Original subtitles

In 1979, a comedy feature film quickly became one of

the most controversial pieces of cinema in history.

No film had ever before satirised Christianity so blatantly.

See, not so bad, watch it up.

And it caused outrage.

I mean, it's so disgusting and you think of it.

All you've done is to make a lot of people across singing a musical song.

A group of rabbis and priests held demonstrations over this past weekend and

they were demonstrating against a movie called The Life of Brian.

Protesters around the world marched against The Life of Brian.

It was dropped by financiers banned by councils, states, even entire countries.

But it still managed to get shown and still

managed to offend seemingly every world religion.

These people are operating at a very, very low level of mental health.

They are incapable of understanding the teaching.

What happened to sticks and stones can break my bones, but words can never hurt me.

This is the story of one of the greatest films and

one of the greatest cultural battles of modern times.

During the 1970s, Monty Python's Flying Circus became one of

the most influential comedy programs Britain has ever produced.

One of the cross beams has gone out of skew on the treadle.

But what on earth does that mean?

I don't know, Mr. Wentworth just told me to come in here

and say that there was trouble at the mill, that's all.

I didn't expect a kind of Spanish Inquisition.

Nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition.

I chief weapon this surprise.

Surprise and fear and surprise.

Two weapons are fear and surprise and ruthless efficiency.

There are three weapons are fear and surprise and ruthless efficiency.

And an almost fanatical devotion to the Pope are thought.

The Python team were comedy superstars.

They'd made three series of the TV show and become cult stars in the UK.

The release of their first feature film, Monty Python and the Holy Grail,

propelled them to even greater international success.

We'd been doing our publicity for Grail.

It sort of brought us back together again.

And I think we must have felt, well, the Grail's going down well.

Maybe you should do another movie.

The moment was really in Amsterdam, one of our drunken pub crawl, one evening.

And that was Eric when he said, you know, wouldn't be great.

Let's do Jesus Christ.

Lost for glory.

And I fell off the chair because that was so outrageous and wonderful and spot on.

My reaction to the idea of doing a Bible story was slightly disappointing because I

always thought the costumes were so boring.

I remember going to church of England school.

Every time we had to do a paint of biblical scene, you know?

Everybody's in long robes.

It's not very interesting.

Born in the 1940s, all of the pythons had received some form of religious education.

But Christianity was either rejected or distrusted by each.

There was a lot of religion thrown at us, but very little that was explained,

certainly satisfactory.

I'd been confirmed and I'd sat around for some

weeks, expecting some golden globe to descend on me.

And when it didn't, I became fairly atheistic or humanistic.

I was, in many ways, a little zealot.

I had read the Bible at least twice by the time I was about 16.

So I knew my stuff.

I can do it, Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy, Joshua, Judges,

Ruth, verses, I can do all those things.

And then I decided I'd had enough.

So I sort of walked away from religion around

that time and thought education is better.

We were lucky because we shared the same attitudes to what religion wasn't.

I don't think you could have ever got the pythons to agree on what it was.

But certainly we agreed on what it wasn't.

And that was lucky.

The pythons began work on Jesus Christ's lust for glory.

The first task was to research their subject thoroughly.

I remember going with Terry and the others to see screenings

of other biblical epics like Quovades and Solomon and Shebren.

And all that.

They were pretty dreadful.

After about watching three or four, they said

they realised they all had one thing in common.

And that was that everybody in the film spoke in this very special way.

Because they were aware that they were living at a

time when something very wonderful was happening.

How blessed are those of gentle spirit?

They shall have the earth for their possession.

I remember saying to the others that, you know, people will find our film

shocking because it'll be the first biblical

film in which people speak in normal voices.

Speak up!

Quiet mum!

Where are you?

Are you a thing?

Now, are you telling me that's not worth 20 seconds?

No.

Look at it.

Feel the quality that's not in your goat?

Alright, I'll give you 19 then.

No, no, no.

Come on, do it properly.

What?

Hang on properly.

This isn't worth 19.

You just said it was worth 20.

Oh dear, oh dear.

Come on, haggle.

Alright, I'll give you 10.

That's more like it.

10?

Are you trying to insult me?

Me?

With a poor dying grandmother?

10?

Biblical epics viewed and the gospels reread led all to realise that

artistically speaking, Jesus was not the answer.

What began as Jesus Christ, lust for glory, actually gradually moved away from

that idea simply because they found Jesus Christ wasn't fighting.

Honey, you know, you've got Christ saying very good things

and saying the right things and as a wonderful figure.

So that's not where the fun lies really.

Once you start thinking about it, and start just thinking of it in everyday terms.

You see, you accept that this happened.

But when Mary said to Joseph, I'm pregnant, but it's okay.

I wasn't with anyone because the Holy Spirit comes down, you know, and then

Joseph goes off to the pub and says to his friend,

you know, I was a bit worried that my wife was here.

It's all all right because she was impregnated by

the Holy Ghost and all his friends say, Oh, fine.

Well, that's a relief.

You see what I mean?

The moment you start looking at this stuff, there's a funny side to it.

Hear that?

Bess it all the Greek?

Big Greek?

Well apparently he's going down ahead at the earth.

Did anyone catch his name?

Oh, it's the meek!

Bess it all the meek!

Oh, that's nice in here.

I'm glad they're getting something because they have Oliver time.

The comedy, it seemed pretty clear, was in the interpretation of the gospel.

The angle that we all agreed on in the end was that you'd

look at the historical situation in Judea at that time.

It was a time when the sort of millennium was being sort of thought about again and

people were expecting God to come down and clean up the world and all that.

So people were looking for messiahs.

And so the idea of someone being chosen as the Messiah, when all he is is somebody

happens to be around at the same time in the

same place, seem to unlock a way of doing this.

No!

Yes!

Yes!

Yes!

Yes!

Yes!

Yes!

Yes!

I don't think there's any moment when we thought, well,

we don't want to do that because it might be blasphemous.

It was just really a question of being guided where the comedy was.

I was always convinced there was no where you

couldn't go or you shouldn't go more to the point.

I think there are no sacred cows.

And if they are there, if they're really sacred, then let's

see how much we can puncture them and see if they still float.

They had their angle, but in setting out to lampoon the

blindly faithful, the pythons had chosen a dangerous path.

A path towards possible prosecution for blasphemy, and perhaps even more

disturbingly, towards a head-to-head with the self-proclaimed

guardian of Christian morality, Mary Whitehouse.

Last Thursday evening we sat as a family and we saw a program that started at 6.35.

And it was the dirtiest program that I have seen.

In 1977, as the pythons began writing what was now called Life of Brian, events took

an ominous turn, when for the first time in 50

years a prosecution was brought for blasphemy.

Gay News published a poem called The Love that Dares to Speak Its Name.

It's a kind of meditation by a centurion at the crucifixion of Christ.

And he meditates on the wounds of Christ, and he rather gets off on these wounds.

Mrs. Mary Whitehouse took objection to this particular poem, and therefore she

launched a private prosecution for blasphemous libel against the publishers

of Gay News, and the editor of Gay News, Dennis Lemon.

Mrs. Whitehouse got after it, and if she found anything which caused a particular

pain or distress, she immediately bought it and read it and started a law case.

She felt inside, you know, that this is Christ being crucified

again, and that we really cannot stay silent about this.

Mrs. Whitehouse and her adherents prayed in the passages of the Old Bailey.

Gay News was completed.

Dennis Lemon was sentenced to nine months in prison, 80 months suspended,

fined 500 pounds, and gay news was fined 1,000 pounds.

So by the time the gay news trial happened, there was a

kind of new definition, which actually the judge gave.

You said that the particular offense of blasphemy was irreverence, skorility,

profanity, vilification, or licentious abuse of the Christian religion.

Of course, irreverence, skorility, profanity, vilification, and licentious

abuse sums up Monty Python humour beautifully.

The pythons decamped to Barbados for two weeks, to hone

the script without interruptions or family pressures.

Terry and I were slightly reluctant to agree, thinking, well, won't we get a

Barbados, we're just going to want to water ski and swear money.

Hang out, who's going to want to write a film?

I think Barbados is really one of the smartest things we did, because it's the

first time we actually all went away at one time

to one place, and just locked ourselves off.

And we laughed and had a wonderful time, and I think it was a good way of working,

because these ideas were thrown around really fast.

I think it was in those last two weeks when we were all

together, that really the themes of the film came out.

People had written very good stuff.

I mean, things like the writing on the wall at night, the Latin.

I remember John and Graham coming up with that.

This is terrific.

This is just what we want.

Row Marnies, Ayun, Thomas.

People call Row Marnies.

They go the house.

It says, Row Marnies, go home.

No, it doesn't.

What's that in for a Roman?

Come on, come on.

Row Marnies?

Goes like?

The next big task was to find funding for the

film between two and three million pounds.

It was always going to be a struggle to get backing for such a controversial film,

but undeterred they sent the script to EMI.

I sat one sunny Sunday afternoon in my garden, and I've

never read a funny script in my life before or since.

It was just a joy.

I told John goes, we would like to make the picture.

We shook hands.

He owned a bottle of champagne.

And I was kind of taken aback in the way because

negotiations with finance was never supposed to be that easy.

With EMI on board, the team looked for a place

to film, and they soon settled on Tunisia.

You have to remember that Tunisia, in Monastir, was all set up for biblical epics.

That's why they made, I think it was Lou Grades,

Jesus Christ, with Robert Powell and all that.

So they had the temples, they had the tabernacles.

All these Arab extras were quite used to coming

along and being Jews for a sort of day in life.

Pre-production began.

Costumes were made, sets began to be built.

All that was left now was to decide on the casting.

It was becoming clear that the biggest decision would be who was going to play Brian.

Graham Chapman was the leading contender, but

his notorious heavy drinking was causing concern.

And John, in particular, was worried about whether he could cope.

John had written with Graham during the days when Graham drank a lot and was kind

of absent physically or mentally for a lot of the time.

So John was having to do with writing, and I think John saw a possible danger

that Graham may blow the whole film, you know, because it's a central character.

Graham was getting through two bottles of gin a day, but those

with large ones that you get behind a bar, pretty colossal.

He never used the word alcoholic, but he knew

down well that he had to clean his act up.

As I understand it, anyway, Graham already knew he would be

playing Brian and had really stopped drinking with that in mind.

But John Cleese wanted to be Brian too.

I wanted to be Brian for one simple reason, which was that I had never played

a role that went all the way through the movie.

I have a faith the rest of us were against it because

of A, I couldn't see John as Brian, quite honestly.

And B, we thought there were all these other parts that we wanted John to do.

Oh, this whistle!

Do you understand?

Turn to the floor!

What?

Turn him to the floor again, sir?

Oh, yes, turn to the floor, please.

They were right because they said, no, no.

You will be funnier and the film will be funnier if you play the century and in rage.

And I was disappointed just because I wanted the experience, but after very,

very soon I realized they were right.

And also Graham, who was a tremendously good actor.

I think probably potentially almost the best actor of all of us.

February, 1978, and everything was now in position to start filming.

All were ready to leave for Tunisia in several days.

And then the boss of EMI, Bernard Delfontt, read the script.

I suddenly got a very, very angry telex in those days from Bernard Delfontt,

who was chairman of the EMI entertainment section.

He said, I've looked rather quickly through the script of the new Monty Python

film, and I'm amazed to find that it's not the zany

comedy usually associated with his films, his films.

But it's obscene and sacrilegious, and would certainly not

be in the interest of EMI's image to make this sort of film.

Every few words, there are outrageous swear words,

which is not in keeping with Monty Python's image.

This is very distressing to me, and it's a very serious situation.

I thought it's clearly ridiculous.

He doesn't know anything about films.

He shouldn't be making these judgments.

I called him up and spoke to him and said, only if you've got the wrong end of the

stick, I can assure you, as a Catholic, not normally a qualification I use in the

film industry, that this is not blasphemous.

It really isn't, and I didn't think we should worry about that.

And he had obviously made up his mind that it was.

And after a lot of spluttering, I argue with him and argue with him.

And eventually he lost his temper and he used the immortal words.

I'm not going to have people saying, I'm making fun of f***ing Jesus Christ.

It was a mortal blow when EMI pulled out, because,

you know, we had no other option at the time.

I actually thought the thing wasn't going to happen.

I remember I accepted a role working with Peter Sellers

in Vienna, doing a remake of Prisoner of Zander.

A race to find finance for the film ensued, with Eric

Idol and producer John Goldstone departing for America.

Eric Idol said, well, you know, the one person that

has always been a big Python fan is George Harrison.

And he lives in the Hollywood Hills, and we should

really go and see him and talk to him about it.

And I think we sent a script ahead of time for him to read.

And then anyway, a miracle happened.

A miracle, say, George of Harrison, thanks to Eric Idol, heard about the

project and said, yes, you know, I'll, I'd like to do it, you know.

What we did was we pawned my house and the office in London, and to get a bank loan.

And that was a bit nerve-racking.

George put up all the money himself, and in doing so, set up the company

Handmade Films, that would go on to make Mona

Lisa and a private function amongst others.

And so, several months later than planned, in September

1978, the 41-day shoot began in Monastir in Tunisia.

It was decided that Terry Jones should direct the

film with Terry Gilliam in charge of art direction.

This was a change from the Holy Grail film, where both men had directed

together, a situation that had caused some tension.

They were sort of working on different ends of the spectrum at times,

and it did cause a fair amount of consternation.

By the time they got to Brian, I think everyone in the group felt that

they couldn't have two people again calling the shots.

Gilliam wisely backed down, I think, because by then he'd made Jabba Walkie,

so he kind of felt, I'm going to go off and make my own movies anyway.

Terry was important to be the director, because I would have got caught up in all

sorts of detail that would have riled the others, because John didn't want to wear

theirs, and they didn't want to do all the things that I think are important to film,

wearing uncomfortable clothes, having grotesque makeup, all those things.

Terry and I sort of fell out at one point.

I think when I said something, you were the stroppy to Terry at some

point, because I thought he was bending the cameraman's ear

more, and I thought I was supposed to sort something out.

It took Terry a long time to forgive.

He didn't speak to me about that.

I hadn't thought that before now, but just thinking about it, he probably

just kept out of my way, because he was feeling so pissed off with me.

I think there was a feeling right from the beginning, and the very first scene,

I think, that was shot, was the stoning scene.

That this could be very funny indeed.

And so morale, morale was high.

Well, first son of Deuteronomy of Geth?

Well, say yes.

Yes.

Yes.

You have been found guilty by the elders of the town, of

uttering the name of our Lord, and so as a blasphemer.

You are to be stoned to death.

Look, I had a lovely supper, and all I said to my wife,

was, that piece of Hallibur was good enough for Jehovah.

Yes, for me!

He said it again.

We were there on day one.

And Jonesy was so well prepared, it was shot like

that, I suddenly thought, my God, this is fun.

Stuff by blind taxiderms.

The shoot progressed smoothly.

Behind the scenes footage shows a relaxed group of pythons enjoying themselves.

Yes, it's another edition of Graham Chapman rests.

A series of 400 half-hour programs, which look at the life of a man who rests a lot.

Right!

Right!

Right!

Right!

When we were doing those crowd scenes where they all

had shout out, it is an Arab-speaking crowd, right?

Some of them smoked a bit of French, but not

English-speaking, so I assumed we'd have to dub on.

Who are you?

And basically I just shouted out to them what I wanted them to shout back.

And actually, everybody just shouted back authenthetically when I shouted out to

them, and we used the actual soundtrack at the end.

It was so really extraordinary.

You've got to face yourself!

You're all individual!

Yes!

We're all individual!

You're all different!

Yes!

We're all different!

I'm not.

Midway through filming, and in a bizarre coincidence,

Spike Milligan suddenly popped up and was given a cameo.

Spike happened to be in tuneism because he was visiting the Second World War

battlefields on which he'd fought, and he suddenly turns up in monastery,

can't get a room in hotel, because the entire Python team is there.

So he came along one morning, he filmed his lovely little cameo, they all went for

lunch, he just went, he didn't come back, and they had him scheduled for the

afternoon for his close-ups and the rest of the scene, but he'd gone, he just

heard, I've had enough of this, I'm on holiday, and

he'd gone off to look at some battlefield somewhere.

But he still appears in the movie, and it is a

great link between the goons and the pythons.

Yay!

He'd come to us, like the she's at the grave!

The scene that would be the hardest to film would also be the most controversial,

the crucifixion of Brian.

I remember vividly the...

always looking the right side, shooting bass, and it's quite a weird place.

You know, arriving there on the morning of a shoot

and seeing all these crosses up on the horizon.

That was kind of a weird moment, and you kind of wondered how people would

respond to that, because the images were so strong,

and the idea that it became a song and dance number.

And I can remember Eric singing this song to us,

singing the end song to us in the hotel, I think.

Cheer up, Brian.

You know what they say?

Some things in life are bad.

They can really make you mad.

Other things just make you swear and curse.

When you're chewing on laughs, gristle, back or humble, give a whistle.

And this'll help things turn out for the best.

Ay!

Always look on the bright side of life.

I wasn't over in the first place, I had to say.

But we didn't have any other endings, so I thought it'd be quite funny.

They also had the problem of actually filming it.

It's very difficult being stuck up on the cross, one could imagine.

They were actually up on the crosses for three days, and that's a lot of time.

They had a little platform for the feet, just sort of on the middle of the cross,

and of course a hidden bicycle seat that they

could sort of perch on while they were up there.

That's the king!

About four of us who were slightly tended to have chest problems got really quite

sick, and I remember thinking the day I was crucified.

I wasn't looking forward to being crucified.

It'd be crucified when you got flew.

I always just thought it'd be funny having a song and dance routine on the cross.

No, everybody's tied to this place, they can't move.

It was a wonderful bit of work by Eric, that song.

So I think in a way we were all in our different ways, working at our best.

Certainly Gray was at his best as an actor.

I was performing well.

Eric was in good form.

Michael was superb.

Terry Gilliam made the film look good, and Terry

Jones was absolutely on top of his game as a director.

So it was just one of those moments when it all comes

together, because usually it moves all falls apart.

The shoot was completed, and Terry Jones began to edit the film in preparation for

Life of Brian's scheduled release a few months later.

But unbeknownst to the film crew, the secret was already

out, because there was a traitor within its ranks.

Someone had sent 11 pages of the script to Mary Whitehouse and the Festival of Light.

The nationwide Festival of Light obtained the script from somewhere.

I've no knowledge of that.

The fact that they got the script means that somebody must have sent it to them,

that was associated with the film.

The Festival of Light were appalled and wrote a letter to the British Board of

Film Classification, urging them to think of the

consequences of allowing the film to be shown.

It ended, I need not remind you of the wider implications

of scurrilous abuse of God, Christ, or the Bible.

The lines were drawn for one of the great cultural battles of model.

April 1979, while Terry Jones was working hard to finish Life

of Brian, the Festival of Light began their crusade against it.

They obviously don't like what they read, but they realise that if they go for this

in a big way, then that may be counterproductive.

So what they do is they adopt this kind of low profile, somewhat insidious campaign

of saying, oh, let's all pray for the failure of Life of Brian.

The Festival of Light and Mary White House in particular was on the Warpath.

The Python team was staring a possible prosecution for blasphemy in the face,

so sought the advice of John Mortimer, the lawyer who defended gay news.

They sought legal advice for me because I

suppose because I'd done the blasphemy trial.

And I think it was quite brave.

I think it still is quite brave.

And they came to see me and I saw the film, which I thought right and sleep funny.

And it remains one of my favourite funny films.

And I gave it an legal opinion.

It was one rather dangerous point where Michael

Palin was a leper, and he was cured by Jesus.

He was very angry.

He said, oh, bloody, do good.

Who killed you?

Jesus gets up.

I was hopping along under my own business.

All of a sudden, it's gone.

It's not so much as I buy your leave.

You're cured, mate.

Bloody, no good enough.

The pythons decided to keep the character in,

but another called Otto was right on the edge.

Otto was a Jewish Nazi.

Now, this really was quite delicate territory.

It's right on the edge again.

You're saying things you're not supposed to say this

time, not about Christians, but about Jews in Israel.

Important stuff to say because it's sort of cutting through the hypocrisy.

In one particular scene, Otto talked to Brian about setting up a racially pure,

all Jewish community.

It was a problem character because, of course, this is not the sort of

character that would appeal to an American film

distributor, where the Jewish lobby is very strong.

The Otto story line had to go.

The only remnant in the finished film is his

very brief appearance at Brian's crucifixion.

You may remember that there's this rather strange bunch of, sort of, samurai-looking

people who turn up at the end and commit suicide.

That show them, huh?

I'm still not convinced cutting it out was the right

thing, as I think I'd seen is really important.

They obviously were points which a prosecutor would make much of,

but I'd advice about the whole film.

It was really founded on telling the court that Brian and Jesus were two different

people, and that Jesus appears in the film as a separate character.

Now, whether that's a very convincing defense, I

don't know, but luckily we never had to try it out.

Life of Brian was completed.

The Python set out for America.

It had been decided to open the film there first, home as it was to freedom of

speech, the constitution, and perhaps even

more helpfully, not home to any blasphemy laws.

The world premiere was set for New York on August the 17th, 1979.

I just knew it was going to be fun, and it was.

They didn't let us down.

They were out there parading, marching, screaming, and shouting, you know,

just like what I would expect.

Well, it seemed hard when the film came out that the first group to complain about

it was the group that we'd never imagined

would have anything to complain about at all.

And that was the New York Association of Rabbis.

And we thought, well, why are they complaining?

I could imagine Christians complaining, but not rabbis.

And anyway, they were complaining about the use of the

prayer shawl in the stoning sequence, which we didn't make.

It was the prayer shawl.

We just thought it was a bit of costume.

So when you're treading on delicate ground, you never know

what you're going to be, who you're going to be offending.

Rabbi Abraham Hecht was quoted in the trade paper variety, accusing the film of

being blasphemous, sacrilegious, and an incitement to possible violence.

They knew they were in for a rough ride because they'd been

told they must all make a will before they went to New York.

Since they had no idea whether someone would take a shot at them or not.

A group of rabbis and priests held demonstrations over this past weekend,

and they were demonstrating against a movie called The Life of Brian.

The new Monty Python film is entitled The Life of Brian.

It is a spoof of The Life of Christ and has managed to

offend just about every religious group in this city.

Monty Python's Life of Brian, a film attracting much attention to the day

outside the Warner Brothers building in Rockefeller Center,

demonstrators gathered to call the film blasphemous.

Catholic, Jewish, Greek, Orthodox, Protestant,

religious leaders will condemn the film.

The New York Arts Diocese officially on record against it.

I mean, it wasn't a great surprise that there were going to be people who disliked

the film because we knew that there were certain

people for whom the Bible story was untouchable.

At one famous demonstration in New York, the Reverend Roger

Filton referred to the makers of the film as Monty Snake.

People who he said needed a new heart, a new soul and a new spirit.

I think what really worried Roger Filton was actually British humour because while

he could as a believing Christian make all these objections to the alleged blasphemy

in the film, what really I think got up his nose was

the fact that here were all these men dressed as women.

You've got to remember that Christianity in America is mainly about sex.

There's so deeply uncomfortable about every aspect of sex that they don't much

care about wars or destroying the environment or financial corruption.

Anything to do with sex sets them off.

And it's because these people are operating

at a very, very low level of mental health.

They are incapable of understanding the teaching.

As far as understanding the majority of the religious reaction

against the film was from people who hadn't seen the film.

This is what makes me crazy is this ability to just close.

Say no, don't even look at that.

Don't even think about it.

That it's a way of keeping people ignorant under control and not thinking.

And I think with Python, one of the things I thought we

were all pretty proud of is trying to make people think.

The US protests and marches only served to

heighten media profile and increase takings.

The original plan to open Brian on 200 screens nationwide snowballed to near a 600.

Certain states banned the film, especially in the

Bible Belt, which only fanned the flames more.

Life of Brian would eventually take over $20 million in the US alone.

Back in the UK, the word about life of Brian was spreading.

And although the film wouldn't be on general release until the following year,

on November 9, 1979, John Cleese and Michael Palin were

invited to appear on a late night BBC2 discussion programme.

To debate the film in the presence of Mervyn Stockwood, the Bishop of Savic,

and Malcolm Muggridge, born-again Christian and well-known friend of Mary.

The stage was set for one of TV's all-time great ding-dongs.

There was obviously going to be quite a heavy interview.

Perhaps the strongest criticism we would face.

And John and I, I mean I remember actually

sort of mugging up for it, like for an exam.

You know, going through my books and, yeah, sort of getting all the arguments together.

When I look at that figure, I mean I know you're going to say Brian is from Jesus,

but I mean that's just rubbish.

The, it was the, the her thing is quite clear.

If no Jesus had lived, that film wouldn't have been produced.

The Bishop sitting there, all of his purple, the world's biggest silver crucifix.

I've never seen one so big fingering that, and the voices

were all headmaster's voices, and they're all dignified.

It's quite humbug to say that this is not a, a really cooling

of the founder of the Christian religion and of the incarnation.

In an extremely cheap and tense right way.

Margarage, until he was 60, was a well-known womanizer and drinker.

And I expect to some extent he only got religion after he couldn't do anything else.

And Moven Stockwood was, was a homosexual as everybody

knew, and also as it happens a heavy drinker.

As it went on, and extraordinary thing happened was that we were the ones with

the serious points, and they were the ones who were playing to the crowd.

I simply don't think it was worthy of you.

It was the sort of things, I say, that it came,

which the footlights did on a damp Tuesday afternoon.

Or the layer of force, and then I was a schoolmaster.

You keep making the basic assumption that we are ridiculing

Christ and Christ's teaching, and I say that we are not.

But do you imagine that your scene, for instance, of the Sermon on the Mount,

the scene in your film or the Sermon on the Mount, is not ridiculing one of the

most sublime utterances that any human being has ever spoken on this Earth,

cause it is?

No, absolutely not.

It's making fun of the guy who's remembered it wrong, and

of the people who don't understand it and miss the point.

I think that's really unfair, because I think that a lot of people looking in will

think that we have actually ridiculed Christ physically.

Christ is played by an actor Ken Colley.

He speaks the words from the Sermon on the Mount.

He's treated absolutely respectfully.

The camera then pans away.

We go right to the back of the crowd to someone

who shouts Speak Up, because they cannot hear him.

Now, if that utterly undermines the faith in Christ, then I'll be talking about that.

I started off by saying that this is such a 10th-rate film

that I don't believe that it would disturb anybody's faith.

No, you start with an open mind.

I realize that.

I'd never been so sort of angry in public before, I don't think.

It was just the way they dealt with it.

The sort of venom used just because they liked the sound of the words.

I wasn't aware Micah was deeming, but I was

kind of enjoying it because they annoyed me.

And I reckon that we were nailing them.

I thought we were winning.

All you've done is to make a lot of people on

the cross seeing a music, a music hall song.

I mean, it's so disgusting when you think of it.

A lot of people go away very happy laughing at that.

Their faith not touched one, John.

I don't even touch it.

I don't even touch it.

I had quotes in my pocket from Malcolm that absolutely

validated our position and destroyed his own.

And out of kindness, I didn't pull them out and read

them out because I was feeling kind of sorry for it.

Is that unbelievable?

You have succeeded in reducing something which has inspired the greatest art into

something which is presented in terms of the lowest art.

That's your feet.

That's your mind.

You set up your own terms that we have to influence people.

We're not saying we want to influence people.

We're trying to make them laugh, make them happy.

I mean, that's something that helps.

Gentlemen, I have to call a situation.

I'm very sorry.

And just as it was being wound up, Mervin the Bishop delivered his Piesta Resistance.

You'll get your 30 pieces of soap.

I hate them.

For those of you who didn't attend Sunday school, this is a biblical quote and

refers to the money that Judas was paid to betray Jesus Christ.

Days later, the show, Not the Nine O'clock News, would send up the whole encounter,

effectively turning the tables with Roan Atkinson as a

Bishop who had made a film based on the life of John Cleans.

I mean, I actually find it deeply offensive that in a

country that is still ostensibly a python worshiping country.

But a 14-year-old child can actually get into see this film.

I mean, there is little enough proper python around

these days without parading this distorted garbage about.

Bishop, you directed the film.

Did you expect this kind of reaction?

Well, I certainly didn't expect the Spanish Inquisition.

In the UK, the British Board of Film Sensors passed Life of Brian Uncutt with

an AA certificate, meaning that anyone over the age of 14 could see it.

This despite the lobbying from the Festival

of Light, who had pushed for an outright ban.

But that didn't mean the UK release of Life of Brian would be problem-free,

since it was up to councils to decide whether to show the film or not.

And the Festival of Light now began to write

letters to them, still pressing for a ban.

If you've got the Festival of Light causing trouble, if you've got some fairly

conservative views in your local area, then it is quite possible for any local

authority to call in the film, view it, and say, no, it can't go on in

our cinema, or to demand that it should be reclassified.

And it worked.

The film was banned in places like East Devon,

Cornwall, Swansea, and here in Harrogate.

Councillor Hitchin, why have you banned the Life of Brian?

Because from what we've heard about it, we think that it's going to be an

extremely offensive film on religious grounds.

Now you've not actually seen the film, have you?

No, we haven't.

What reports have you had of it?

Where have those reports come from?

The reports have come from the Festival of Light.

And they have told us of the attitude of the American

Catholic Church and the American Jewish Church.

What do you know about the Festival of Light yourself?

Nothing.

What we said was that if you feel strongly about this film, what you have to do is

you exercise your democratic rights and write to your local councillors who have

authority over the cinemas and who can either reclassify a

film or conclude that it's not appropriate for your area.

The classic kind of ignorant response to this was the councillor who said he didn't

have to see the film because, you know, you don't

have to see a pigsty to know that it stinks.

Mary White has Lord Longford, a few other

people, had a phenomenal power at that time.

They really frightened the politicians.

They could organise big demonstrations.

They could particularly intimidate local politicians.

They could get a grip on local councils.

And that's, of course, where films were censored.

And it was very effective campaign and pretty dreadful filmmakers.

It was appalling that the life of Brian couldn't be seen everywhere.

What I was proud about England was that, where it was banned in different

communities, you know, people would organise share bank

parties and go to the communities where you could see it.

I thought the English could for them.

They're not going to be told what to think.

Where life of Brian was allowed to be shown, the

religious protests continued to keep up the pressure.

In Liverpool, leaflets were handed out by the city's mission, pointing out to the

audience some of the lies as they saw it, that the film contained.

Including number four, a blind man testifying to healing promptly falls into

a pit, denying the reality of our Lord's miracles.

The mass you inhale me!

I didn't touch it!

I was blind, and now I can see!

And the most offensive part of the film from the Christian

community's point of view was very definitely the crucifixion.

They're insulting the saviour that we love who shed his blood

for us, who died for us, and this is what it's all about.

To treat crucifixion, I think, as a sort of jolly boy's outing.

I think that that really is something that I felt was really offensive.

I have no sympathy whatsoever.

Any religion that makes a form of torture into an icon that they worship seems to me

a pretty sick sort of religion, quite honestly.

What do they do in the Christian church?

They have Christ on the cross of crucifix.

What is that if it's not a grave limit?

It might have been tricky to see Life of Brian in certain parts of the UK,

but in Norway it was banned completely.

You had to go to Sweden if you wanted to see it, where cinemas proudly proclaimed,

this film is so funny they banned it in Norway.

Despite the protests and the bans, Life of Brian went on to take £4 million

in the UK alone, and provide some of the most iconic comedy scenes.

Crucifixion?

Yes.

Good.

Out of the door, line on the left, one cross each.

Next?

All right, but apart from the sanitation, the medicine, education, wine,

public order, irrigation, rose, a fresh water system of public health.

What have the Romans ever done for us?

People of Jerusalem!

Well,

it's your friend!

Beloved by many, in the UK it was recently voted the greatest comedy film of all time.

It also marks perhaps the happiest and most creative period for the pythons.

I've always thought that Life of Brian's the

best thing Python did by quite a long chalk.

It's the one of whom we all are dust.

Life of Brian made a difference, baby.

I'm curious if it did make a difference.

That's what's interesting.

But I do think it gives hope to people who still want to think and laugh.

Let us like him hold up one shoe and let the other be upon our foot for this is his

sign that all who follow him shall do likewise.

No, no, no, the shoe is a sign that we must gather shoes together in a bundle.

Cast off the shoes, follow the goal!

No, you just gather shoes together!

Let's meet!

Follow the shoe, no, it's a sign that follows the goal.

It is my favorite scene because it is in five minutes we do the history of any

major religion and all of its heresies and its punishments and its madness.

And I think that is an extraordinary scene.

Hail Messiah!

I'm not the Messiah!

I say you are Lord and I should know I followed a few.

Hail Messiah!

With the group scenes with the various members of the Judean people's front and

beautiful, that was a lovely thing to play.

Campaign for free Galilee.

Oh, uh, people's front of Judea officials.

Oh, what's your group doing here?

We're going to kidnap Pilate's wife, take her back, he's Judy Mann.

So are we.

What?

That's Heartland.

We'll be our first.

What do you mean?

We thought of it first.

Oh yeah.

Yes, a couple of years ago.

There was invention going on there as well as basically a good strong script.

And I think scenes like that, everybody felt in there.

This is our one chance to get this.

Brothers!

Brothers!

We should be struggling together!

We are!

We mustn't fight each other!

Surely we should be united against the common enemy!

The Judean people's front!

No, no, the Romans!

Almost 30 years on, the film still provokes controversy, still provokes debate.

I'd know I didn't think it was funny.

I thought that it was quite an insult, to be honest.

Maybe it is being offensive to them because it is

making fun of people who don't think for themselves.

And that's exactly what the whole film's about.

So I think it's quite right for people who don't

think for themselves to get upset about it.

We don't have the power to make films.

We don't have the money to make films to lampoon Eric Idol, nor would we want to.

But one of the things that puts us as it were the Christian community at a real

disadvantage is that, you know, our Lord himself

said, if somebody strikes you, turn the other cheek.

Some poor tells us, don't be offensive to anyone.

I think it's extraordinarily rare for the religious to be funny, or to be funny

about their religions, or even about anybody else's.

I think there is a great humour vacuum at the heart of all religions.

I don't think you ever want to hurt anyone's feelings, but sometimes,

you know, with the Islamic world now, there are certain things they believe in

which are quite contrary to what we believe.

And I don't really think our values are less important than theirs.

So I guess you just have to have a clash and say, that's the way it is.

Although the pythons went on to make two more feature films, they never achieved

the same success or impact as Life of Brian.

Its legacy is unquestionable, and it could easily be

argued that it's more relevant today than when it was made.

Now there's so many groups, all demanding, don't offend, don't cause...

It goes on and on and on.

That's a marathon!

This is supposed to be a Jewish section!

It doesn't matter, you're all gonna die that day or two!

It may not matter to you Roman, but it certainly matters to us, doesn't it, darling?

Oh, rather!

Under the terms of the Roman occupants there, we're

entitled to be crucified in a purely Jewish area.

How is this separate from that, you say?

And to this separate and worse?

It is entirely legitimate to criticise religions.

It has to happen.

We must be allowed to do it.

We can't fall silent just because it's become more politically difficult.

I think if you have a religion that can't bear being made fun of or laughed at or

even attacked viciously, then it's not much of a religion.

When you suddenly have to think to yourself, now, can I write this?

Because it might, maybe I'll be offending somebody.

Some of religious susceptibilities or racial susceptibilities.

I mean, it's ridiculous.

I don't understand, well, I don't understand, but I don't want to accept a

world of such a paradigm, such a thin skin, such that offence is causing

offence, is the greatest crime you can do to somebody.

And as to whether life of Brian could be made in the present day.

Well, I think it ought to be made today.

I think everybody would think twice about doing it today.

Because it is terrifying what's happening.

And very, very dangerous.

I think free speech is really under attack at the moment in a very devious way.

As you get older, when you get to my age, and

I'm 66, now, you realise the world's a madhouse.

And that most people are operating in fantasy anyway.

So once you begin to realise that, it doesn't bother you very much.

Comedy is not particularly difficult.

You can get laughs doing any number of things.

But to get laughs at an intelligent level about an important subject.

Ooh, that's good.

You can find out more about what happens when art comes into conflict with religion.

At Channel 4's Faith and Belief website, Channel4.com.com.

Well, next tonight, he's not the Messiah.

He's a very naughty boy.

How a simple misunderstanding can lead to chaos.

It's Monty Pythons.

Life of Brian.