The Meaning of Life

\nThe Meaning of Life was a Monty Python comedy film made in 1983. \nThis film was essentially a series of comedy skits about the various stages of life - in some ways a return to the sketch comedy format of the original television series. The resulting film is regarded as a little uneven, though which particular scenes are thought funny varies from person to person. Some more generally praised scenes include:

• The Crimson Permanent Assurance, originally conceived by Terry Gilliam as a 6-minute animated sequence, later expanded to a 16-minute live-action piece, to the point where it no longer fit into the framework of the film and became a pre-movie short film in its own right. A group of elderly office clerks rebel against their corporate masters at The Very Big Corporation of America, commandeer their building and turn it into a pirate ship, raiding business districts in numerous big cities before falling off the edge of the world.\n* The opening scene of the film proper, where a woman in labour is ignored by doctors, nurses, Japanese tourists, and eventually the hospital's administrator as they drag in more and more elaborate equipment, including "the machine that goes PING!".\n* The musical number "Every Sperm is Sacred", a parody of "Consider Yourself" from the musical Oliver, which satirises the Catholic Church's attitudes to contraception and masturbation.\n* Sex education, in which a group of schoolboys watch in boredom as their teacher (John Cleese) demonstrates sexual techniques with his wife.\n* Galaxy Song, in which a man in a pink suit (Eric Idle) emerges from Mrs. Brown's refrigerator to sing her a song about the wonders of the universe.\n* Mr. Creosote, in which the eponymous gourmand, an impossibly fat man played by Terry Jones, waddles into a restaurant, swears at the waiter (Cleese), vomitss copiously, eats an enormous meal served in buckets, and finally — after being persuaded to eat one last "wafer-thin mint" by the waiter — explodes, showering the restaurant with offal. Quentin Tarantino has confessed to being nauseated by this scene, but critics with stronger stomachs have praised its dark humour.\n* Social Death, in which a group of snobs at an isolated country house are visited by the Grim Reaper (Cleese), and spend a lot of time arguing with him before finally being persuaded to leave the mortal coil.

Because the film was not intended for television, some scenes shows a much more black humour than the Monty Python TV series (for example Mr Creosote or Human Organ Transplantation sketch). In 2004 a "special edition" DVD was released with director's commentary, deleted scenes and behind-the-scenes documentaries, both real and spoof. The title sequence appears to allude to The Meaning of Liff, released the same year.

External links

\n* IMDb entry on The Meaning of Life\n* Quotes from The Meaning of Life Meaning of Life, The\nMeaning of Life, The\nMeaning of Life, The\nMeaning of Life, The \n