Welcome back to The Deep Dive, the show that
takes a stack of sources, research and expert
notes and tries to distill it all down for you.
And today we are diving into something, well,
something truly glorious and messy. A real existential
question mark of a movie? It's the 1983 feature
film, Monty Python's The Meaning of Life. And
if there was ever a film that actively resisted
being well -informed about, I mean, this is it.
Yeah, absolutely. So our mission for this deep
dive is, let's say, straightforward but philosophically
a bit daunting. We are going to dissect the film's
unique and, let's be honest, often controversial
structure. That infamous return to the sketch
format. Right, that deliberate choice. Then we'll
explore the stages of human life it so savagely
satirizes. And then we'll try to analyze its
really surprising critical reception. And its
legacy, which is so strange for a movie that's
probably most famous for its sheer vulgarity.
Its willingness to offend absolutely everyone.
Everyone. And I think it's vital to start by
setting the historical stage a little bit. This
film carries a significant, almost melancholic
weight to it. How so? Well, this was the last
feature film to star all six of the core Python
members. Graham Chapman, John Cleese, Terry Gilliam,
Eric Idle, Terry Jones, and Michael Palin. That's
the one. It was their last film altogether before
Graham Chapman's untimely death in 1989. So in
many ways, this movie really feels like the final
explosive, totally unbound artistic statement
from the group as a whole. Exactly. And structurally,
it represents this conscious, massive U -turn
from what they'd just done. Right. I mean, if
you're a listener, you're almost certainly familiar
with Monty Python and the Holy Grail and Life
of Brian. Sure. And despite all their silly detours,
those films had a single coherent story. A narrative
spine. A quest for the grail or the mistaken
identity of Brian. But the meaning of life just
throws that all out the window. It completely
rejects that. It's an intentional regression,
or maybe you could even call it an evolution.
Back to that pure, fragmented sketch format that
defined Flying Circus. They're a TV show. Right.
There's no central hero here. There's only a
central question. And the only thing holding
these wildly disparate, often shocking vignettes
together is that thematic progression, right?
Yeah, just examining the various stages of human
life, moving roughly from birth all the way to
death and the afterlife. And we should probably
talk about the scale here. Terry Jones directed
it. Yep. And while it has that signature kind
of scrappy Python energy, it was produced on
a budget of around $9 million. Which for them.
at the time was a significant amount of money.
It allowed for a level of production value. I
mean you think of the lavish musical numbers,
the massive sets, the gallons of fake vomit.
So much fake vomit. Things their previous films
just couldn't afford. And that investment definitely
paid off. It grossed $42 .7 million worldwide.
But to really appreciate the chaos of the final
film, I think we need to understand just how
difficult the writing process itself actually
was. Okay, let's unpack that. We've established
that the previous films, they had a natural structure.
But when the Pythons sat down to write The Meaning
of Life, The sources all indicate the process
was, and I think this is Michael Palin's word,
cumbersome. That's the one. So why? Why was writing
this film so much harder than the narrative -driven
ones? Well, the difficulty really stemmed precisely
from that lack of a defined spine. Okay. I mean,
when you have a quest or a biography like Brian's,
every tangent, no matter how silly it gets, can
eventually loop back to that central character
or that goal. Right. There's a home base. Exactly.
For the meaning of life, the mandate was just
too broad. the meaning of everything. Palin observed
that they wrote a ton of material, just immense
amounts, but trying to force all these sketches
under the umbrella of philosophy or life stages
was a huge challenge. So a lot of good stuff
got left on the cutting room floor. A lot of
brilliant material that just remained unused
or got cut out. You know, you can almost feel
that strain, but it translates into the film's
manic, almost desperate energy. When they realized
they couldn't sustain another quest narrative
after Holy Grail without it feeling repetitive,
they consciously chose what Palin called the
loosest structure possible. The search for the
meaning of life itself. It's the ultimate intellectual
safety net for a sketch comedy team, isn't it?
It is. It's the highest level of metacomedy.
If the whole philosophical point of the film
is to show that life is random or meaningless
or at least impossible to define simply, then
the film itself doesn't need a coherent plot.
Precisely. It grants them total artistic freedom
to jump violently from, say, a Yorkshire Catholic
family to an exploding glutton in a French restaurant.
That structural decision is their single biggest
break from their other movies. And speaking of
defining breaks, the title itself almost caused
a problem, which led to this wonderful piece
of self -referential humor. Oh yeah, the Douglas
Adams story? Right. So apparently, after they'd
settled on the title The Meaning of Life, Douglas
Adams, you know, creator of Hitchhiker's Guide,
he contacted Terry Jones. And he had sort of
a scheduling conflict. A creative conflict, yeah.
Adams had just finished writing his book, which
he decided to title The Meaning of Life. L -I
-F -F. An uncanny, totally accidental similarity
that could have caused all sorts of confusion
or even a legal headache. But because it's Python,
they just instantly absorb that potential disaster
right into the material. Of course they did.
The slight similarity, lift versus life, led
directly to the film's very first gag in the
title sequence. Where lightning strikes a tombstone
and magically changes the name on the marble
slab from the meaning of lift to the meaning
of life. It's just classic Python, taking an
outside influence, even a potential creative
competition, and turning it into a quick, clever
laugh. And it establishes the film's meta -awareness
right from the get -go. They're signaling to
the audience immediately. We know this is a movie
and yeah, we're kind of making it up as we go
along. So beyond just the sheer volume of ideas,
that budget was the great enabler here. As we
said, nine million was substantial. It allowed
for things they really couldn't do before. The
sources say it facilitated large scale choreography
and crowd sequences. I mean, you think back to
Holy Grail, they were basically just running
through fields and castles with, you know, pretty
minimal production design. Absolutely. Here,
the budget allowed for those incredibly complex,
elaborate dance sequences, and every sperm is
sacred. The intricate set for the French restaurant.
And just the sheer volume of material needed
for the Mr. Creosote scene. I mean, the practical
effects alone. It also paid for a more lavish,
complex soundtrack with all these new original
songs, which really differentiates it from the
sparser music of their other films. We're talking
full orchestrations, not just a couple of simple
ditties. And Michael Palin explicitly connected
that bigger budget and the freedom of operating
outside the strict BBC guidelines to the film's
overall tone. He did. He noted it allowed them
to be more daring and dark. They could afford
the expensive effects needed to create that really
visceral shock, like the exploding glutton. A
low budget film might have had to pull back from
that. For sure. And tracing the origins of these
specific daring sketches back to the writers,
it gives you this fascinating insight into their
creative process. Like the opening hospital scene,
the miracle of birth, that came directly from
Graham Chapman. Right, because Chapman was a
qualified doctor himself. He had an insider's
view of the medical world. So what was his observation?
He'd noticed the growing industrialization and,
I guess... dehumanization of hospitals the introduction
of lots and lots of machinery as he put it so
his satire wasn't really about the act of birth
itself no not at all it was about the overwhelming
bureaucracy and the hardware that had come to
surround it that became the focus of the satire
and that theme bureaucracy just overwhelming
the human experience it runs so deep in their
work it does Palin noted that same thread applied
to that later, equally grotesque scene with the
live organ transplant. Where the officials show
up to claim the man's liver. Yeah, that sketch
links directly back to Python's longstanding
love of bureaucratic absurdity. Specifically,
sketches with tons of people arriving with different
bits of paper, claiming jurisdiction over something
deeply personal. It's taking the mundane terror
of dealing with paperwork and just applying it
to life and death situations. That's where Python
finds its most fertile ground. They love the
idea of officialdom just triumphing over any
kind of logic or emotion. And speaking of fertile
ground, we have to mention this one. tiny fascinating
production detail from the source material. It
just illuminates how far they were willing to
push the envelope on language. Oh, this is a
great one. Even after they'd already secured
an R rating in the U .S. This is from the Yorkshire
Catholic family sketch. Michael Palin's line
where he's explaining contraception to his, you
know, innumerable children. Right. Originally,
he recorded the line referring to the protective
item as that rubber thing at the end of my sock.
Which is a slightly ridiculous, almost childlike
euphemism. Very much so. But during post -production,
they overdubbed that audio. So the word sock
was replaced by the far more explicit and provocative
word. It's a cock. It's a fast blink and you
miss it detail. But it speaks volumes, doesn't
it? Yeah. It says so much about their commitment
to direct, aggressive humor. They had the budget,
they had the rating freedom, and they were determined
to use the most offensive word possible to get
maximum shock value. Right in the middle of a
conversation about piety and procreation. That
level of meticulous detail, even in a single
word replacement, it just reinforces the... were
seeking to push boundaries audibly, not just
visually. Now, before we properly get into the
stages of life, we have to dedicate a good chunk
of time to the short film that comes before the
main feature. The Crimson Permanent Assurance.
Yes. If you watch the full theatrical version,
the runtime jumps from 90 minutes to 107, all
because of this unexpected, brilliant detour.
And this short film is such an essential piece
of the puzzle. It's also a brilliant misdirection.
It opens like a traditional feature film. You
get the full title sequence, established characters,
and it immediately breaks the expected Python
mold. By launching into this contained action
comedy narrative. It's totally distinct from
the fragmented satire that's about to follow.
Totally. And the core concept of CPA is just
so Python -esque it hurts. It focuses on this
small old school accounting firm, right? Yeah.
Filled with these elderly clerks. The kind of
forgotten souls who still use quill pens and
wear, you know, arm garters. Their whole staid
bureaucratic world is disrupted by the arrival
of these new, ruthless, yuppie corporate masters.
Who are modernizing and downsizing everything.
And this leads to their fantastic, surreal rebellion.
They decide to fight back, but not with a protest
or a lawsuit. No, no. They transform their centuries
-old office building itself into a fully functioning,
seaworthy pirate galleon. As you do. And they
sail it into the heart of the modern financial
district, raiding skyscrapers and battling the
corporate enemies for their gold. Literally.
It's pure genre pastiche, isn't it? It's using
the visual language of swashbuckling pirate films
to comment on generational and economic warfare.
It's taking the idea of corporate raiders and
making it completely literal. And the production
story behind this short is fascinating. It was
never intended to be this big, right? Not at
all. Initially. The script just called for the
Crimson Permanent Assurance to be an animated
sequence within the main film. Okay. It was slated
to appear near the end, during Part V. But Terry
Gilliam, the visual engine of the group, saw
an opportunity. He's known for his love of practical
effects, miniatures, massive visual flair. So
he persuaded the group to let him produce and
direct it as a standalone live -action piece
instead. Exactly. Gilliam convinced them that
the satire would land harder and the visuals
would just be more spectacular if it were real
rather than animated. And it let him flex his
directorial muscle. Totally. He got to create
this detailed, beautiful, and utterly bizarre
epic on a smaller scale, giving him complete
creative control over the short's tone and genre.
The contrast between the drab, bureaucratic life
inside the old building and then the sheer audacity
of it transforming into a high seas vessel is
just... It's breathtaking. That's the budget
at work. It allowed them to pull off that massive
visual joke. The short stands alone so well that
they had to figure out how to transition back
into the main feature without just losing the
audience. Right. And the source material confirms
that Gilliam managed a pretty subtle integration.
You see one of the boardrooms that gets raided
by the pirate accountants. It briefly reappears
in the feature, a quick visual ink. And the most
important transitional moment comes at the very
end of the short. The narrator of CPA apologizes
for the interruption to the main feature. Just
before a skyscraper falls and crushes the marauders
in this chaotic finale. That metafictional apology
is essential. It's Python giving the audience
explicit permission to let go of the pirate story
and shift their focus back to the fractured thematic
structure of the meaning of life. It clears the
air, literally and figuratively, before the film
proper even begins. It's a fantastic, expensive,
and totally unexpected cinematic appetizer. All
right, now we jump into the main event. The film
is structured chronologically, and it launches
straight into the fundamental questions of existence
before we even get to the delivery room. It starts
with one of the most brilliant, self -aware framing
devices in the whole Python catalog. The aquarium
scene. Right. The fish. Six fish in a restaurant
tank. They're observing the world. And the moment
they see their friend get eaten by a diner, they're
launched into this urgent, hopeless debate about
the meaning of life. They are literally viewing
existential dread through the lens of being someone
else's dinner. It's the ultimate statement on
human or, I guess, peace scene insignificance.
Then we move to the first stage, the miracle
of birth. And as we touched on, this scene is
all about bureaucracy just suffocating the human
experience. The doctors are completely obsessed
with their presentation to the hospital administrator.
They're focused on the equipment, the cost, the
sheer industrial spectacle of the delivery room.
They completely ignore the actual woman in labor.
The patient is utterly secondary to the performance
of efficiency and technological prowess. It's
a savage critique of modern medicine, prioritizing
process and profit over actual patient care.
Following this, the film pivots to this devastatingly
sharp satire of religion and its relationship
with procreation and poverty. We travel to Yorkshire
to meet the Roman Catholic man, played by Michael
Palin. Who has to inform his... numerous children,
that he has to sell them for scientific experiments
because he's been made redundant. The scene just
immediately establishes the economic burden of
pious adherence to doctrine. The kids, all packed
into that small room, they're living evidence
of the religious prohibition on contraception.
And this is where that brilliant contrast comes
in. A Protestant man appears. And he's proudly
boasting that his religion allows the use of
contraception and permits sex purely for pleasure.
But his wife immediately undercuts this theological
freedom. She just observes, so dryly, that despite
the allowance, they never actually do it. Right.
The freedom exists, but they choose not to use
it, revealing that personal inhibition can be
just as strong as any doctrinal restriction.
And that whole dynamic is the perfect springboard
for the film's most famous musical number. Every
sperm is sacred. We have to do a deep dive here.
We need to look at the power of this song. It's
not just a provocative lyric. It's an astonishing
piece of musical theater. Seth MacFarlane, among
many others, praised it. He noted its incredible
complexity, the high quality orchestrations and
the beautifully choreographed staging. The juxtaposition
is the key. They take this tragic subject, a
family struggling with poverty because of their
adherence to a non -contraceptive mandate. And
they turn it into a lavish, almost Disney -esque
musical production. Featuring dozens of children
dancing about the philosophical sanctity of every
potential life form they represent. It's tragicomic
satire at its absolute peak. The song is delivered
with total sincerity. Which makes the underlying
message that pious adherence leads directly to
economic ruin even more potent. The beauty of
the performance just clashes violently with the
grim reality of the situation. It forces you
as the audience to confront the absurdity of
doctrine when it's applied to reality. Then moving
on, the film transitions to growth and learning.
Python's take on education. We start with a lesson
on school etiquette. that just descends into
pure traditional Python anarchy. But that's just
the warm -up, really. The real shock comes with
the surreal and profoundly awkward sex education
lesson. The students are forced to observe their
teacher, John Cleese, having sex with his wife
in this clinical, uncomfortably formal demonstration.
It's the ultimate example of pedagogical failure
through hyper -literal instruction. Python is
demonstrating that the most inappropriate, clinical,
and frankly bizarre form of instruction is what
passes for practical education in their world.
The students are just forced into the state of
morbid curiosity, not actual learning. And what's
the immediate consequence of breaking that forced
atmosphere of solemnity? One boy dares to laugh
at the spectacle. And his punishment is swift
and completely disproportionate. He's immediately
forced into this brutal, violent rugby match.
Pitting the adolescent pupils against the full
-grown schoolmasters. The connection is so clear.
Institutional learning punishes genuine human
reaction, especially laughter or joy, by subjecting
the offender to ritualized violence. It suggests
that institutions are actively trying to suppress
the natural human spirit. Next up, we hit fighting
each other, the military segment, which has three
distinct vignettes. The absurdity of combat and
the deep -seated class structure of the British
officer corps are classic Python targets. But
here they're presented with a real cinematic
scale. The first one takes us to World War I,
deep in the mud of the Battle of the Somme. An
officer is trying to rally his men during a horrifying
attack. But instead of fighting, the men interrupt
him to present him with going away gifts. A toaster,
a tea set. It's a brilliant short satire on the
entrenched, stifling politeness of British social
life. The stiff upper lip and ritualistic gift
giving of civilian life just clash violently
with the horrifying reality of total war. The
absurdity of manners triumphs over survival instincts.
Then we shift to the modern army sketch, with
the famous RSM, the regimental sergeant major,
played by John Cleese. And he's relentlessly
bullying his soldiers, demanding they admit what
they would rather be doing than marching drills.
The twist here is psychological, though. Instead
of punishing them for admitting their desires,
like going to the beach or having sex, he dismisses
each one in turn to go do that very thing. He
reveals his power isn't just in forcing them
to drill. but in knowing and mocking their profound
desire for freedom before temporarily granting
it. It's a satire on the manipulative nature
of command. And finally, the segment concludes
in 1879 during the Anglo -Zulu War at the Battle
of Rorke's Drift. The soldier gets his leg bitten
off. And immediately assumes the culprit must
be a tiger. They hunt for this imagined beast,
only to find two men wearing a ridiculously unconvincing
tiger costume. This vignette just encapsulates
the python love of finding a bureaucratic or
absurd explanation for physical horror. Even
in the chaos of a historical conflict, the cause
of the injury must be rationalized, however ludicrously.
It suggests that sometimes the absurdity of war
is only overshadowed by the sheer, bizarre incompetence
of the people running it. After all that, existential
crisis, religious satire, and military madness,
we enter the exact middle of the film. Which
is literally introduced by an announcer, played
by Terry Gilliam. Right, he appears as the host
for a segment called Find the Fish, with all
these bizarre, surreal characters challenging
the audience. This serves as a vital structural
reset. It's an explicit acknowledgement that
the film is now structurally in total freefall.
It breaks the fourth wall entirely, inviting
the audience to play a game that is as random
and meaningless as the search for the meaning
of life itself. And of course, it fulfills the
promise of the opening scene by bringing the
fish back into the narrative focus. OK, so the
next main section, Middle Age, opens with this
fantastic satire of affluent, superficial American
tourism. We find an American couple visiting
a profoundly strange establishment. a Hawaiian
restaurant that is morbidly themed around medieval
torture. It's a very modern, cynical intersection
of leisure, consumption, and historical atrocity.
The idea that people would seek out historical
suffering as an aesthetic background for their
dinner. It illustrates a profound moral vacancy.
And their waiter, played by John Cleese, immediately
engages them in this incredibly detailed conversation
about philosophy. Plato. the actual meaning of
life. This is the only character who seems to
genuinely care about the central question of
the film. But the customers, they're all wrapped
up in their shallow conversation and they completely
fail to grasp what he's talking about. They pivot
away from deep thoughts about existence to discuss
the much more pressing issue of live organ transplants.
It's a perfect commentary on how quickly modern
humans lose interest in existential truths when
there's some high -tech gossip to discuss. And
this pivots us directly into the grotesque but
highly structured live organ transplant sketch.
This is where that Python love of bureaucracy
intersects violently. with medical gore and public
life. We see paramedics and various officials
arrive at a man's home and proceed to remove
his liver while he is still completely conscious.
The satire is aimed at the casual procedural
manner in which a major organ is just claimed
and removed, like it's a misplaced library book
or something. What's fascinating about this scene,
though, is the moment of persuasion. The wife
is initially reluctant to donate her own liver.
Until a character, a man stepping dramatically
out of a refrigerator, delivers a philosophical
intervention. It is the ultimate logical leap
of dark comedy. He reminds her of humanity's
insignificance in the universe, justifying the
immediate organ removal by framing it as a negligible
act in the grand cosmic scheme. The profound
is used to justify the brutally invasive. She
agrees and away goes her liver. And following
this, we get that brief structural tie -in. a
moment where executives are debating philosophy,
only to be momentarily interrupted by the raid
of the Crimson Permanent Assurance Pirates. It
confirms that Gilliam's short film is happening
concurrently in the Python universe. And then
we transition to the segment titled The Autumn
Years, but the focus is less on reflection and
more on pure destructive excess. It starts bizarrely,
with a French musician at the restaurant singing
this cheerful and romantic song about the joys
of having a penis. A moment of slightly misplaced,
celebratory French absurdity. But this is merely
the calm before the storm. It's the prelude to
the arrival of the ultimate antagonist of the
film. And perhaps the Python's most infamous
creation, Mr. Creosote. And the introduction
of Creosote is pivotal. Python signals his destructive
nature immediately. As this ill -tempered, grossly
obese glutton enters the restaurant, the six
fish we met in the opening scene immediately
scatter and hide in their tank. No. Universally,
they know that the worst of humanity has just
arrived. And this scene that follows is the single
most notorious and frequently cited in the entire
Python catalog. Creosote, played by Terry Jones
in this grotesque makeup, proceeds to devour
an enormous, utterly impossible meal. All while
continually and violently vomiting across the
highly sophisticated dining room. He is truly
excess personified. A walking monument to gluttony
and destructive consumption. Creosote functions
as this powerful satire of the era's emerging
greed, that unbridled consumerism and grotesque
excess of 1980s. He's the physical embodiment
of destructive appetite. Demanding more and more
until he literally explodes. And the climax is
handled so masterfully by John Cleese, playing
the impeccably polite Maître d 'Hôtel. Despite
Creosote's continuous vomiting and destruction
of the restaurant. The maitre d's maintains his
composure. And he persuades the disgustingly
full creosote to eat just one final wafer -thin
after -dinner mint. That single additional item
proves to be the catastrophic inevitable overload.
The wafer -thin mint triggers Creosote's explosive
demise, splattering viscera, and hundreds of
pounds of fake vomit all over the other diners
in this spectacular, repulsive finale. It's the
moment that defined the film's reputation for
being aggressively, unapologetically offensive.
And this is where the behind -the -scenes reality
is almost as funny as the sketch itself. Right.
The filming took place at Portchester Hall in
Queensway. And because of the logistics of the
production, the hundreds of pounds of fake vomit
and grotesque materials had to be cleaned up
on the very last day of shooting. And they were
on a tight deadline. A real wedding ceremony
was scheduled to take place in that same hall
just a few hours after they erupted the explosion
scene. Can you imagine that contrast? The pure,
chaotic vulgarity of the exploding glutton scene
forcing this massive, urgent cleanup. Immediately
preceding the pure, idealized ritual of a wedding.
It perfectly encapsulates Python's mission. disrupting
polite society and forcing chaos into expected
order. So after this literal eruption of gluttony,
the film tries to bring back the original philosophical
question. The cleaning woman enters, surveying
the scene of destruction. And she proposes a
perfectly nihilistic conclusion that fits the
mess. Life is meaningless. A suitably bleak takeaway
for the carnage we just witnessed. Until she
immediately ruins her own point by revealing
in the same breath that she is a virulent racist.
And the waiter, trying desperately to salvage
a takeaway, he attempts to conclude the segment
by discussing kindness. But he trails off in
understandable anger, unable to maintain the
moral high ground amidst the mess, the bile,
and the bigotry. The search for meaning is quite
literally drowned out by human flaws. As we move
into the final stages, we arrive at death, and
the film offers two very different, darkly comedic
visions of mortality. The first features a condemned
man who gets the unusual privilege of choosing
the manner of his own execution. His choice is
classic Python, being chased off the cliffs of
Dover by two topless women in sports gear, ultimately
falling into his own open grave waiting precisely
below. utter finality a bizarre sexualized execution
ritual that visual bleakness is followed by a
short animated interlude where despondent leaves
commit suicide by throwing themselves from the
branches of a tree a very quick very dark joke
about the universality of existential despair
but the most famous segment of the final section
is the arrival of the grim reaper the grim reaper
Again, played by John Cleese, appears at an isolated
cottage where an upper -class British family
is holding a dinner party. And the Reaper has
to politely but firmly convince the hosts and
their dinner guests that they are all, in fact,
dead. Having died from eating bad salmon mousse,
the bureaucracy of death is maintained even in
the face of the scythe. They accept their fate
and have to accompany him to the afterlife. And
what is the ultimate destination? They travel
to heaven. which is revealed to be the exact
same tackily -themed Hawaiian restaurant from
the earlier middle -age segment. It is the ultimate
anticlimax. The ultimate destination of human
existence is just a tacky, recycled set from
Earth. The grand mystery of the afterlife is
reduced to a cheap rerun. They enter a Las Vegas
-style hotel within this heaven. They meet characters
from the previous sketches, and a Tony Bennett
-esque singer performs this sprawling, high -energy
song about how amazing life is. And the song
is just pure consumerist fantasy. It highlights
commercial items and the absolute certainty of
comfort. Suggesting that in this version of heaven,
it is always Christmas. The profound mystery
of the afterlife is replaced by the shallow,
materialistic paradise of perpetual shopping
and lounge music. The great promise of eternity
is just the worst parts of American tourism.
This glorious, tacky song then just abruptly
ends, signaled by an announcement, the end of
the film. The chaos is over. We're finally ready
for the answer. The hostess from the middle of
the film segment appears one last time, opening
an envelope. And in a dry, utterly bland fashion,
she reveals the meaning of life. This is the
moment where the film truly undercuts all its
own high -minded chaos, its vulgarity, and the
90 minutes of existential exploration. The official
meaning, according to the film, is try and be
nice to people. Avoid eating fat, read a good
book every now and then, get some walking in,
and try and live together in peace and harmony
with people of all creeds and nations. It's the
most banal, lowest stakes, self -help platitude
imaginable. After all the excess, the philosophical
debates, the shocking visuals, the answer is
to eat low -fat and take a walk. That intentional
anticlimax is the film's final greatest punchline.
It suggests the meaning of life was obvious all
along, but humans just prefer complexity and
destruction. So before we delve into the philosophical
implications of that ending, let's look at how
the world reacted to this chaotic experiment.
Despite its often repulsive content, it was a
solid box office success, grossing $42 .7 million
worldwide against that modest $9 million budget.
But the truly shocking data point is its major
international award. The Meaning of Life won
the Grand Prix at the 1983 Cannes Film Festival.
That is an immense institutional validation for
a film that features exploding gluttons, explicit
instruction, and rampant bodily fluid expulsion.
It is. The sources noted that while the jury
was fiercely split on many of the other films
that year, The Meaning of Life had general support
across the board. Securing the festival's second
highest honor after The Palm Door. The irony
of such an aggressively lowbrow, vulgar piece
of work receiving such highbrow institutional
recognition is just astounding. It is. However,
the critical reception at the time was fiercely
divisive, which I think caters perfectly to your
interest as a listener in multiple perspectives.
Critics either love the anarchy or they despise
the lack of structure. On the pro -Python side,
the enthusiasm was palpable. Gene Siskel of the
Chicago Tribune gave it three out of four stars.
He praised it as fresh and original and delightfully
offensive. What more can you ask of a comedy?
He was celebrating the film's willingness to
cross boundaries. And Sheila Benson of the Los
Angeles Times admitted she was laughing too hard
to even keep track of all the offenses. So for
those critics, the humor and sheer audacity just
trumped any concerns about narrative coherence.
But on the skeptical side, you had Roger Ebert,
who gave it 2 .5 stars. While he recognized it
as a barbed, uncompromising attack on generally
observed community standards, he didn't fully
embrace the relentless anarchy. He felt the sketches
sometimes lacked the sustained wit of their previous
work. And Gary Arnold of the Washington Post
was far more negative. He argued that the film's
largely tedious attempts to burlesque human weakness
were overshadowed by the group's failure to evolve
a coherent, satiric outlook. So for him, the
intentional return to the sketch format was a
fatal flaw. It prevented the satire from truly
landing. Exactly. And Steve Jenkins in the monthly
film bulletin echoed this, calling the return
to the sketch format a great leap backwards that
just repackaged old ideas. And yet, the film's
ability to shock remains legendary. We have to
mention the definitive reaction to the Creosote
scene, which comes from an unexpected source,
Quentin Tarantino. The director, yeah. He publicly
admitted that the Mr. Creosote sequence was the
only time I've ever had to look away from a movie
due to genuine nausea. He couldn't bear to watch,
fearing he would literally vomit himself. I mean,
that detail alone just seals the scene's status
as a boundary -pushing masterpiece of the grotesque.
Absolutely. And the film's legacy is undeniable.
It appeared on a 2010 list of the top 20 cult
films by the Boston Globe. And as we mentioned
earlier, modern comedians and creators like Seth
MacFarlane view Python. and this film specifically
as the great originator. The great originator
of combining deeply provocative, taboo -smashing
humor with high -quality, lavishly produced musical
segments. Right. We should also circle back to
the censorship history, which really underscores
its controversial nature upon release. Like Life
of Brian, it was banned in Ireland on its original
release. It was initially rated 18 in the UK,
later reduced to 15, and was rated R in the United
States. It was clearly designed to provoke and
exploit the newfound freedom. And for those of
you who want the true deep cuts, we should revisit
the specifics of the 2003 two -disc DVD release.
Which featured a director's cut. Stretching the
runtime to 116 minutes and incorporated several
deleted scenes. Scenes that were deemed too extraneous
for the theatrical version. And these deleted
scenes offer great insight into their editorial
process. They included the full segment, The
Adventures of Martin Luther. Which likely explored
the bureaucracy and doctrinal rigidity of the
Reformation era. It was meant to be inserted
after the sketch about the Protestant couple.
Cutting it was probably a pacing decision. While
the Luther material likely contains some strong
historical satire, inserting an entire biography
segment would have just slowed the already fractured
chronology to a halt. Even more so than the crimson
permanent assurance. Exactly. They clearly felt
they needed to keep the pace of the chaos moving.
There was also a promotional video about the
British Army inserted into the military section,
which might have felt a bit too much like an
older Python clip show. And an extension of the
American couple scene involving them discussing
tampons. That extended American couple scene
is significant because it further details how
that superficial couple discusses mundane, awkward
commercial topics, tampons, organ transplants,
with the same casualness they would discuss the
philosophy of life. Right. cut to streamline
the transition to the creosote segment, but it
reinforces the idea that Python generated far
more ideas about human absurdity than could possibly
be contained in a single feature. So, to summarize
what we've unpacked, Monty Python's The Meaning
of Life is this sprawling, fragmented, chaotic,
and sometimes deeply offensive achievement. It
used a structureless sketch format to tackle
the biggest existential question possible. jumping
wildly from the dehumanization of birth to the
tackiness of a consumerist heaven. It's a film
about the search for meaning that itself actively
rejects meaning. It prefers instead to wallow
in the messy, visceral, and often disgusting
reality of human existence. From the joys of
procreation to the ultimate tragedy of gluttony
and the sheer absurdity of bureaucracy. It's
an act of comedic rebellion against narrative
structure itself. And we leave you with one final,
provocative thought to mull over as you reconsider
this masterpiece. The entire film is a journey
of shock, awe, and chaotic excess, all culminating
in that final, most anticipated answer. Be nice,
avoid fat, and take a walk. So if the final answer
provided by the film is intentionally banal and
anticlimactic after 90 minutes of total excess
and boundary smashing. Does that fundamentally
mean the meaning of the film resides entirely
in the journey? The visceral anarchic exhilaration
of the messy human stages and the active fighting
of taboos rather than in the empty? obvious destination.
Or, to put it another way, the meaning of life,
according to Python, is not the answer itself,
but the sheer effort of trying to find it. Even
if that effort involves a pirate office ship,
a very serious discussion about socks and cocks.
And securing a con grand prix after depicting
hundreds of pounds of explosive vomit. Think
about that. Go be nice, read a good book, and
we'll see you next time on The Deep Dive.