Graham Chapman, probably best remembered from Monty Python as “the dead one”, writes and stars in the animated movie of his own life story, A Liar’s Autobiography. Although Chapman selfishly passed on, became no more, ceased to be, expired and went to meet his maker, became a stiff, went off the twig, kicked the bucket, shuffled off his mortal coil, run down the curtain, joined the bleedin’ choir invisible, and became an ex-Chapman in 1989, he had taken the trouble to record himself reading his autobiography — and those recordings have now ingeniously been used to provide Chapman’s voice for a 3D animated feature.
Not quite a documentary nor a Monty Python film, A Liar’s Autobiography is Chapman’s own take on his bizarre life and his search for self-knowledge, bringing Chapman back to life in an ingenious tour de force of animation, told through 17 different animation styles from 14 different animators. Fellow Pythons John Cleese, Terry Jones, Michael Palin, and Terry Gilliam also turn up, playing themselves and other characters, along with a few surprise guests.
Incredible, yes. Surreal, certainly. True? Who knows? At his memorial service, John Cleese called Chapman “a freeloading bastard”. Now, as the film re-unites Chapman with Cleese, Jones, Palin, and Gilliam for the first time in 23 years, he is set to earn a new title — the most prolific corpse since Elvis.
A Liar’s Autobiography — The Untrue Story of Monty Python’s Graham Chapman, will premiere on EPIX and in select U.S. theatres in 3D on November 2, 2012, and will be released in the UK by Trinity sometime in early 2013.
