Life of Brian as Historical Satire

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Monty Python’s Life of Brian traces the tragic last year of Brian of

Nazareth, a man who shares his exact birthday and town with Jesus Christ, the

subject of countless biblical epic films. Comedy distinguishes this biopic, which

features a male actor playing the analog of the Virgin Mary, a cured leper

begging for alms, and spontaneous song on the crucifix. It is not sufficient,

however, to relegate the film to parody, which seems the obvious criticism,

simply for taking a comedic outlook. The unique style and construction of many

scenes imply that comedy partially motivated the film, but other stimuli clearly

contributed to its simple message. Closely analyzing the film’s principal utilization

of non-realistic elements and scenes reveals that The Life of Brian approaches

history artistically and satirizes religious foundations, without parodying the

classic Biblical epic style.

The film begins with operatic chanting accompanying the image as it fades

from black to the night sky, panning with a shooting star. Three shadows in the

background resemble men riding camels through the desert, bathed in moonlight.

The robed men arrive at an ancient stone town and navigate the narrow street

passages, which are sprinkled with worn tapestries and agrarian equipment.

Harps and horns underscore their slow passage through a beam of light

descending from a division between two rooftops, exposing a wandering sheep.

The men arrive at a doorway, each holding an adorned case, and watch a

mother caring for her newborn child, who stretches playfully in a manger. Their

silent entrance, so as not to disturb the child, scares the mother violently and she

falls backwards out of her chair and rolls through the dirt and straw that lin...

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confident in their historical premise: that despite ideological, cultural, political,

and religious revolution, human nature remains relatively the same. Ironically,

upon the film’s theatrical release in 1977, the same plebeians that followed the

gourd and the sandal as disciples two millennia ago showed up to protest the

satirists as blasphemers.

Sources Cited

McAlister, Melanie. “Benevolent Supremacy.” Epic Encounters: Culture, Media,

and U.S. Interests in the Middle East since 1945. Los Angeles, California:

University of California Press, 2005. 43-83.

Monty Python’s Life of Brian. Dir. Terry Jones. With John Cleese, Terry Gilliam,

Eric Idle, and Michael Palin. Criterion Collection DVD, 1999. 94 minutes.

Solomon, Jon. “Ancient Comedy and Satirized Ancients.” The Ancient World in

the Cinema. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2001. 283-305.

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