JABBERWOCKY
UK, 1977, 101 minutes, Colour.
Michael Palin, Max Wall, Harold H. Corbett, Deborah Fallender, John Le Mesurier.
Directed by Terry Gilliam.
Lewis Carroll, Monty Python, B.B.C. Television, Edgar Rice Burroughs and monsters, Jaws, Those Daring Young Men in their Flying Machines, Ivanhoe, Prince Valiant, Pier Paolo Pasolini and the Decameron, Wagner, Tchaikovsky, St. George, dragon and princess, Sleeping Beauty, The Devils, Ingmar Bergman, Camelot, Sam Peckinpah violence are some of the ingredients for this 'Dennis in Wonderland' parody of the mediaeval world (king, politicians, church, religious fanatics, tournaments) and the bathos of the fairytale quests and endurance. Gaining raucous laughter from (literal) overkill, the film both re-creates and ridicules mightily the romanticised past - and generally sustains it well. Actually, there is much wisdom in this almost too much lunatic vision of the world.
1. The impact of this film and its comedy, look at the medieval world, satire and parody? Its impact on the literal-minded?
2. For what audience was the film nude? British? Overseas? To entertain, to instruct, to mock?
3. The humour of the prologue and the parody of 'Those Daring Young Men in their Flying Machines'? The significance of this parody about flight? what it said about human nature, dreams, realism? The ironies of power, science, modern inventions? The dream to fly?
4. The importance of the classic medieval structure: the establishment of the family, the hero, the heroine, goals, endurance, trials, achievement, success? How were these used for involving the audience, how were they mocked and parodied?
5. How much humour was there in the film, how much black comedy, ridicule? Why? How did the medieval world parallel the modern world? Issues, human nature, human foibles?
6. Comment on the detailed presentation of the medieval world and audience response to it and understanding of it: the initial presentation of the countryside, the Toupers, the fish fingers, the world of the medieval town? The river? The enormity of travel? The countryside and Jabberwocky? Beggars, the castle, inns and squires, knights, the king and his court, the refugees, the dungeons and the famine?
7. The emphasis on dirtiness, the scatological emphases - excretion, filth, dirt? The humour gained from this? The innuendo, especially about the council?
8. Dennis as hero, his intelligence, his lack of intelligence, his work, ambitions? The satire on the medieval hero? His rejection by his loved one? The humour of the scene where he went to meet Griselda and her rejection of him? Griselda as repellent but his seeing her as beautiful? The fish finger family?
9. His going to the city, the difficulty of getting in, searching for firewood and the satire in this, the encounter with the squire, the encounter with the princess, his causing chaos in the factory, his vigil, his assistant, his eventually becoming the hero as he confronted the Jabberwocky, marrying the princess?
10. The humour in the presentation of the king, his sleeping, his council, the herald and the death of the herald, his way of making decisions, the foolishness of the tournaments and the satire on the blood and destruction, his stupid promise? The wisdom of his advisor? The humour of his food-taster and the plaster? The presence of the church and the irony of the procession and the bishop's quick blessing?
11. The princess and the parody on medieval heroines, the nuns, the heroics, the emphasis on sex, the blood, the ending?
12. The fish fingers as repellent family? Their fickle attitudes throughout the film? Their changing attitudes towards Dennis? The greed and fickleness of the ordinary family? The squire and the satire on his lust? The satire of the inn-keeper and his blindness? His time in gaol, the humour of his return and the killing of the squire with the trickling blood?
13. The overall presence of the Jabberwocky in the sense of menace? The violent visualizing of the deaths and the remaining skeleton? The parody on Jaws and the subjective shots and the music? The Vikings, the knight and politics, the final encounter with the Jabberwocky in the tradition of St. George and the Dragon and the animated science fiction films?
14. How valuable a comedy of human nature? The presentation of the romantic, the satiric, the cynical? The importance of the nonsense dialogue? The language of its own? What would Lewis Carroll have thought of the film and its derivation from him?
