple of him and we digested it quite carefully and when we started to write I'm talking about Graham and myself clear but when Graham and I started to write we didn't feel we could get involved yet with a sort of plot or the central character so we wrote it a number of things that were about what might have happened at the time like the Sterling yeah you know what I mean any once you've got that idea the gritty showed where you're coming in yeah I love that I think that's really funny and when when somebody throws it the guy gets hit and says how in any city we haven't started yet I think terribly funny but that was just Accra what's the word that was setting where I do when did you get into the central stuff and no develop this story of a little lipo Brian white later on I think I think Murray she was gonna be the 13th to sign for I yes I read him on that was very good idea that's right that was the star is that he was going to be the 13th to cyclin they were never enough chairs around the last time well no it was I think it was as that he was married and and his wife we every time he wanted to come to the last supper his wife at us friends rounded he was good come on afterwards for a drink little bit of breath anyways it was very funny but he didn't go anywhere yeah I remember at the end of the first month writing because we used to write for a month and then we go and do other things and come back Michael read out the scene and I don't know how much you'd written it with Michael but it was the pilot addressing the crowd about whoever's why you know what do we hear and I remember when that was read out I thought we have a move and that was after four weeks of writing yeah did you ride that together so yeah yeah well I mean if it's him with his interested in stammering let me know yeah one does well yes and again he you know he's talked quite a lot about about that separately but but what did you think you were trying to achieve at the time we were just trying to be funny and we thought the service yeah yeah yeah you know I'm not one of those people who thinks that comedy and indeed drama changes very little and it doesn't change anything you are a soul man Ken Loach speaking of film festival about a week ago said he spent his life making movies and come to the conclusion it changes nothing I think just occasionally humor catches away Mike in 1962 when Beyond the Fringe came along followed by that was the week that wasn't it was just a moment then when he caught a feeling of absolute and people were so fed up with the stuffiness and stupidity of the society and the jokes help the breakthrough there but I think it's very rare for anything to change anything and it was quite early on it was decided you were going to direct because you'd co-directed with Terry Gilliam yeah holy great holy grail yeah and the idea was that he would do the design design in year so again all the costumes all that side it was very much room but but so it was really the costumes were hazing or with cosmic haze all right yeah but the who is at the moment costuming us for the show at Leo - well which takes agreement I mean thank you for sparing the time in the middle of all that I just record how good it is of us to give up you'll be reading my script oh why have you given up your time I mean why do you think what if I have you'd been told 35 years ago mmm but some of the world's top biblical scholars and experts on his road you would fly around the world to come and discuss your work what would you have set well it's just as silly as everything else but I mean I'm delighted I mean I think if people I think was a somebody said yeah if you're going to say you know what was the most interesting part that came out of - as far as I'm concerned it's this conference yeah well what else comes out you know when you've written something about writing comedy is that you sometimes learn something after a certain age but after that you don't learn that year you learn a bit about how to write comedy so that's the problem with comedies you don't acquire any information and and were you expecting reactions I mean I know you you had nafeel this checked out for blast yeah and all of that but but I mean the tip I just showed from the conversation that you and Michael re-recorded for rodeo for a new year you'd prepared you were looking for to having a sensible conversation yeah with local Muggeridge and Lily Stoppard and then no it happened yes and it was a matter of absolute astonishment to me because I brought a respective mockery and I'd seen a number of his programs and I thought he said some quite interesting things no never I don't know I never liked it really that's right but it was I mean you know when we privatized all that you have been you know I was of the generation before you you know need energy ton onion which I don't know what he wrote a book about her life in Roger in the thirties but he was a correspondent in Moscow which was supposed to be very good so the guy had been around of it I was always fearing that people would take potshots up and as you know so what you mean you mean fuzzy physical shooter yeah shooting but I gather Douglas Adams said thought it was his favorite bit of TV and would flame them oh yeah yeah usually I saw you writing something about yeah yeah Douglas Adams said because his language interview was his favorite thing of the play-doh Armour whenever I go to Douglas his house he played his I kind of forgot these I went into the program I read his autobiography which is I think something called something I tread carefully because you tread on my jokes or something like that and I had all these quotes from him which were quite contrary to the position that I knew he was going to take on the program and I happen in my pocket ready to pull them out read the map and I felt so sorry for him shortly after the program started that I didn't ever fool because I thought he was making such a fool himself and when I saw it just a few months ago with Nicky I thought I was embarrassed by how awful they were yeah I mean they didn't seem to me to come up with a single coherent point well it was just sort of abuse well they didn't go to the opening of the film no I mean everything like they had a nice lunch days they stayed there they missed the first 15 minutes and both miss you yeah they both missed it yeah so they missed 15 min guys is going to Mandy and one of the gold and then seeing this table they miss the best of the cheesemakers and Jesus up on the seminal month and missed all of that but I never did with the interesting no other dad ain't pretty side well I mean for me I read a little thing in the church times last week about it because I was I reread Michael's Diaries for that Tyrion he said he particularly wanted to talk about use and abuse of power by establishments was one of the things that he felt the film was about fine actually one sense with with motor age and Stockwood there you had the establishment you know this thing yes before they're not even discussing it you know and then as you said the normally Placid Palin was positively in can also wonderful what he'd normally only gates cross if he hasn't had lunch yeah it was wonderful to see him so steamed up yeah but it was a very strange business and and and as I said I almost felt sorry for them I thought is this the best they can do it was as though they kept feeding as good and why do you think they did that I have no baby this is the first 15 minute also they came all apparently I mean they said to you in the green room walk was awful that meant rather well those who stopped with yeah stop food was just sort of showbiz really but I remember going up to Malcolm Muggeridge after ISM because I have a soft spot for my team one or two other programs he done from the Holy Land and I thought he knows he's a bright guy and I said to him what did you not think that the stuff about the revolutionaries was quite fun and he said no i think Dostoyevsky did it much better in Brothers Karamazov ago well usually that I had a lot of them feedback and some of them from listeners to the fact I'd said that and they would pay for pictures me where they were dog collar saying that I thought the church of missed an opportunity the best one was from Sally mObridge oh really his Neph is nice or I know quite well saying you know I'm so glad you said what you said because I've been embarrassed about what Mortimer said for the last thirty of years yes that is so I love those things when you suddenly bump into someone like I was in Australia recently a very cricket fans in the audience yes I don't know everybody was scores today I've been 1948 I discovered teeth Miller and Brad Newlin hated each other isn't that fascinating he's well she's not idea what I'm talking no one wealth Oklahoma's got a good side let's go back to egos and as part of the kind of run-up to this we had a first week of Lent over Ash Wednesday and so on we always do a chapel see week where we have all sorts of discussions and debates where we try to look at some of the topics that are being discussed around the college and down at the Institute of Psychiatry we had a showing of the Life of Brian with all the Minutemen and our entire arch is one of the top places in the world for therapy psychology neuroscience and it was usually there were about half dozen people there had never actually seen it and a number of who were working on research or messianic tendencies and why people want to follow people of my view and and I mean that was quite a strong concern in the movie you know I say or the Messiah I should know I followed a few and all that that sort of line so what extent were you exploring that idea of either people who set themselves up as messiahs or want other people to be in the science well I think we were exploring that point to mainland was many people preaching the Messiah then we knew that and that was going here and of course something that was going Amina's and nothing about historical I think there were no it's easy to explain to people that it was it was as though we all instantly agreed for once on what religion wasn't yeah I think if we've been asked to say well what are you positively say about religion we would have had to sort of say well we can say what we feel is wrong because when people got upset about it I would set my hand on my heart I would say no we were making fun of the way people follow religion you know and it is quite clear if you guys know all the examples but then we make you know if you imagine that there's a lot of affair that's Inquisition of burning people in price turns up and asks what's going on you know and they say well you know we're these people who disagree with us on the interpretation the gospel of now I think you know Christ would say I'm sorry I think you not quite grasp with and I read something quite extraordinary chai told you about two or three days ago as really am wilson's it was a very short biography of Hitler and what an admirer Hitler was in the 20s and very vocal about it at the discipline that was exercised in the Catholic Church because modernism was coming in in the 1900s and the Pope I think it was Pius the tenth I can't remember but he was absolutely ruthless he was almost Stalinist in just getting rid of anyone who had any sympathy with modernism at all even if you're associated with people and when somebody suggested - that was not very kind he said kindness is for fools this is the Pope you know what is fascinating is you can take a teaching like that and then people would turn it on their head like in a lot of America now as far as I can see Christianity is equated with capitalism and you want to say well what would I go back to the Bible's are blessed to the rich move them where and give it all the way how can people take it and the answer is that they they take it at the level that they can take you to and you know those religions are offered of all sorts of different levels and if you sort of talk about a person's general level of mental health they come in at that level when they take the version of it that's appropriate to that level but it doesn't mean they that they're spiritually prepared to understand what Christ said because as soon as somebody says you know love your enemy you're the only response to that is how the you do that you know particle so find that's in one of the minor many mendacious of the manuscript thanks for being cute did you see what I'm talking you more it's it's people just take what they want out of it and I no longer really believe that we're rational at all I think that people basically choose points of view for emotional reasons and then use their brains to rationalize the position that they're in using what they call the affirmative bias because everyone is always looking for evidence that they're right and I'm fascinated by the idea from evolutionary biology now which is that we're eeveelution with bread as it were not to seek the truth but to win argument and when I read that a few months ago I thought to myself this could be this could be right I've just done a documentary about boom bust boom okay about the 1908 crash 2808 crash and I think it reinforces your point you may be we no longer rational when it comes to money with no longer rational we we use affirmative points to make her convictions but Donna means somebody I mean I know I gather you wanted to be Brian originally but yes I did but that was it was purely professional mmm because I remember well I'd never played a lead all the way through the movie but and I thought it would be really interesting not just to play A Sketch character but to play one away from the others quite rightly told me that I shouldn't do it and they were absolutely right so you play all these authority figures yes and turians and reg and and and you you've done both in Python and 40s on you've done a lot of authority type figures and police when I went to probably your school you work difficult jobs down the road of Bristol Cathedral schools everywhere yeah we used to get we were the OIG's they used to be young you guys used to beat us up but I mean at cricket yeah another and me what was trying a bucket there's the public school thing well what was driving that Oh at those those total Authority well because as we said earlier you know thanks for Jesus is you people getting it right isn't funny yeah comedies about people getting it wrong and being stupid or lustful or greedy you know that's what comedies I've lost my thread don't worry well thority figures oh yes and if someone you go back to was comedy back limit alright but it better if someone is sitting in a in a council house drinking beer and watching television and they screw up it's not very interesting but is the guy who's growing up is head of the Secret Service then it immediately becomes rather amusing in other words there are consequences when important people are crazy which are much more interesting the ones when unimportant people accrue and I mean your work with Robin Skinner and families and how to survive other than life now to survive II don't know that again came up in our conversations in institution as a psychotic one it was a very interesting man Skinner he said something which I never forgot because I was in his group which we in our yoga couple's group and he said one occasion that he thought with the the first sign for him that people were getting healthier and happier was their ability to laugh at themselves when they when they suddenly could laugh at rid of their own behavior in other words was a tiny little bit of daylight between men and their ego that was the moment when they were getting better and they're not taking themselves to Syria no no on something about from time taking specks out of people's eyes and ending LOB's in your own comes to mind that's an action I'm not that so I mean a bizarre though I mean certainly when I was training for priesthood you know and others we were using families now survive them in work with couples over yeah so so you know do you thinking there you go so you never but I'm going back to to the parody of the church on I mean I'm thinking particularly now about Ray grew about the way in which you satirized all the different popular fronts for Palestine so the interesting thing is that some audiences didn't get there the Americans didn't really know what it was about but they did interestingly in those days think it was about the Middle East if they had a guess at or amira it was all about Canadians yes thank you it is more less than right because although the right splits just as much as the left does you know there were these incredibly I'm going to read it out tomorrow knife it's a wonderful list of all the different parties but they're slight there are differences in the absolute theological hatred I may be the more than the head right exactly you know like when the two gangs here to get done sell it as a citizen and Kimmy just you know I mean it's so accurate moving so accurate well that's all then you know and life will you have a life yeah absolutely I don't think you change it yeah and and what about you know the fact that the the followers split between the sandal and the god yeah I'm when we were old yes that's right because that immediately happy day to start ah I start arguing yeah so they know own you incidentally cousin line out of that which I absolutely loved and the other person wouldn't let me know when they'd all have a job Julianne's Bible about that which line is that Julie engine what was the line its Julie well I thought it was a great line they dropped the girl and it broke and I wanted to someone to pick up one of the pieces and say look the piece of good that followed their breath what is it the parsifal under I thought was really fun it wouldn't let me put it you know obviously like could you could you I just keep him under control yeah sort of this awesome I thought it was hilarious but me it seemed to me that on the one hand there was the parody all of the trade units and all of that but there was and most people in Britain God oh yeah this is Terry saying about the trade unit it was about the Socialist Workers Party or there's a Redgrave and the way they talked about each other and that went into all that but I think very clever stuff about sibling you not going brother sibling and then the woman saying the guy saying he wants to be a woman and they're saying he can't be pregnant but he wants the right to be play and it's this kind of complete noises that people talk at quite serious conferences and get very worked up about elite such a fit model but but you know all of that and like schismatic tendency of course obviously being elected in two thousand years of the church's history splitting over things like sandals or gourds also I mean Terry I read an interview where you said low you didn't think that film was passed as well but you did you did have it was heretical because of what he was saying about the church yeah you know expand on that yeah I I think it is heretical it explodes the that the church is one point of view and um it criticizes the church's point of view and and I you know think you know we're how many churches are that but uh I think it is critical yeah well certainly I mean I I was a young school teacher teaching second form Latin and allocative and all of that at the time the curator of my local parish church who is now a diocese and this was a little shall not be named protect the guilty forbade us more to go watch it and I was the age where I would come home from school in the late 60s and watch do not just you're set and then got into Python in six walk there's no way I always not going to go go and watch this enough you know I thought it's hilarious at the time does it surprise you but so many silly people in the church every see any people in Liverpool scholars fly across the world because they all love the film no series I think is what's the best thing we ever did and I think it's the most intelligent thing it's about things that are very important and as I say I was kind of fairly fairly astounded at the stupidity of most of the criticism because there was perfectly valid criticisms I remember the BBC religious correspondent by a nice chap we got very upset about the crucifixion and we don't asked him well how did he feel about the end of Spartacus because you see we said in those days you know they didn't shoot people yeah or hang them that's actually what they did but I was but I could see people getting upset about it but the whole thing everything to do with religion was a complete mystery to me I could never make begin to make sense of it and then I read and I can actually remember when it was I was looking for a secondary school for my oldest daughter that must have been about 30 years ago and I read a book that I happened to buy by Aldous Huxley and it was a series of lectures that he delivered in Santa Barbara in 1959 and he was talking about religion and he said there's two types of religion there was the religion of symbols and signs and verbal what's the word I'm searching with verbal formulations and then there's the movie the the religious of experiencing God in the garden at the end of the day and when I was reading it into wood heads little book on Christianity because that was injured she had two phrases but she talked about mystical Christianity mystical religion and then she talked about what I would call hierarchical village and to me what's interesting about religion is the possibility of having an experience of the divine but I am have one but I'd certainly like to well so all I'm saying seems to me that religion is really about math and that the rest of it is crap in trouble yeah well I'm with you with you except of it I I I think I tend to use the word religion for the crowd control of the hierarchy kindness I'm using that to be an auntie I know I'm actually living people you know when people wearing one of these things around our university you get some interesting conversation people coming today well I'm not religiously so no nor am i but I am actually quite interested in God yes and I mean religion that mean the Latin word is you remember when you were teaching it to your prep school it's about tying you back to roots and things like that and often religion I mean of the league fit think that obligations and tying down Bruijn can be extremely really restrictive yeah and it's no accent to me that it was the primary leaders the religious leaders who of course we're most upset by what Jesus was doing inside oh yes that's the Pharisee well we're going to discuss that which particular groups a little Pharisees get a big Li bad press in Matthew's Gospel because there's all sort of things that were going all the time and there's been a bit of so with a major reassessment of Pharisees in the last 25 years and some of the biggest ex-president are sitting here on and we're we're are getting on to very similar this does nothing give you some meaning about that but in like that so they were the great guy because I do think Jesus went over the top sometimes a B they are portrayed differently in the different Gospels I mean in Matthew's Gospel which probably comes out of the periods in the splitting the silicon there very much lately the ones that are almost receiving the sharp end a lot of the criticism and that's all collected together in Matthew 23 whereas that material spread across Luke's Gospel where they're having conversations with him and having dinner parties and they're probably the real Procera the chief priests and the release of the leaders of the temple who have done the deal with the Romans so there's this you know how the opposition is set up tells you a bit about for me but that's getting old whether I want to guide your experience that divine Raquel Bart the great Swiss theologian said that laughter is the closest thing to the grace of God and I wonder why you work why did you do that it's amazing I mean laugh is the closest thing to the grace of God yes what are the greatest theologians resent it yeah I think it depends what kind of humor them yeah one of the things Robins kiddos that have kind of explained to me is that most human behavior can be sort of marked as it were on a rough spectrum between a very inclusive and very paranoid so at one end you know you have nasty racial jokes not fun racial jokes but nasty registered jokes and the sort of humor that's very punitive and it's got a triumphant humor do you know what I mean and under the other end you get the loveliest kind of here but which is we're all in this boat together but none of us have any idea as far as I could sort of what's going on we've no idea why we're here the whole thing is an utter mystery and so let's have a gig without it which is very very inclusive and I think if you've taken that end of the spectrum and I think Bart is absolutely well my former spirit stretcher of mine was very fond of saying if you really want to make God laugh tell him your plans that's really good joke because it's so inclusive and everybody lasts at the recognition yeah we're all hopeless moving so what if that's what's nothing what's what's comedy I mean there's this quote going round you know comedy is tragedy plus time years you use it connected to you - Mark Twain - all all sorts of people yeah James Thurber said Linzer it's emotional chaos recalling tranquility just very nice and difficult all the things you give up so I was upset about yesterday morning I can laugh about it now there could be a scream all right so the time is the time to reflect and look back we yes because as you you're in the grip of your ego a lot of the time that when you're not when you're more relaxed to have the incentive you could look back and giggle it your own behavior and say yes I was being very silly to get upset and oh sure and Terry I mean what was it like I mean there's these wonderful pictures of nothing of a view dressed as manly but behind the camera one with it I mean directing and playing in that kind of roles because I mean having co-directed with with with the other Terry the previous time and solely directing this one in it I mean instead of using your three great passions I think of filming real and unprocessed food so the directing of Brian was a major step forward that led on to you know simile in the meaning of life and Eric the writing and all the others well I loved it I mean that's it loves it you should loved it I'll be in the morning you love how about sums it up why don't you better understand all film directors and the mania we should make it up your body's rotting in there should make a documentary called Terry Jones lust for power no I really loved the other it didn't find any voting going in front of the camera of Mandy how do we do that boys you know Sally sir it's just a pepper pot for the day that I admired you most is when you were playing the very fat man mr. pritter array and the most appalling the uncomfortable costume so this is when you were directing meaning of life though he was running around the other side of the camera and I thought this guy's energy is just underbid but it's the power that's pretty good I was showing Terry early I picked up a junk mail in my on my doorstep a couple of months ago and it was said hello which visitors from Terry Jones Act that we've just moved in next door we're going to be filming outside we're gonna close your street so so this is the new movie absolutely anything is it doesn't like that absolutely anything well it's about a teacher who in a sink secondary school who gets magical powers and can make impossible things happen and Simon Pegg plays the lead and Kate Beckinsale is the love interest and a character called Rob Riggle it is the colonel left early colonel who and he is a left-hander colonel in his own life in the Marines and had and the aliens intercept the Voyager spacecraft when it leaves the solar system which has done that done well it's debatable whether it has done and there's a is intergalactic power they say it's invaded in intergalactic space and so they go they choose one person at random to have intergalactic powers so so that's where the magical so that's part of the humor thing of that idea of having those those powers and mmm I mean some of the character work after brining a faulty fish called wand I mean these are people who wasn't desperately won't have the power but ended up with all the frustrations and get more serious about things not working and making mistakes and so forth I like working in the error fast which is very simple somebody always does something at the beginning that breaks it to boo and then it's almost always a man or is traditionally that character the protagonist is written as a man and thank you George fado and people like that and then they spend the rest of the rest of the play trying to cover up the mistakes that they made so people don't discover these awful to glue the paper and it's terribly simple I love it but what I find so fascinating about that were the word that you guys doing is there's nothing in the world that's more important than what you're doing and you could hardly raise a paragraph in the Daily Mail yeah you know because the the inside of society now is so insane so trivial and stupid and the values are so but nothing of any importance seems to get paid attention to at units at least I've read some of the other days but there's only one question it really matters and that is is there an after love it and I thought yeah that's that's what I think that's the question interests me what do you hear about that on television and when I went to meet Peter Fincham two years ago at ITV and he wanted me to do he wanted me to go out and stand in front of cathedrals and say now this Cathedral is a Cathedral of the kind of the San Francis is believed to have a debt you know this kind of crap and I said to him I would like to do a television series on what religion would be if the churches hadn't it up of course when completely blank it wasn't first I think that's that's really interesting because I think they had it up Woody Allen says when he was six he discovered that was no afterlife and he said people die but he he that changed his opinion about a world I want to get out I want to go out nobody here was this to be a part of it about am i for you a four and a half year old daughter he's now realizing that people died she says do people die in Sweden whatever you talk about the BBC I mean you're two days ago in the independent you you wrote this piece saying the BBC wouldn't have commissioned Python today oh I didn't write it but they may Mara said I did they remember they wouldn't have done it today but I do penis quite sincerely I think that what you're talking about is you strong on the interesting but I do think there's a nun what's the word an unbridgeable paradox if you just take it was a line I wrote thirty years ago my the Python books I wrote a character called the Vice Pope Eric and somebody asked him about about whether the Vatican was really carrying through Jesus's you know principles and he said that when you are propagating a a creed of poverty humility and tolerance then you need a very rich powerful organization to do you can't do not yet you know and I think it would be terribly funny to do a painting of Jesus and the disciples dressed like the Pope of the Cardinals it would become so wonderfully inappropriate the couple of tiger is already somebody once said you must never blame an idea for the people who hold it well I was probably spend a little bit of a little bit of time in the Vatican with Pope Francis last determining for Christmas tour and ward there and I was struck by the fact that here is this guy who I was staying in the guest house he's still staying in the guest house he's refusing to go to the apartments yeah he is minors are having kittens all the time as he Warren was over to say hi and you go into the chapel and there he is praying and and eating itself and I think I mean good luck to him the huge salute because it isn't there are wonderful people in the Catholic Church it's just that there is a an inherent contradiction between a body that wants to get bigger and richer and more influential teaching a doctrine that is all about trying to reduce the parameter you have an egotistical organization try to teach people not to be adjustable it doesn't work and that's why I'm saying why some of the churches have that doesn't mean there's not great people working in the judges but you know we've always got to start again because I believe there is something going on I was a member of a group at Esalen for about eight or nine years my organized by Michael Murphy I don't if you know it's a very interesting place on the west coast for people like all this hats they used to go all the time to talk to and and I was a member of a group that studied survival and at the end of that I was quite convinced they're all academics in the group I was quite convinced there was something going on what it is I don't know this is important stuff and you can't get it out anywhere because the media aren't interesting so we started a bit later we must beginning to work was there but what would you is there stuff you two done differently I mean I've been talking to Julian and reading his book and with the new immaculate edition coming out and the fact that the various cuts of the Shepherd's and Otto and so on are now now now available what would you have done differently where there have been cut you tomato would you wish you'd kept Otto E or I thought it was a much the best movie I thought he did a wonderful job on it but he and I disagree about the next one well I didn't think some of the stuff some of the meaning of life I've been the ear sunniest I view it should have been in and we disagreed on that but I think he did a wonderful job and Brian I don't think I want to change anything there's one moment in it when I think the story could have been written a bit better and actually was something I wrote so it was a transition but apart from that I think it's really good Nicky did a wonderful job I'm very glad we cut out the Shepherd's the beginning of the film and can't we start when we did it was not a Oh Otto it really remember this you're such a Suicide Squad oh I'm a bit I never understood it was fiction there's this something also group you come on and then you committed suicide at the end yeah and of course you terry gilliam and produce this Star of David with a little silencer like a seven-foot is possible with also talking about a pretty gonzales edge okay you're right and of course they they've done their practice of their mass suicide earlier in the movie and then when that was cut average yeah you there's a bit where you usually say oh it's the people's front for the war territory yeah and I also see what are they doing there was only once I saw this but but a minute I am I mean Eric decided in the end it was it was too close to being anti-semitic we decided to pull it falling down oh no we cut it we don't think it worked we're under your word and you're right it's a very imperfect part of the film no it isn't it but this is what happens in the movie do you have to be lucky sometimes because you believe and see everything in the movie but I agree with you the auto comes and suicide you don't know what they did what they're doing it yeah but of course you've gotta keep your good changer because you had mani stepping you and Judah stuffing their written all the bodies those wines are there yeah do you think Brian could be made today do you know I think you guys know that better than I do well I mean I mean we were talked about the fact that there is a there's a shared literacy I do read you mean having for instance let's go back to the road near Ramon is a involves I mean I've been there I've had my year tweaked and treated like that and about the time I was teaching second formatting if I wouldn't be allowed to teach it like that anymore protection and all those sorts of things most people aren't going to bother you clearly you you've been on receiving I misunderstood your question I know he was saying what would the religious reception well what I also said I would also say the same from the beginning where you say somewhere in Judea there's all these people making away a t-33 a rhino peyote talking everybody knows it's going to be Jesus I'm not and you actually you need to know about the Sermon on the Mount and blessed are the peacemakers to get the cheesemakers joke and I'm just wondering if that biblical cultural literacy has also been lost in our culture device general knowledge is being lost about you know I mean if you talk to America I have a daughter who does stand up and she's rather good and I'm always trying to influence the direction she takes a material energy actually does rather quite a sophisticated but I go along to these evenings where these other comics get up mainly Los Angeles but not necessarily there and there's only about seven things that they make jokes about you know the sex there's drugs there's diet name anorexia there's celebrities for about three hours it they don't make jokes about anything else because the audience doesn't know about you know and it's tragic if it's why I feel that I don't you want to work in television and make jokes is mostly audience won't know what I'm talking about let's finish as the movie does is always look on the bright side of life which is perhaps a bit that most people also found most uncomfortable you rightly point out I mean it's absolutely accurate it was a routine thing the Romans were doing you've got the Spartacus to you of them you've got the parody of Spartacus saying I'm Brian I'm Brian where they say I'm Spartacus all of them and all of that stock would Margaret said you know you're mocking the crucifixion at that point I hadn't I struggle with that for a long time but I'm I've been reflecting recently I hope we had one of our colleagues here at King's literally drop dead omnia for a lecturer last year and he buried his ashes a few weeks ago on the anniversary and his wife wanted to have always look on the bright side of life when we did buried the athletes and a few guys well why don't you in many ways there is something about what job says what the funeral services you put nothing into this life you take nothing away from this line so what you lost nothing there is something about saying actually without God the best you can do with death is to laugh in his face and and also with God and well that's where your efficient about with is not for life yeah quite a significant one but I'm I was also struck by the song at the end demeaning of luck if you know pray there's intelligent life somewhere out there with this bugger all here honor absolutely there's an ill ISM about both songs isn't it is there is that the kind of cultural despair if you see a culture going south fast I think there's something very sad about so we need more laughter to get the grace of God so stop it goes a little more intelligence I don't know where it's coming from I really done but you see what all these people but yes that's it if there's any way of getting the media involved in this stuff because you're one of the points out of it typically that getting the media to take any interests in this box Donna what the difficulty we had getting the media take any info yes of course I mean will you deal with the media like I do when it's a week or something like you no idea what second rates come they are you see I only know trivial examples because I only know what they write about me but once you know what they write about something when you actually know what the truth is you realize a lot the slightest bit interest in that but let me say one other thing you see for me their difficulty a lot of the time when they do it was that Jesus is teaching is a very beautiful thing I think there's a lot of it missing there's a quote in Matthew 23 I think it is where one of the disciples says Jesus which is an extraordinary thing to say he says why don't you ever teach the multitudes and stuff you tell us about you know that quote is we can come on some long debate over here if it I mean that's an extraordinary thing to have in a Bible because it suggests as an enormous amount of Jesus's teaching they've never got written down but that's fascinating and I love that the idea of that teaching but also I'm I'm always a lot worried about this idea that we're supposed to believe it because he suffered from after us you know because if you know Dick Cheney up there I would not start to agree with it yeah yeah in other words it's like it's a bit like my mother you know I'm suffering so you have to be nice yeah it should be nice to about Jesus because if his teaching which is so beautiful not because he suffered and yet it's an integral part of the Christian and that that I find ready to go I'm really throwing this stuff out well that I think that's I mean I I did put a bit of work on greco-roman biography in a way which the death of the character sums up the life and actually the the exploring things was for me is that actually that death sums up that teaching because he taught non-resistance he talked a lot of enemies and soul and he dies living with what he was teaching yeah all right that's beautiful yeah Terry lovely last words from you about another word Oh in a connection remember somebody in LA said to me last sometime ago I said they said to me well you know what goes around comes around I said tell that to you yeah well guys we wish you all the best for the O - I hope the rehearsals go really swimmingly and they finish early tomorrow so you can actually come along and join in some more of the conference but thank you for coming tonight thank you for sharing what you've shared with us and thank you for the way you've enriched all of our lives to the lack of life ladies and gentleman you

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Length: 54min 47sec (3287 seconds)

Published: Thu Aug 28 2014