Customer Reviews

Monty Python: Almost The Truth [Blu-ray]

5 star:		(15)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Forty Years ago five "silly" (but educated - Oxford and Cambridge) British comic actors joined with one American animators to for what is collectively known as Monty Python's Flying Circus. After the BBC ran a pilot and it worked they got a contract and produced 39 half-hour-long shows. Yes, there were only 39. Of course, the team later made some feature films before disbanding.

This documentary, shown originally in October 2009 on the Independent Film Channel on cable, runs six hours! There also bonus material. This is a serious documentary on comedy. The five living members (Graham Chapman, deceased, is showing with early interview clips) each provide comments on their beginning, career as part of the team and life after Python. None of these members are interviewed together. Though they don't trash one another, you get the feeling, after a while, that they had fun when they were doing it but saw it as a job and its past history. They have gone on to other ventures. Their interviews are not funny. But there are plenty of clips from the show and the films inserted that ARE funny - often hilarious. Most of these are not shown in their entirety. That's because the director of this film wanted to spend more time interviewing current comedians, most of who the average American has not hear of. And some have real egos.

The first few episodes are devoted to the original show. Later ones are devoted to specific films ("Life of Brian", "The Holy Grail").

So, if you truly love the Pythons, and have about eight hours to spend time with them as they tell you about their lives, this is a set you will want. If you are looking for laughs of the continuous type you might be better off revisiting one of the classic films or getting the DVD sets of full episodes. Its great that someone took the time to put this together - and that the 5 living members cooperated - but the enjoyment will come from whether you can recite the "Dead Parrot" routine by heart, and whether you really want to know the story of how it was created.

By the way, I noted two previous reviews that gave the DVD five stars when neither person has seen the film, and one of those was only asking a question. Take that into consideration when evaluating this set.

Steve Ramm
"Anything Phonographic"

Warning: The five stars hold true if and only if you annoy other people with your grasp of Python and quote at length at every opportunity. To only those of you who hold well and truly that all important moments of life has a Python quote at the ready. If you have never been told to "Shut Up", you will have only the four star edition of this review. The rest will be bored to tears.

We are at home as soon as the familiar 17" diagonal TV is exploded. An unfamiliar face fills our screen, but he is just a lawyer, hence the overflight of the Soviet TU-85 dropping a bomb with parachute. Incongruity follows reassuringly, with the atomic detonation on Bikini Atoll. This is the Lawyers' Cut and it cuts both ways. Film is cut and they take their pound of flesh. But this is old business in Python history. All will be made clear.

These short six hours are for us lifers. There is a bonus disk above what was aired, which has a starter sample of the popular skits. You can show those to other people. For us, we get the extended interviews with each of them; and you get to see how these interviews were scripted. It is instructive to see each and understand how the editing was done into the prior scenes.

You get to know that Cleese's name was originally Cheese, changed by his father. Freud would clap at and for the later skit. More importantly, we see the influence of 'The Goon Show", and "Beyond the Fringe" for all of the nascent pythons.

What struck me, at this advanced age, is their most important point for them and for the society. Python rode the crest of the wave destroying the deferential British Society. They grew up at end of empire. Their families were still hoping for some small facsimile. Python was a great part of the democratic engine that has seen the recovery and the rise of the new Britain. The dream caught fire in America shortly after.

So they progress through television, into records, and lavish time spent on their films. Who knew that Led Zeppelin and Pink Floyd bankrolled their Holy Grail? And George Harrison did the same for Life of Brian. We learn how the films of Pasolini's realism and Bunuel's sur-realism affected theirs. And best of all unknown supporters, Elvis.

I am happy to say, though too short, they did it right.

For the first time ever the members of the comedy troupe Monty Python's Flying Circus are able to provide serious, insightful, meaningful historical information about the formation of a modern entertainment classic. This alone is worth every moment of your attention, and every penny, since getting the members of Python to be serious about anything was a violation of one of Newton's little known laws: "No member of Monty Python, when asked a serious question, can give a serious answer." And this violation of a natural law was possible only because the makers of this documentary were wise enough to prevent any member of the Python group from being in the same room at the same time with any other member. Monty Python was more than just a comedy group inspired by the courageous and intrepid post-WWII comic geniuses like Peter Sellers and Spike Milligan, who dared to make the British people laugh after their somber, dour, ordeal, and to do so with the audacity of satirizing their own culture and society. This was a tremendous cathartic transformation, and on its heels came younger wits like Peter Cook and Dudley Moore. Theirs was a kernel of creative and witty genius not seen since before the Victorian era, and sorely needed. The fact that this kind of humor requires an intellect to appreciate it only enhances its value. From Cook to Python, these writers were university educated, and this is abundantly clear in their work. In the entire body of their work, especially Python's, nearly every aspect of human society and culture, history and philosophy, is commented on; you can teach philosophy, history, or just about any subject, with Python skits, if you don't have to worry about that silly nonsense called offending people.
Python was brilliant, their contributions to language, comedy, and philosophy ("Always look on the bright side of life,") have been quite substantial. Kudos to the producers of this documentary, which provides an inside look at the creation of a modern comic masterpiece.

Many of the reviews seem to state that this is a documentary only to be "suffered through" by die-hard fans. This is a fallacy. This film documents the extraordinary intersection of six extremely interesting, intelligent, energetic, intellectual, and creative men and the crew that they surrounded themselves with. It documents the creative process from seed to big screen and therefore one does not have to be a die-hard fan to enjoy, simply someone who is intellectually curious.

A fantastic effort about six fantastic men (and the incomprable "Female Python" Carol Cleveland).

And, oh yeah, some of it is laugh out loud funny.

I agree with the other reviewers here that this is for major Python fans only. I'm one of them, and while I did enjoy the heck out of it, I don't know that it deserves five stars the way that the Grail, Brian, and the best of the tv shows deserved them.

But, it is chock full--and that's a lot of chocks--of Python miscellanea, big and small, and it's very entertaining to watch Cleese and Jones snipe at each other from across interviews, Cleese being much the snipier. Lots of good anecdotes, end notes, and even litotes. Clearly this is an Idle production; he is happily shameless about milking them now, and I suppose we should be grateful.

Somehow though, I have the vague suspicion that the more one learns about "how we made the Magic forty years ago", whichever group or artist etc is doing the telling, the more a corresponding fading of the magic might occur. But maybe not. Still, enough with the Python that was. Let's see some new stuff, boys...like maybe the show Gilliam describes, but skip straight to episode six.

Above all, Palin remains insanely likeable and pleasant. Who wouldn't love to have dinner with this guy?

All in all, a must for any Python fan. For the uninitiated, go straight to Brian and the Grail, and we'll see you here soon!

Monty Python: Almost The Truth - The Lawyer's Cut
When dealing with a third-party vendor, might be good to confirm this is, in fact, the FULL 3-Disc DVD set and not the "Theatrical" release someone dumped on me while advertising the 3-disc set. If you follow Python at all, don't even waste your time with the "theatrical" 90-minute release. The 90-minute release was a bit like trying to cram the history of Rock and Roll into an hour. Barely worth your time, as it doesn't do Python justice. Don't even bother with the theatrical release, as true comedy fans will miss so much. It is a shame that Amazon apparently doesn't use product SKU's or serial numbers of items it markets, so BUYER BEWARE!

Don't believe the hype; enjoy it. The hype is pythonesque; this is actually a formal documentary featuring recent interviews with the members of the troupe, except, of course, for Graham Chapman, who is featured in earlier interviews. It is a series of frank reflections on their productions, with intercut examples and commentary from a series of individuals from the (very broadly-defined) world of comedy. The focus is on the interviews. The pythons talk about one another's personalities and work habits and about the group dynamics that fed or deterred their creative process. The degree of Graham Chapman's alcoholism, e.g., is discussed at length. Cleese talks about his desire to leave the show when it became, in his opinion, repetitious. Palin wins the award for Mr. Congeniality . . . and so forth.

The 6 hours move very briskly. We watched 3 hours at the first 'seating' and the time went swiftly. The interviews are fascinating and plentiful, with ample time for the discussion of the origins of specific sketches, the historical influences on the individual members of the troupe, the ethos, politics and frequent silliness of the BBC, and so forth. For python fans, this is an absolute don't miss.

This set of three discs goes into great detail about the history, evolution and achievements of the (mostly) British comedy troupe, Monty Python's Flying Circus. I'm a Python fan, but not a fanatic, and I found this documentary interesting but a bit overlong in places. My sister gave me the set for Christmas, and now that I've watched all 7+ hours I will probably pass it on to a friend or resell it on Amazon. Good stuff, but I'd rather watch "Holy Grail" or "Life of Brian" again than sit through this a second time.

Basically MONTY PYTHON were THE BEATLES of comedy as both parties were influenced by the British radio/tv series THE GOON SHOW. The new documentary originally airing on IFC (Nov 2009), MONTY PYTHON: ALMOST THE TRUTH/THE LAWYERS CUT is almost laid out like the 1996 documentary THE BEATLES ANTHOLOGY. Each of the 'PYTHONS', the late Graham Chapman (in rare clips), John Cleese, Eric Idle, Terry Jones, Terry Gilliam, Michael Palin (and guests) are interviewed in celebration of the comedy group's 40th anniversary (from the first aired episode of their BBC tv series MONTY PYTHONS FLYING CIRCUS). A fitting tribute to the British Comedy Group, their BBC Series, and their five films from which 'sketch comedy' is measured against and loved for its/their silliness, surrealism, anti-establishment, and British humor. Some great insight, background information, and film/video clips of everything that is 'PTYHON'. This reviewer wanted to hear and see more. Excellent documentary.

As they are intent to point out, this is an overview of the career of Monty Python's Flying Circus from the point of view of the five surviving members of the team. The various members are interviewed separately (except for some bits from an interview of Terry Jones and Michael Palin as they take a train to Aardman Animations, Nick Park's studio). Together they tell the story of the team from their individual childhood's to the present.

If you love all things Python, this is a great way to work through their career from the first episodes of MONTY PYTHON until the present, with their explanation of why there will be no new Monty Python projects featuring the final five. I learned a lot of new things about them and loved hearing them all talk about their various joint projects. For instance, I was not aware that John Cleese originally wanted to play Brian in LIFE OF BRIAN, but was talked out of it by the other members.

My only two complaints about the set are that many of the interviews with non-Pythons were sometimes not terribly illuminating. Did we really need any contributions from Russell Brand (he remains a mystery to me - the next interesting thing that I hear coming from his mouth will be the first interesting thing I hear coming from his mouth)? My other complaint comes from the set. There were not very many interesting special features. We do get extended interviews and several of their most famous clips from the show. I saw this on Blu-ray and I was mildly disappointed with the visual quality of the clips (thought definitely not the documentary). If the transfers are not any better than this, then I will certainly not be getting MONTY PYTHON on Blu-ray when that comes out. Hopefully they did not do their best work on the transfers. I remain hopeful that they can do new transfers that would justify doing Blu-ray editions. That aside, let me point out what a huge week it was for Blu-ray. There were three major new Blu-ray releases that drew my attention: this set, BATTLESTAR GALACTICA: THE PLAN, and THE PRISONER. All three were simply outstanding releases. You simply don't get many weeks this exciting, an embarrassment of riches.