Monday 15 December 2008

Jesus Christ!!

The Life Of Brian : Directed by Terry Jones
As one of those rare productions aimed squarely enough at a belief system to generate instant controversy, Life of Brian has a reputation. Around it, undimmed by the passage of decades, swarms an angry halo of fear, hatred and intolerance. Even now it stands apart from anything else Monty Python, an evil example to clean-living folk wherever they reside. And yet it's just a film, a mere comedy with the temerity to think naughty thoughts about a sacred subject. In essence it encapsulates the existence of Brian (Graham Chapman), a contemporary of Jesus, from his birth just a few mangers away. Through cruel circumstance Brian becomes the most successful comrade in the People's Front of Judea, as led by Reg (John Cleese), before being captured and executed by the occupying Romans.
The film has been seen as a critique of excessive religiosity, depicting organised and popular religion as hypocritical and fanatical. The film's satire on unthinking religious devotion is epitomised by Brian's attempt to persuade an enormous crowd of his followers to think for themselves:
Brian: Look, you've got it all wrong! You don't need to follow me, you don't need to follow anybody! You've got to think for yourselves! You're all individuals!
The Crowd (in unison): Yes! We're all individuals!
Brian: You're all different!
The Crowd (in unison): Yes, we are all different!
Man in Crowd: I'm not...
The Crowd: Shhh!
The film also satirises both the tendency to interpret banal incidents as "signs from God" and the
factions and infighting that can emerge from this. For example, when Brian loses his shoe, some of his over-zealous followers declare it to be a sign but they can't agree on what it means, while one other instructs them to "Cast off the shoe. Follow the gourd!" (which is viewed by some as being significant owing to Brian's seemingly charitable refusal to accept a price for it - and not even haggle over what it is worth - the truth actually being that it was a cheap, unwanted gift).
The (alleged) representation of Christ proved controversial. Protests against the film were organised based on its perceived
blasphemy. On its initial release in the UK, the film was banned by several town councils – some of which had no cinemas within their boundaries, or had not even seen the film for themselves. A member of Harrogate council, one of those that banned the film, revealed during a television interview that the council had not seen the film, and had based their opinion on what they had been told by the Nationwide Festival of Light, of which they knew nothing. Some bans continued into the 21st century. In 2008, Torbay Council finally permitted the film to be shown after it won an online vote for the English Riviera International Comedy Film Festival,while the mayor of the Welsh town of Aberystwyth (Sue Jones-Davies, who played Judith Iscariot in the film) was still trying to remove the local council's long ban of the film.
In New York, screenings were picketed by both rabbis and nuns ("Nuns with banners!" observed Michael Palin) while the film was banned outright in some American states. It was also banned for eight years in the Republic of Ireland and for a year in Norway (it was marketed in Sweden as '"The film so funny that it was banned in Norway"). Occasionally forgotten amongst the blasphemy accusations, the film also significantly pokes fun at politically revolutionary groups, who seem to share a common cause (in the film, they are all opposing the Roman occupation of Judea) but are in fact more interested in the easier task of being at odds with one another, constantly engaged in futile disputes about which group has the most charisma, infamy and "ideological purity", as Cleese once referred to it. The Peoples' Front of Judea harangue their 'rivals' with cries of "splitters"; their rivals being The Judean People's Front, the Judean Popular People's Front and the Popular Front of Judea ("He's over there"). Other scenes have the freedom fighters wasting time in debate, with one of the debated items being that they should not waste their time debating so much, as well as the famous scene where Reg gives his "What have the Romans ever done for us?" speech. Originally intending for everyone to agree that the question is rhetorical, it eventually ends up as: "Alright, but apart from the sanitation, the medicine, education, wine, public order, irrigation, roads, a freshwater system, and public health, what have the Romans ever done for us?", "Brought peace?", "Shut up!"
This element (which is not dissimilar to the film's comments on religious sectarianism) furthers Cleese's claim from the Aspen stage interview that there is a more general social message in the film regarding belief systems and group thinking, beyond only heretical satire of religious faiths. According to the DVD commentary, this part of the story was inspired mainly by the multiplication of ineffectual left-wing parties in Britain during the 1970s. These revolutionary groups would splinter every few weeks, and be angrier at each other than they were at the government.


In my opinion the only scene I could see myself shocked at was the crucifix scene at the end. I don't find the fact that Brian is a fictional representation of Jesus shocking not when there are videos on youtube of people dressed as Jesus singing songs as they walk down the street. I think The film although shocking is at the end of the day a comedy. You have to watch it with that set in your mind. I think that the hype that this film has caused has ruined it's effect especially as religion has become so much weaker in society. It's so much easier to laugh about religion than it is to actually believe in it. I think the film raises some valuable points about organised religion and the speech in which Brian says "We are all individual" Is so true. I remember during that R.E day we had a certain someone tried to convert the whole room into Christianity. As a piece of cinema I found it quite funny but it's one of those films in which I think has been spoiled because of the controversy that surrounds it. Plus I'm not overally religious anyway so I am in a much easier position to find the jokes funny rather than shocking.

2 comments:

sometimes listening is not enough said...

Interesting thoughts - how do you feel about the wider context of this film in a post 9/11 society - aren't we divided by religion on a global scale now??

Bobbie said...

yes, I think we are but I think a lot of the problems started others perceptions of other religions like the Muslims being associated with terrorisim (like we disucssed when we watched Yasmin.) What it comes down to (in my opinion) is the lack of religious understanding throughout different religions. We all have different beliefs, some of us don't even have a full understanding of our own religion. I just think religion now has become so complicated people are opting out and going for other options like spiritual energies (Zen, Karma etc)