Monty Python and the Holy Grail

Rating: 8/10 (20 April 2016)

In the 1970's Hollywood's economic crisis gave way to a number of low budget blockbusters. These low budget films, when successful, brought millions back in box office revenue. The 70's gave way to some of the most memorable films in Hollywood's history: one of them being Terry Gilliam & Terry Jones' Monty Python and the Holy Grail. The humorous retelling of King Arthur's search for the Holy Grail made the best out of a small budget and still stands out to many as one of the best films from the 70's.
Stylistically, Monty Python and the Holy Grail doesn't seem like a huge leap forward upon first glance. The film, like many other movies of the same time period, took some of its inspiration from famous literature; primarily the stories of King Arthur and his Knights of the Roundtable influenced the plot of the quest for the grail and the characters. The film was shot on location at multiple different locations across the United Kingdom and aerial shots were cleverly used to give us a sense of being among the castle walls looking down upon the knights as they conversed with guards. Necessity also gave way to the actors playing multiple roles in the film, Michael Palin playing the most characters at 12.
Editing in Monty Python's Holy Grail used one of the newly popular techniques in filmmaking at the time: parallel editing. Two separate events, occurring at the same time are shown back-to-back to show that these events are occurring at the same time but in a different space. Transitions also hold a major role in the style Holy Grail presents. A storybook motif is used at a point to move the story along, as well are a number of animations drawn stylistically to resemble illuminated manuscripts of medieval times, and the use of a narrator (whom is introduced as quickly as departs). As a comedy the humor in Monty Python and the Holy Grail had to stand out against other comedies of the time in order to mark it as a film worth remembering. Monty Python's writers imbue The Holy Grail with their unique brand of humor that was accessible to a wide variety of audiences. Their humor also made comments on issues and made the mundane humorous. Even the credit sequence itself, taking its inspiration from Igmar Bergman's foreign films, uses the credits and the subtitles in a humorous context. The credits begin to argue with themselves (over the humorous addition of inaccurate Swedish subtitles making jokes about a møøse and then further jokes related to llamas). Some of the prop related humor was a direct result of the small budget the film had to work from. Real horses were unaffordable which gave way to coconut halves being used akin to radio sound effect production. The result, though born of necessity, made the film all the more memorable. The humor in Monty Python and the Holy Grail ranges greatly from simple slapstick like humor to political and social satirical humor. They used the opportunity to let their humor make comments on politics (Arthur's conversation with the man and woman digging through the filth), common sense & mass hysteria (the trial of the Witch), society, and religion (the monks hitting themselves with planks of wood). Films in the late 60's and the 70's had a habit of taking on a political undertone and Monty Python's Holy Grail doesn't disappoint in that aspect.
Holy Grail's shining moments however may lie in how it questions continuity and the concept of stories existing in their own world separate from our own. Dialog continuity is made into a joke numerous times as characters have multiple side conversations unrelated to the plot, and plot continuity itself is questioned with the sudden 'intermission' alluding to theatrical performances and with the film's abrupt ending giving no sign of a resolution. The 4th wall, which usually contains a story within itself, counting the audience as just viewers; broken numerous times in Holy Grail for humorous effect. Characters will address to the audience, make comments about set models, acting, scenes, etc. even sometimes prompting the other actors to tell them to "Get on with it." The sudden introduction of the narrator even breaks the 4th wall since he becomes part of the story and is killed off in a matter of seconds (the 'animator' of the animated transitions and the monster they face in the cave suffers a similar fate).
Overall, while the quality of the film at first might appear like it is nothing special, the content is what really drives it home.