Six part television documentary series with interviews with the 5 remaining members of Monty Python John Cleese, Eric Idle, Terry Jones, Terry Gilliam and Michael Palin. The film also includes archive interviews with the late Graham Chapman as well as many modern comedians and friends of the of Python. Brilliantly satisfying tribute to the Python's work throughout their original television show on the BBC onto their films and further onto what they are doing now. The first 2 episodes talking about the television show and how they begun and the other four episodes talking about each of the 4 films they made through the time as Python.
What this documentary did was really bring back memories of all the Python I have seen even so much as for me to go back and watch The Holy Grail again (so good even for the umpteenth time) and to watch innumerable sketches and interviews online. Even after finishing the 6 episodes I have wanted to research and know more about them than I already do. What I really liked especially was the insight they gave me into the filmmaking process when on set of their films. It was interesting to see what they went through in making arguably some of the best comedy ever made. They talked in the interviews about what they perceived to be the meaning of there films. The Life of Brian for instance they saw not as taking the piss out of Jesus, but merely taking the piss about the people on the side and what could have happened on the sidelines.
From a documentary making stand point I can also appreciate greatly the way they linked questions together sometimes even getting one Python member to finish another's sentence in a completely separate interview. This is something I could see that I could I could take on for when I edit together our film, although slightly different in content.
Even though this documentary was about something I already loved in the first place I can still see the power of a documentary made so well. I mean if I can make a documentary that keeps people talking for weeks on end I will be very pleased. It helped that they had almost 6 hours of doc time to work with as that was what allowed so much time for more insight. These men are utter geniuses and this documentary explains this fact in the best way I think it could have done.
 |
| All six members of Python |
Was this a heavily archive based doc? Would suspect so. Again show your learning by deconstructing how they have used interviews, archive, actuality or sequences to tell the story. Also what is the peg? (i.e. is there an anniversary which has inspired this new doc?)
ReplyDelete