Monty Python Animation Collection
Dec. 13th, 2014 08:21 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jazzy_daveHow it must have surprised longtime Monty Python adherents when Terry Gilliam, the group’s only American and the creator of its always cheap, usually garish, and often goofy and lewd animated sequences, went on to direct such darkly elaborate cinematic visions as Brazil and 12 Monkeys. Conversely, how it must surprise Gilliam the filmmaker’s younger fans — you can always count on his work to tap straight into the youthful imagination — to discover that, at the beginning of his career, he made all of these cheap, usually garish, and often goofy and lewd animated sequences. But like many of the silliest live-action Monty Python sketches, Gilliam’s animations (“cartoon” doesn’t seem quite the word) have a hidden intelligence all their own, and you can examine it by watching all of them, compiled into four videos.
Gilliam began his professional life working on print comic strips, and in that form mastered his signature technique of manipulating photographic images to his much less realistic ends. The Python connections formed quickly: he used a photo of John Cleese for one of the strips he put together for Help! magazine, and when he moved to England soon after, he found work putting together animations for the Eric Idle-, Terry Jones-, and Michael Palin-featuring children’s program Do Not Adjust Your Set. This placed him well to hook up with the group at its very formation, and consequently his signature style, seemingly slapdash yet all but inimitable, became the look of Monty Python. Just imagine, watching all of Gilliam’s Python pieces strung together, what iron dedication to silliness it must have taken to complete them with the technology he would have had at hand in the seventies.
(From Open Culture)
Gilliam began his professional life working on print comic strips, and in that form mastered his signature technique of manipulating photographic images to his much less realistic ends. The Python connections formed quickly: he used a photo of John Cleese for one of the strips he put together for Help! magazine, and when he moved to England soon after, he found work putting together animations for the Eric Idle-, Terry Jones-, and Michael Palin-featuring children’s program Do Not Adjust Your Set. This placed him well to hook up with the group at its very formation, and consequently his signature style, seemingly slapdash yet all but inimitable, became the look of Monty Python. Just imagine, watching all of Gilliam’s Python pieces strung together, what iron dedication to silliness it must have taken to complete them with the technology he would have had at hand in the seventies.
(From Open Culture)
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Date: 2014-12-14 01:48 am (UTC)If you haven't seen/heard it yet, you'd likely enjoy the session he gave earlier this year at the Regents Street Apple Store, promoting Zero Theorem. (I was very pleased they were fine with photography, as long as you avoided flash. No problem!)
OH my
Date: 2014-12-14 02:22 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-12-14 03:45 am (UTC)Hugs, Jon
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Date: 2014-12-14 05:19 am (UTC)I've always loved his animations. So unique and I've often thought that it must have been such hard work - yet it was always so flawless and silly and ironic.
Thank you for this! Brought a big smile to my face and a laugh to my heart!
*HUGS*
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Date: 2014-12-14 09:20 am (UTC)Always loved those animations on MP...
Also had no idea he was from the US.
Also, been listening to some Tomita since you reminded me of him. 'Pictures at an Exhibition' currently.
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Date: 2014-12-14 05:15 pm (UTC)I wasn't able to see Zero Theorum, it didn't show anywhere near me, so I have it marked in my calendar when it releases on home video January 20.