One test of a filmmaker’s irreverence is his irreverence concerning his own films. Terry Gilliam would pass with gusto. He makes no bones about the re-release of Monty Python and the Holy Grail, which he directed with fellow Pythonite Terry Jones in 1975: it’s not really a “director’s cut” as advertised. “It’s just a chance for people to see it up on the big screen again. I think there’s one little bit that Terry stuck back in, which is also on the video. It doesn’t change anything except to give us something to talk about, and we can con the public into thinking they’re getting something fresh. We don’t get to do director’s cuts like other people. We’ve made a terrible mistake over the years of doing it the way we wanted to do it the first time and being unable to blame anybody but ourselves.”

Not that they had any idea what they were doing when they made The Holy Grail. “It was called learning on the job,” Gilliam says. “We were so young and naive and energetic, and we just plowed through whatever was thrown in our face, and literally everything that could be thrown in our face was. A couple weeks before we started shooting, the National Trust, which is the organization that controls the historic monuments of Britain, suddenly decided that we couldn’t shoot in any of the castles that we had scheduled to shoot in because I think their phrase was that we ‘wouldn’t respect the dignity of the fabric of the building.’ A few comedians were going to bring these walls tumbling down, walls that had seen so much bloodshed and torture and human misery over the years.”

Despite, or because of, their inexperience, this film and the rest of the Python œuvre have become part of our collective consciousness. Paul McCartney, for one, confesses to having exchanged Pythonite dialogue with his late wife, Linda, while making love.

“We’re sort of sex aids for fading rock stars,” says Gilliam. “Plus when Walter Mondale was running for president [in 1984], he would watch Python trying to revivify himself for the campaign. And I think Elvis died watching Python on the toilet.”

Hardly ringing endorsements. Nonetheless, Monty Python seem to have inspired a whole generation of grossout filmmakers. Does Gilliam take responsibility for the existence of Tom Green?

“I didn’t see Freddy Got Fingered,” he confesses. “But I think the Farrelly brothers have learned from us. When we were actually doing Python, I thought the floodgates were going to open and there was going to be so much extraordinary, outrageous comedy. It didn’t happen. It took a second generation for it to blossom. I mean, the South Park guys are huge Python fans, and I’m a huge fan of their stuff.”

For the most part, though, Gilliam isn’t optimistic about the future of cinema. He’s just returned from serving as a juror at Cannes, and he wasn’t impressed. “You’re watching two or three films a day starting at 8:30 in the morning, and you can’t leave the bad ones out, and I’m afraid the majority were pretty tedious. Actually, I’m much more interested in reality now. Every time I go into a cinema, I get depressed; I want to go in and be astonished, and it doesn’t happen very often.”

That doesn’t stop him from making more films of his own. Due some time in 2002 is Good Omens. “Does Terry Pratchett mean anything in the States? His stuff is very big in England, a series called Discworld. And Neil Gaiman is a great graphic-novel writer. Together they wrote this thing where the Antichrist turns up and a demon and an angel have to try to stop Armageddon because they’ve got nice jobs. It involves Heaven, Hell, Apocalypse, Four Horsemen. It’s a comedy.”

Monty Python and the Holy Grail: Director’s Cut opens this Friday at theaters to be announced.

Issue Date: June 14-21, 2001