MONTY PYTHON AND THE HOLY GRAIL

UK, 1975, 91 minutes, Colour.
Graham Chapman, John Cleese, Eric Idle, Michael Palin, Terry Jones, Terry Gilliam, Connie Booth.
Directed by Terry Jones, Terry Gilliam.

was the first major film by the Monty Python Group. After a successful series on British Television and a compilation of many of these episodes for a feature, And Now For Something Completely Different, the Python Group began a series of very successful features: The Life Of Brian, The Time Bandits, The Meaning of Life.

The style and quality of the Python humour depends on the personalities, the writing and acting contributions of the Group: Graham Chapman, John Cleese, Terry Gilliam, Eric Idle, Terry Jones, Michael Palin. Eric Idle contributes much of the music and Terry Gilliam the animation. The Group takes traditional and respected myths and legends and sends them up.

This very contemporary kind of satire means that the material can date but in its time can have telling impact. The Group plays many roles with the possibility of variety of impersonation and a clever display of acting skills. There is much visual humour and a strong reliance on nonsense and verbal humour. Jabberwocky continues the mediaeval satire begun in this film. The credits have an amusing satire on Swedish and Ingmar Bergman films.

1. The Monty Python Group: contributions of the individuals in terms of acting, writing, music? The reputation over the years from television to films? Books? The contribution of this film to their reputation?

2. The background of stage comedy, review, television? The background of The Goons? Verbal and visual humour? Coherency logic, lack of logic, verbal and visual logic? Suggestion? Parody? The spoofing of myths and legends? The past and the present - and the intrusion of the present into the past? The credits and the satire on Ingmar Bergman?

3. The purpose of the film: amusement, comedy, jolt and offence, satirising for British audiences, universal audiences?

4. The production values: the cast and the variety of parts played, special effects, costumes and decor, animation? The recreation of the Camelot world - Python style?

5. The personalities and their acting styles, mime, mimic, pantomime, farce, range of voices and accents?

6. The use of myths and genres? Presupposing audience knowledge and their use in films especially in stereotype? The enjoyment of the myths, the send-up of the conventions? The impact for the British, ages of society, religion, moral codes, behaviour?

7. King Arthur and Camelot as fair game for British satire? The particular satire on the King and his pretensions, his squire, the various knights and their names, quests and missions? God and his intervention about the Grail? The endurance tests to find the Grail?

8. The satire on the mediaeval world: the blend of reality and unreality? Insanity and lunacy? Arthur and his squire and their not having horses? The mockery of the knights? The world of farmers, the plague and the dead, mediaeval cities?

9. The animation with God giving the mission for the Grail? The historian and his interviews - and his being killed? The police intrusion and their arrest of the cast?

10. The knights and the build-up to presenting each of them? Their adventures for example the encounter with the French knights, the three-headed knight, the damsel and Swamp Castle, the knights of Ni?

11. The mission for the grail - the beast, the enchanter, the riddles, the bridge? The French knight and the excremental jokes?

12. The collapse of the parody at the ending with the present intruding on the past? Laughter, amusement, insight by satire?