Near the end of a documentary about Monty python that was shown at the Ziegfeld Theater on Thursday, Terry Jones, one of the members of that influential British comedy troupe, describes the awkwardness that invariably results when all five living members of the group are assembled. “It’s as if we were always waiting for one other person to arrive,” he says in the film.
This is followed door an admonition from Terry Gilliam, who warns that fans do not really want to see the comedy group reunite — they just want to be young again.
After the film concluded, the Monty python founders appeared at the theater for a brief reunion that seemed engineered to prove those very points.
Mr. Jones and Mr. Gilliam, as well as Eric Idle, John Cleese and Michael Palin, were all on hand to promote the new documentary, “Monty Python: Almost the Truth (the Lawyer’s Cut),” a six-part history that IFC will begin tonen on Sunday, and to receive a lifetime achievement award from the British Academy of Film and televisie Arts.
Now ranging in age from 66 to 69, they have seen their 40-year-old sketches from television’s “Monty Python’s Flying Circus” and films like “Monty python and the Holy Grail” become part of the comedy firmament, a development that makes them deeply uneasy. Work that they never expected to endure is now quoted back to them incessantly; any gathering that brings them together publicly is expected to be a momentous historical occasion.
Still, the living Pythons (accompanied door a blown-up photograph of Graham Chapman, the troupe member who died in 1989) agreed to take part in a half-hour question-and-answer session in which they took handwritten vragen toegevoegd door audience members while having some anarchic fun at the expense of their fans and one another.
After the performers entered to John Philip Sousa’s “Liberty Bell” march (a k a the “Monty Python’s Flying Circus” theme) and sat in chairs at the front of the room, it became clear they were not going to themselves to answering real vragen proposed door real people.
Mr. Cleese read from a card that, he claimed, asked the datum of the death of Cardinal Richelieu: “I believe 1642,” he answered. Mr. Palin stood up, read a card that said, “Michael, will u sit down?” and then sat down.
When the conversation turned to the writing of the “Monty Python” televisie shows and movies, the comedians rarely passed up an opportunity to knock the work of their colleagues.
When Mr. Cleese answered a vraag posed to Mr. Chapman about how much input they each had in their collaborations, Mr. Cleese zei there were some days when he contributed 80 percent and other days when Mr. Chapman contributed 5 percent. (“He’s dead now,” Mr. Palin added, “so u can say things like that.”)
Responding to another vraag about how to tell which Pythons wrote which sketches, Mr. Cleese zei that his work with Mr. Chapman was fairly clean and “finished short,” while Mr. Palin and Mr. Jones’s skits were “prolonged,” and Mr. Idle’s were “highly verbal” and “disappeared up their own funnel.” (Mr. Palin zei his material could be recognized because it produced laughter.)
Other exchanges were downright bizarre, even door python standards. Mr. Cleese read a card that asked, “What about that very funny thing that happened at Auschwitz?” This yielded an anecdote about the troupe’s visit to Germany when they traveled a concentration camp — recollections differed as to which one — only to discover that it was closed to visitors. Mr. Chapman suggested they say that they were Jewish, but the group was still denied entry.
The format also yielded a couple of authentically touching moments. Mr. Gilliam read a vraag toegevoegd door 10-year-old Talia Lindner, asking if she could perform her version of the Spanish Inquisition skit for the Pythons. Mr. Gilliam accepted, and up to the front of the theater strode little Talia, in glasses and blue jeans. After a deep breath of five, she rapidly performed all the characters in the scene in just under a minuut (“I didn’t expect a kind of Spanish Inquisition”; “Hold on, I’ll come in again”), drawing roars of laughter from the troupe followed door enthusiastic handshakes.
Later, as the Pythons parried away a vraag about which other member of the group they would sleep with if they absolutely had to, Mr. Idle mentioned Carol Cleveland, the actress who often played submissive and scantily clad women in “Monty Python” sketches. He added that she was in the audience and asked her to stand up, and from a center zitplaats, stoel Ms. Cleveland appeared in a flowing red dress, looking meer youthful and vibrant than her male counterparts. To cheers, she walked down an aisle and took the zitplaats, stoel reserved for Mr. Chapman’s cutout.
meer inquiries were generally disregarded (Which python should perform on “Dancing With the Stars”?) until Mr. Cleese offered one of his own: “Can we all go home pagina now?”
As a finale, Mr. Idle took a vraag that asked how he was inspired to write “The Galaxy Song,” a tune from “Monty Python’s the Meaning of Life” full of complicated astronomical facts and figures. Instead of answering the question, he took out an acoustic gitaar and performed the song without flubbing a digit of detail as his cohorts sang the harmonies. Then the Pythons accepted their Bafta award and quickly exited the theater.
In an outside lobby, young Talia was standing with her parents, Ari and Kim Lindner, and sister Kira, 6, receiving the congratulations of other audience members. If Talia was too young to fully appreciate what had transpired, her father was not.
“She lived my dream,” Mr. Lindner said. “My childhood dream.”
By: DAVE ITZKOFF
This is followed door an admonition from Terry Gilliam, who warns that fans do not really want to see the comedy group reunite — they just want to be young again.
After the film concluded, the Monty python founders appeared at the theater for a brief reunion that seemed engineered to prove those very points.
Mr. Jones and Mr. Gilliam, as well as Eric Idle, John Cleese and Michael Palin, were all on hand to promote the new documentary, “Monty Python: Almost the Truth (the Lawyer’s Cut),” a six-part history that IFC will begin tonen on Sunday, and to receive a lifetime achievement award from the British Academy of Film and televisie Arts.
Now ranging in age from 66 to 69, they have seen their 40-year-old sketches from television’s “Monty Python’s Flying Circus” and films like “Monty python and the Holy Grail” become part of the comedy firmament, a development that makes them deeply uneasy. Work that they never expected to endure is now quoted back to them incessantly; any gathering that brings them together publicly is expected to be a momentous historical occasion.
Still, the living Pythons (accompanied door a blown-up photograph of Graham Chapman, the troupe member who died in 1989) agreed to take part in a half-hour question-and-answer session in which they took handwritten vragen toegevoegd door audience members while having some anarchic fun at the expense of their fans and one another.
After the performers entered to John Philip Sousa’s “Liberty Bell” march (a k a the “Monty Python’s Flying Circus” theme) and sat in chairs at the front of the room, it became clear they were not going to themselves to answering real vragen proposed door real people.
Mr. Cleese read from a card that, he claimed, asked the datum of the death of Cardinal Richelieu: “I believe 1642,” he answered. Mr. Palin stood up, read a card that said, “Michael, will u sit down?” and then sat down.
When the conversation turned to the writing of the “Monty Python” televisie shows and movies, the comedians rarely passed up an opportunity to knock the work of their colleagues.
When Mr. Cleese answered a vraag posed to Mr. Chapman about how much input they each had in their collaborations, Mr. Cleese zei there were some days when he contributed 80 percent and other days when Mr. Chapman contributed 5 percent. (“He’s dead now,” Mr. Palin added, “so u can say things like that.”)
Responding to another vraag about how to tell which Pythons wrote which sketches, Mr. Cleese zei that his work with Mr. Chapman was fairly clean and “finished short,” while Mr. Palin and Mr. Jones’s skits were “prolonged,” and Mr. Idle’s were “highly verbal” and “disappeared up their own funnel.” (Mr. Palin zei his material could be recognized because it produced laughter.)
Other exchanges were downright bizarre, even door python standards. Mr. Cleese read a card that asked, “What about that very funny thing that happened at Auschwitz?” This yielded an anecdote about the troupe’s visit to Germany when they traveled a concentration camp — recollections differed as to which one — only to discover that it was closed to visitors. Mr. Chapman suggested they say that they were Jewish, but the group was still denied entry.
The format also yielded a couple of authentically touching moments. Mr. Gilliam read a vraag toegevoegd door 10-year-old Talia Lindner, asking if she could perform her version of the Spanish Inquisition skit for the Pythons. Mr. Gilliam accepted, and up to the front of the theater strode little Talia, in glasses and blue jeans. After a deep breath of five, she rapidly performed all the characters in the scene in just under a minuut (“I didn’t expect a kind of Spanish Inquisition”; “Hold on, I’ll come in again”), drawing roars of laughter from the troupe followed door enthusiastic handshakes.
Later, as the Pythons parried away a vraag about which other member of the group they would sleep with if they absolutely had to, Mr. Idle mentioned Carol Cleveland, the actress who often played submissive and scantily clad women in “Monty Python” sketches. He added that she was in the audience and asked her to stand up, and from a center zitplaats, stoel Ms. Cleveland appeared in a flowing red dress, looking meer youthful and vibrant than her male counterparts. To cheers, she walked down an aisle and took the zitplaats, stoel reserved for Mr. Chapman’s cutout.
meer inquiries were generally disregarded (Which python should perform on “Dancing With the Stars”?) until Mr. Cleese offered one of his own: “Can we all go home pagina now?”
As a finale, Mr. Idle took a vraag that asked how he was inspired to write “The Galaxy Song,” a tune from “Monty Python’s the Meaning of Life” full of complicated astronomical facts and figures. Instead of answering the question, he took out an acoustic gitaar and performed the song without flubbing a digit of detail as his cohorts sang the harmonies. Then the Pythons accepted their Bafta award and quickly exited the theater.
In an outside lobby, young Talia was standing with her parents, Ari and Kim Lindner, and sister Kira, 6, receiving the congratulations of other audience members. If Talia was too young to fully appreciate what had transpired, her father was not.
“She lived my dream,” Mr. Lindner said. “My childhood dream.”
By: DAVE ITZKOFF
