RECALLING the creation of “Monty Python’s Life of Brian,” Michael Palin equates the process to “scholars wrestling with the ancient text, and trying to insert comedy into them.” As it happens, this also describes many of the extras on the new, two-disc DVD version of the 1979 film, known as “The Immaculate Collection” – except often without the “comedy” part.
The troupe’s five British members, now all in their mid-to late 60s – save for the late Graham Chapman – were educated at Cambridge and Oxford, and most went on to careers more intellectual than comedic. John Cleese became, among other things, a professor at Cornell. Palin and Terry Jones each became authors and documentarians on, respectively, the subjects of travel and ancient history.
As such, it’s not surprising that the two commentary tracks on “The Immaculate Collection” – one featuring Jones, Terry Gilliam and Eric Idle, and another with Cleese and Palin – are as dry as dust.
Gilliam, the group’s animator (and lone American) and now a renowned director, speaks of the opening credit animation sequence as a metaphor for “Judaism and Christianity taken over by the Eastern religions,” and says that an animated flower was actually “rising through the debris of Western monotheism.”
By the time he informs us that Python “took its comedy very seriously,” we’ve already gotten the message.
The set’s second disc, although still a mixed bag, contains a bit more fun. The behind-the-scenes documentary, while being filled with comments from the Pythons about their own religious history, has a more casual feel. And while the obligatory deleted scenes, like most, merely prove why they were deleted (especially one that seems to satirically position Jews as the originators of Nazism), the old radio spots featuring three of their mothers and Palin’s dentist show the typical Python wit.
The highlight of the extras is an audio-only read-through of the script the troupe had recorded a year before the filming. Accompanied on screen by director Jones’ storyboards and pages from the script itself, it reminds us that, religious insights aside, “Life of Brian” made us laugh because it made them laugh.
