This week’s CT feature is a satirical tale of Arthur and his Knights on a great quest, with some analysis to follow from Collative Learning and more, as well as a contemporaneous review:
“That's the most foul, cruel, and bad tempered rodent you ever set your eyes on…” --Tim
Monty Python and the Holy Grail (1975)
Laughter is an involuntary action. We cannot choose what we find funny any more than we can choose what frightens us, which makes comedy and horror arguably the easiest genres of film to assess on purely visceral terms. Alas, it also means these genres age quicker than most. What one generation finds hilarious, the next might face with stony silence. And, just as repeated viewings of a particularly shocking moment inevitably blunts its impact, so too does overexposure to the same joke lessen its appeal. Monty Python and the Holy Grail is a case in point. Since its release in 1975, countless scenes of this medieval send-up have been aped, homaged, quoted and inspired incapacitating drinking games. As such, first time viewers will already be familiar with many of the key set pieces and lines.
Does this undermine Monty Python and the Holy Grail? To an extent, yes. However, outside of its laugh quotient, which is itself a rather reductive way to consider the merits of a comedy film, one cannot help but admire the sheer effort with which the ‘Python’ gang – that is, John Cleese, Graham Chapman, Eric Idle, Terry Jones, Michael Palin and Terry Gilliam – construct gag after gag. From the hilarious opening credits, an apparent parody of the subtitles of European – specifically Swedish – cinema, we are firmly planted in a world of absurdist comedy not seen elsewhere in Britain. The Holy Grail’s closest counterparts are Mel Brooks, whose Blazing Saddles and Young Frankenstein were released a year previously, and Airplane!, which it predates by half-a-decade.
A curious tradition in British comedy is the prevailing presence of the bookish intellectual, as witnessed in Stephen Fry or Armando Ianucci. The Pythons were no exception. Terry Jones, who drifted between studying English and History at Oxford University, penned an academic treatise on Geoffrey Chaucer’s Knight’s Tale, entitled Chaucer’s Knight: The Portrait of a Medieval Mercenary in 1980. His evident love of the history of England, as explored though literature, infuses The Holy Grail with a level of affection common in the best parodies. The Holy Grail follows loosely the accepted narrative on King Arthur, and features segments on certain Knights of the Round Table, including Galahad, Lancelot and Bedivere.
While the Pythons are sufficiently respectful of the Arthurian legend to instil the film with some level of consistency, its plot is nonetheless mainly a hook on which to hang as the most outlandish visual and verbal gags imaginable. These rang from impassioned satirical speeches on the difference between a dictatorship and an autonomous collective, excessively blood-spurting comic violence, song-and-dance numbers and truly bewildering moments, such as when a gorilla’s hairy paw enters to turn the pages of a storybook. The medieval backdrop elevates The Holy Grail above the troupe’s first foray into feature film, And Now For Something Completely Different, which merely reproduce popular sketches from their Flying Circus television series.
Monty Python and the Holy Grail made its budget back (and then some…), inspiring a Tony-award winning musical, Spamalot, which continues to run on London’s West End. Indeed, the frugality of the production is one of the film’s greatest assets, inspiring some of the most memorable comic moments, be it the coconuts clapped together to replicate the sound horse-riding, or Terry Gilliam’s trademark animation for a scene in which the Knights are attacked by the ‘Legendary Black Beast of Aaaaarrrrrggghhh’.
Apparent Comedy, Subtle Disdain, An analytical paper on satire in Monty Python and the Holy Grail
by Lynn Swanson
Released in 1975, "Monty Python and the Holy Grail" opens in foggy Scotland as a mockery of the "The Legend of King Arthur." Directed by Terry Gilliam and Terry Jones, this film was an exceedingly low budget project, which seemed to have a positive affect on the viewers. The attitude was such that if you could not afford a horse, use coconuts; or if you could not finance special effect, adds animations by Terry Gilliam. These ideas proved to be strangely entertaining to movie patrons. In addition to these ideas, the film mocks it own lack of budget with lines that acknowledge the model set pieces, like Camelot, to the audience.
Only "Monty Python and the Holy Grail" can also be seen as a satirical film through its mockery of the social class structure. The Monty Python team begins to mock the class system in the "Bring out Your Dead" scene. You see a man drawn cart on which dead villages have been placed. These villages all belong to the same social class: low income, dirty, poorly mannered, which is evident in their behavior and appearance. The class separation is noticed as King Arthur gallops through the village. As one villager questions the identity of the stranger, a second villager comments "...must be a king." The first villager then inquires as to why he must be a king, who is replied with the following: "he hasn't got shit all over him." This scene depicts an obvious separation between the villagers and royalty, indicating that royalty is a clean, well-kept, well mannered class, whereas the villagers and low and filthy. Later, the class system is ridiculed through selected musical numbers, the first of which being "Knights of the Round Table." As the group stands paused outside of Camelot, they envision a scene of the knights gallivanting around the castle in song, making a mockery of how the wealthy might behave and carry on to celebrate their wealth. This style of ridicule is seen again in the "The Ballad of Sir Robin." The minstrel sings of Sir Robin's inevitable death and continues in song to mock Sir Robin for fleeing from the three headed knight. This ballad depicts the cowardly attitudes of the wealthy, alluding to the idea that a simple member of a lower society would have stayed to fight the three headed knight in an attempt to gain passage. The Monty Python team felt strongly about the separation of classes and felt they needed to convey their ideas in the film.
While already full of satire and mockery for so many issues, the Monty Python team also includes their mockery of the Vietnam War (a popular satirical topic of the time period). The first indication of this comes about in the scene with the Black Knight. He stands by his bridge allowing no one to pass as King Arthur approaches to invite him to join the court at Camelot. After several attempts with no response from the knight, King Arthur requests passage across the bridge. The Black Knight stands tall and replies "none shall pass," and the two men engage in a sword fight to settle the issue. As King Arthur dismembers his worthy opponent, the Black Knight seems unaffected by the injury claiming "tis but a scratch." This disregard for the loss of his limbs ridicules the political stand to remain involved in the war, despite the apparent defeat. Then, as King Arthur crosses the bridge the knight proclaims the King to be a "yellow bastard," which was an attitude the government refused to accept from anyone taunting the United States, so we proceeded to remain involved in war. The ridicule of the war is seen again in the scene with the elderly historian. Sir Lancelot has no apparent reason for decapitating the historian, but proceeds to do so. The same is true in the wedding scene when he slays countless wedding guests in an attempt to save the lady (he believed) in the tower. He seems to lack any sign of genuine remorse and has no valid agenda in killing so many innocent people, other than to get them out of his way. This lack of remorse is reminiscent of the political attitude held during the Vietnam War. The United States had no direct involvement with the war, we were merely involved to promote peace (through violence, mind you) taking the lives of countless victims, not concerning ourselves with details of who exactly we were killing. If they appeared to be the enemy (and again not directly our enemy, but only our enemy because we were attacking them) then we were certain to destroy them.
From an analytical standpoint, I feel the "Monty Python and the Holy Grail" is smart and entertaining. The Monty Python team is successful in producing a comedic satirical film, despite the low budget. They manage to convey their ideas in a lighter fashion than many of their predecessors, such as: "Catch 22" or "The Manchurian Candidate." From a personal point of view, this type of film is much easier to take in and does not leave you so mentally or emotionally drained as the darker films tend to do.
Tune in next time. Same bat time, same bat channel!
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