Capt. Mondo's World o' Mondo-ness

Re-Watching Python's “Life of Brian”
I headed downtown today, primary in quest of Bill's now-belated birthday present: a DVD of Kurosawa's "Seven Samurai". Brilliant film, and of course the basis for the classic western "The Magnificent Seven". I saw part of a recent documentary on PBS about Kurosawa, which mentioned, amongst other things, that this film had nearly bankrupted his studio, as its shooting time ran for months and months.

I was pleased to see that the downtown HMV had installed a Criterion Collection shelf. They didn't any of the other titles of theirs that I was looking for, but they did have one DVD I was interested in having: Monty Python’s “Life of Brian”. The fact that it was the cheapest price I’d seen for that title (though still twice the price of most DVDs) and the fact that my upcoming birthday made a good excuse, I got that as well. Interestingly enough, none of the other Criterion titles I am interested in getting someday were there on the shelves.

It’s been ages since I’ve seen the film – I don’t think I’ve seen it since my University days. I watched it during dinner that night – it made for a good antidote to the many religiously themed movies on television that evening. I watched the movie through, thoroughly enjoying it, and then watched the several deleted scenes from the movie. (They made the right choice dropping the “Otto” and “The Sign of the Sign” scenes, though I think they ought to have kept the “Pilate’s Wife” scene – as it made more sense having it in that not). I intended to head back to writing afterwards, but after watching the deleted scenes I decided to view a few minutes of the first of two commentary tracks on the movie, featuring director Terry Jones, editor Terry Gilliam and Eric Idle. I ended up watching the whole movie again listening to this entertaining commentary track. ;-) I was fascinated by a lot of the background info on the movie: it was shot in Tunisia, using many of the same sets and costumes as a previous Zefferelli production; how it was wholly funded by ex-Beatle George Harrison (who appears briefly in one scene); anecdotes surrounding the cameo Spike Milligan plays; the ways in which the “two Terrys” fought over aspects of the film shooting and production (and how Gilliam swore off directing any subsequent Python film as a result of this film). All fascinating stuff. Am looking forwards to watching/listening to the other commentary track featuring John Cleese and Michael Palin, as well as the contemporaneous Python documentary also featured on the DVD. Luv those Criterion DVDs!