Deliberate Controversy, a conversation – Part 5: “Monty Python’s Life of Brian” (1979)

This is the fifth part of an eight-part series about difficult movies. 

Part 1 focused on S. Craig Zahler’s “Dragged Across Concrete”. Part 2 focused on Bernardo Bertolucci’s “Last Tango in Paris”. Part 3 focused on Don Edmonds’s “Ilsa, She Wolf of the SS”. Part 4 focused on Paul Verhoeven’s “Basic Instinct”. Part 6 will focus on Martin Scorsese’s “Last Temptation of Christ”. Part 7 will focus on Spike Lee’s “Bamboozled”. Part 8 will focus on Dinesh D’Souza's “2000 Mules”.

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Referenced media:

• “Tron” (Steven Lisberger, 1982)
• “Friday the 13th” (Sean Cunningham, 1980)
• “Monty Python’s Flying Circus” (Graham Chapman, John Cleese, Eric Idle, Terry Jones, Michael Palin, and Terry Gilliam, 1969-1974)
• “Monty Python and the Holy Grail” (Terry Gilliam and Terry Jones, 1975)
• “2001: A Space Odyssey” (Stanley Kubrick, 1968)
• “A Fish Called Wanda” (Charles Crichton, 1988)
• “A Clockwork Orange” (Stanley Kubrick, 1971)
• “Saturday Night Life” (Lorne Michaels, 1975-now)
• “Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure” (Stephen Herek, 1989)
• “Ilsa, She Wolf of the SS” (Don Edmonds, 1975)
• “The Brood” (David Cronenberg, 1979)”
• Rocky II” (Sylvester Stallone, 1979)
• “Escape from Alcatraz” (Don Siegel, 1979)
• “The 36th Chamber of Shaolin” (Lau Kar-leung, 1979)
• “Meatballs” (Ivan Reitnman, 1979)
• “Moonraker” (Lewis Gilbert, 1979)
• “The Frisco Kid” (Robert Aldrich, 1979)
• “The Villain” (Hal Needham, 1979)
• “North Dallas Forty” (Ted Kotcheff, 1979)
• “More American Graffiti” (Bill L. Norton, 1979)
• “Americathon” (Neal Israel, 1979)
• “Hot Stuff” (Dom DeLuise, 1979)
• “Apocalypse Now” (Francis Ford Coppola, 1979)
• “Caligula” (Tinto Brass, 1979)
• “Rock ‘n’ Roll High School” (Allan Arkush, 1979)
• “Wise Blood” (John Huston, 1979)
• “Skatetown, U.S.A.” (William A. Levey, 1979)
• “10” (Blake Edwards, 1979)
• “Nosferatu the Vampyre” (Werner Herzog, 1979)
• “The Black Stallion” (Carroll Ballard, 1979)
• “Jesus” (Peter Sykes and John Krish, 1979)

Audio quotation:

• “Monty Python’s Life of Brian” (Terry Jones, 1979)
• “Heaven Sound Effects All Sounds” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2HwZo9Oqql4&t=152s
• “Ilsa, She Wolf of the SS” (Don Edmonds, 1975)