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HOW A FEW PYTHONS ALMOST MADE IT... Thus far, two Pythons have come close to walking up to the Oscar podium. Both Terry Gilliam and John Cleese received Oscar nominations in separate years for Best Screenplay.
Charles McKeown, on the other hand, is certainly not new to the Python group, having starred and collaborated in several Python-related films, including: "Life of Brian," "Time Bandits," "Erik the Viking," "The Adventures of Baron Munchausen," as well as "A Private Function." As an actor-writer, McKeown proved useful in the final draft of the screenplay. "After Tom had done a few drafts, I started working with Charles McKeown to finish it off in its present form," revealed Gilliam. The "Brazil" writing team lost the Oscar to the screenplay writers of "Witness" and the Art Direction Oscar went to "Out of Africa."
Rewrites, indeed. The script apparently underwent at least thirteen major redrafts (most films only go through about five major drafts). "I went through at least three completely different plots before we got anywhere near what we finished up with, which probably then took another six or eight drafts, plus a lot of rehearsal. Almost every scene in there was reshaped and done in different ways," explained Cleese.
Cleese and Crichton lost the Oscar for Best Screenplay to "Rain Man" and Crichton lost his Director's award to Barry Levinson, also for "Rain Man." But Kevin Kline did win an Oscar that year for his performance as Otto in "A Fish Called Wanda" (see related story below). Outside of the Oscars, there have been at least a few awards to recognize the true creative geniuses that are Python. We've mentioned the Los Angeles Film Critics Association awards to Terry Gilliam for "Brazil." In 1988, Michael Palin won a Best Supporting Actor Award from the British Film Institute (BFI) for his role as Ken in "A Fish Called Wanda." The BFI is the British equivalent of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, the nonprofit organization that presents the Oscars every year. |
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Terry
Gilliam shared his nomination in good company. Czech-born Tom Stoppard
is a well known playwright, having gained recognition at age 29 in England
for his one-act play "Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead."
In addition to a number of plays and one novel, Stoppard has since written
a number of screenplays, including those for "Empire of the Sun,"
"Billy Bathgate," and "The Russia House." Although
Stoppard has won several Tony Awards, "Brazil" is his only
Oscar nomination to date. Says Gilliam, "it seemed a good idea
to get somebody who's as clever verbally as the pictures were going
to be - that's really why [Stoppard] was involved. It was a tidying-up
operation - Tom was trying to make sense out of many jumbled thoughts,
which he did. We tightened up much of it."
Three
years later, in 1988, 
Charles
Crichton, who helped write the screenplay, was an accomplished British
film director who had been directing films for over fifty years. Among
Crichton's most notable accomplishments was the 1951 Oscar-winner, "The
Lavender Hill Mob." Charles Crichton made his directorial comeback
in 1988 with "A Fish Called Wanda," having been on hiatus
for nearly twenty years. His work on "Wanda" also earned him
an Oscar nomination for Best Achievement in Directing (although he did
not win in this category). Crichton's two Oscar nominations for his
"Wanda" directing and screenplay credits are his only two
to date. Crichton also directed and produced a number of training videos
for Video Arts, a management training organization co-founded by John
Cleese.