Tune in
“Monty Python: Almost the Truth (the Lawyer’s Cut)” premieres Sunday and runs nightly through next Friday at 9 p.m. on IFC.
Published 20:15, October the 15th, 2009
‘Holy Grail’ of comedy
“Monty Python: Almost the Truth (the Lawyer’s Cut)” — the six-part retrospective celebrating 40 years of silly walks and odes to lumberjacks by the irreverent comedy troupe — is reverential and revelatory, celebratory and silly. But the one thing filmmakers Bill Jones (son of Python Terry Jones) and Ben Tillman didn’t want their documentary to be is, as Jones says, “ass-kissing.”
“The main thing we wanted to do was make sure we weren’t sucking up to them,” he adds. “We stick it in them a couple times.”
“We wanted to be irreverent in a sense like they are,” Tillman completes the thought. “We open the film by taking a piss [at the Pythons], and then …”
“Well it’s a bit easier to do that when they’re a bit rude about each other as well,” Jones chimes in.
“But mostly the piece is the history of the Pythons told chronologically,” Tillman finishes. “This is ultimately what we set out to create.”
And, ultimately, it may just be the definitive Monty Python documentary.
‘New kind of funny’
Having spent so much time documenting the Monty Python crew, we asked the filmmakers what they believe is the group’s most important mark on comedy.
“For me, the most important thing they’ve done is to give people the freedom to do whatever comedy they think is funny,” Jones says.
“They’ve given people an opportunity to create a new kind of funny,” Tillman adds.