John Cleese Talks Religion and the 'Life of Brian' | The Dick Cavett Show

by the way getting into the movie The Life of Brian by the way does any of you admit to naming the group Monty Python's Flying Circus is there a controversy about well yes we the the problem we had of finding a good title for it was almost the worst problem we have with the whole show and we had the show written on the first one and we didn't know what to call it and we had a whole lot of fanciful titles like we wanted to call it a a horse a spoon and a basin and a basin which I really like and somebody else wanna call it bun wicket buzzards Dublin boot owl stretching time the toad elevating moment there were all these suggestions and one day we sat around and got very drunk and we had to come up with a title and somebody had already started to call it the Flying Circus in fact the BBC had started call it that and they'd started writing it in their schedules in ink you know so they said what could you call it call it the Flying Circus because otherwise we have to write our new schedule so he said it's nice a nice time and then we couldn't decide whom we thought it might be Gwyn Dib Lee's Flying Circus because she'd been Michael Palin's music teacher when he was 11 and then somehow we went off gwendy i don't know why i wanted to be famous you know had someone else used her name Dibley somebody came out with monty pison and we all fell about and I don't mean I can't explain why we just thought it was funny that night presumably you haven't been sued by anyone named Groucho Marx had that didn't do you he had a gut - yeah finneus x flitter waggle one of the most preposterous names that someone showed up in Corning Iowa or somewhere doesn't suit him second high yeah idea Steve flywheel something like that what one of them by the way that I I have read the life of Brent's script I don't know whether this is the shooting script or is an ex post facto or after the fact that but it's the shooting script with a with a few things still left in that we actually edited by the time the movie goes green oh so there's a few things in here that are in the film yes one or two of the offensive things which we took a but if you just glance down the list of characters the Virgin Mandy and mr. big nose and the man further forward and there are many of these that are just wonderful is an ex leper which is a character character and deadly Dirk and pilots wife and a boring prophet and in among Biggus Dickus and intensely JAL youth and Simon the holy man and so on there's this wonderful mixture of carries types and then you notice that they're only I think six names the casual observer would notice that most of the parts are played by the same people well we'd be as the six of us played a lot of them we had more other people of course yes we called our repertory company and there were five of them and they played everything but on the previous film the the Holy Grail I remember the last day but one of the movie being driven to the location and I said to the driver I said you've you've managed to sneak into a couple of scenes haven't you how many of you actually been in and he said I played eleven parts up front and he was aiming to get it up to fifteen by the end of the movie if the drivers played 15 we're working pretty hard has tell me which way the controversy has been flowing lately and on which side of the Atlantic is it more intense I remember I was I know how many weeks ago was I heard the radio announcement of some that sounded in its tone as if there had been an outbreak of World War two or something and it had to do with outraged religious groups that had seen here in usually omen in New York yes I think that I switched on the radio to the phrase a vicious attack on Judaism now at what point did you all sit down and decide to make this vicious attack on Jews and Christianity and everything that everyone holds sacred how can we talk about that well we just after the Holy Grail somebody suggested that it would be interesting to try and write a comedy set at the time of Christ and you see well you know this but when you start to write you don't know where it's going to go so you say well let's try this direction and maybe it'll work maybe it won't and we had an idea maybe that Brian was the thirteenth disciple but he he had a very demanding wife he was always late so that you know he arrived two minutes after the water had been turned into wine you know and he missed everything and that he he never got to the Last Supper because his wife had friends coming around and he was gonna meet them at the garden afterwards and he went to a club called the garden you know yeah we tried this we found it just didn't work because the moment that you've got near the figure of Christ I mean really near it just really wasn't funny because Christ was wise and flexible and intelligent and he didn't have any other things that I mean comedy is about envy right greed malice avarice last stupidity I remember an American Harvey Orkin once telling me and he said you know you cannot make a comedy about some francis of assisi you know there's nothing funny about yes as they say where do you go with it to hell but you know even even talking about religious subjects in the way we are now offends some people and I don't know what assumptions lie behind that one of them of course being that there's nothing funny about certain things this is wrong I can't think of anything there's nothing funny about in some sands and same people who talk about how humor is the healing wonderful thing yeah then don't want it applied to certain areas weird I got it I find it very difficult but the trouble is you know what what do you mean by religion I mean some of the PBS viewers I believe may have seen a series called the long search my guy called Ronald error made it for the BBC and it was a it was a an investigation into thirteen programs basically into thirteen religions I think he did three on Buddhism he travelled and and did all the basic main religions in some detail Judaism Lutheranism Catholicism I think even did the Church of England I think even found a program for that surprised it got in under the heading of religion but anyway maybe was there for variety a little light relief round number six the thing about it when he came to see this film he said he thought it was a very religious film and I may surprise you if I said I think it's a religious film I think all the the messages in it in fact a profoundly religious but Ronnie did say I hope he well by my quoting it that a lot of people that he thinks are not religious will be angry about it and it simply depends on what you mean by religion if you take religion to be a sort of revelatory and rather authoritarian Creed you know in which certain things are handed down must not be examined it must be obeyed and there is a sort of an authoritarian structure enforcing it if that's what you mean by religion then I suppose it is in many ways a anti religious but it's certainly not against Christ or anything Christ said it is against the manifestations of certain aspects of organized religion and I think one's entitled to criticize people yes have you seen this kind of writing about the movie there's one a piece in The Washington Post by a man who said I'm not going to see the movie and I realized that be accused of burning a book I have read but I'm not going to go see a movie that makes fun of Christ I don't need that you know well the answer is I would swear but as far as I am concerned it does not make fun of Christ at any moment no in fact what perhaps he should explain one thing about the plot that we may have left that Brian is has the I guess ill luck to be born on the same night right at the three wise men are making their journey right and they go to the wrong place that's the triggering mechanism they finish up in the wrong stable yeah which is nice because you know we hear the story now the three wise men arriving but it's a very odd thing indeed to find three oriental astrologers in full gear carrying gold into the frankincense and myrrh wandering around a cowshed at two o'clock the morning its exhaust I mean we accept it one of them says star and Mandy a bronze mother says led by a bottle more like do you have any idea or does anybody wear wear comedy leaves off and satire begins is it satire in the movie when Bryan has all his followers that he definitely does not want and they even stand outside and repeat his phrases and say yes oh that's so true and he tries to tell them please don't do this I'm capitalizing of course and and then a wonderful moment in the script says remember you are all individuals and in unison they chant yes we are all individual that must be satire and then my almost my favorite line in the movie which never ever get to laugh when he says to them you've got to work it out for yourself and they say yes yes pause may say tell us more but you redeemed it here [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music]

Channel: The Dick Cavett Show

Views: 626,363

Rating: 4.9454737 out of 5

Keywords: The Dick Cavett Show, Talk Show, Musician, Celebrities, Dick Cavett, United States, Chat Show, Interview, john cleese, cleese, john, john cleese interview, john cleese trump, john cleese monty python, john cleese political correctness, monty python, comedy, python, jokes, monty, terry jones, life of brian, the life of brian, life, brian, of, monty python's life of brian, life of brian scene, life of brian debate, religion, john cleese dick cavett, monty python's flying circus

Id: GasSJEx9jEc

Length: 10min 29sec (629 seconds)

Published: Mon Nov 04 2019

Reddit Comments

[u/juche]

Bunn, Wackett, Buzzard, Stubble and Boot

[u/AllTheGatorade]

Owl Stretching Time is the one I remember lol. You should look up the At Last the 1948 Show. Precursor to Python