Cast: Graham Chapman, John Cleese, Michael Palin, Terry Jones, Terry Gilliam, Carol Cleveland
Monty Python's Flying Circus is one of my formative comedic influences, I remember regularly watching The Holy Grail and Parrot Sketch Not Included, a best of compilation on VHS before I turned 12. I didn't understand half the jokes, but the performances, the jokes I did understand and the frequent nudity, which in retrospect my parents probably forgot about, made the the troupe a staple of my pre-adolescence. Over time my pre-adolescent enjoyment slowly morphed into a profound comedic and intellectual respect for what I still consider to be the greatest sketch troupe of all time. So even though I know most reunion projects merely tap into fans nostalgia so they will fork over money before inevitably being disappointed, I was very excited when I saw that A Liar's Autobiography would be premiering at TIFF 2012 and it was one my most anticipated movies of the festival.
A Liar's Autobiography uses previously unheard recordings of Graham Chapman's semi-fictionalized, satirical biography, that were recorded for an unreleased an audiobook and adds new voicework from the living Pythons (minus Eric Idle) while switching between close to a dozen different styles of animation throughout the film. The animation is for the most part excellent (though I would have loved to see a section directed by Terry Gilliam) and the use of several different animation styles lends the film a marginal amount of chaos and surreallism, but everything that surrounds the animation is conventional, but the film thinks otherwise. Chapman's book satirizes vapid celebrity autobiographies and he has an interesting story to tell, but the filmmakers perspective is vastly different from Chapman's. In the film Chapman's story is being told posthumously and the film undoes most of Chapman's satire of celebrity hagiography as the directors turn their film into the type fawning biography Chapman was mocking. Chapman poked fun at overwrought deterministic narrative's about fame, but the directors are such big Python fans that they can't stop themselves from deifying Chapman as a troubled comedy god who left us mere mortals too soon.
The film opens with a story from Chapman's book about a live performance of The Oscar Wilde Sketch. The directors recreate this sketch via animation and voiceover and while the dialogue doesn't change, the timing, the energy and the performances are all slightly off. The punchlines don't land like they should and somehow most of the humour is sucked out of a brilliant piece of comedy. The film ends with the footage of John Cleese's eulogy for Graham Chapman a transcendent eulogy and one of the highlights of the film, but something the directors did not create. These two moments bookend the film and make an compelling argument that the vivacious subversive wit that made Monty Python so special cannot be recreated and reinforce how bland much of this movie is. The film is not terrible, it's breezy and entertaining, but also slight and inessential, like a really well done YouTube animation. Recently I watched most of the original Flying Circus TV series. I didn't watch the final season, a shortened season, that didn't feature John Cleese. I was told it was largely inessential and didn't think much about it, however after watching A Liar's Autobiography, a facsimile of Python I wish I had spent my time watching that final season instead because at least it's the real thing.
