Like The Simpsons, Monty Python and the Holy Grail did a lot to shape my childhood vocabulary. “I’m not dead.” “It’s just a flesh wound.” “Your mother was a hamster and your father smelled of elderberries.” A young Ben Sixsmith would have fired orange juice out of his nose on hearing such quotes.
My dad had stored the film on an old VHS tape. We were allowed to watch some of it, excluding naughty bits like Galahad’s trip to see the sex-mad ladies of Castle Anthrax, and then finally the whole thing. The bizarre humour was captivating. I must have watched it more times than I ever did maths homework.
Monty Python and the Holy Grail was released fifty years ago. It does not have the fame of Monty Python’s Life of Brian, which was both more controversial and more cohesive, but it is still among the funniest films of all time. If you haven’t watched it, I encourage you to do so. (If you have watched it, a re-watch couldn’t hurt.)
By all accounts, The Holy Grail was filmed because the Pythons had nothing better to do. The group had exhausted the format of sketch comedy, at least for the moment, in Monty Python’s Flying Circus and had little else to do except make a film.
The Holy Grail, which depicts King Arthur’s quest for the elusive vessel, is a bit fragmentary. Its overarching narrative is thin, and it ends in a bizarre, budget-inflicted anticlimax. That said, there is a consistent character to the film. “I felt the sense of atmosphere was important,” Terry Gilliam reflected later. The American director and animator’s aesthetic sense was the Pythons’ secret weapon, and the grim and grimy medieval texture of the film — the mud, the smoke and the mysterious woodlands — remains a delight.
Of course, there is a lot of silliness in the film. To explain the Knights Who Say “Ni” or the Holy Hand Grenade of Antioch would be to ruin the humour. But there is also a lot of wit. Recall, for example, the swamp-dwelling peasant with a keen awareness of the absurdity of Arthurian statehood (“strange women lying in ponds distributing swords is no basis for a system of government”).
When surreal humour is performed with great seriousness, it is more convincing
Crucially, a lot of the silliness is played straight. Graham Chapman was, by all accounts, the most genuinely eccentric Python, and was also going through serious alcohol withdrawals. His King Arthur is so sincere, amid such total foolishness, that he becomes a rather touching, poignant character. John Cleese’s Sir Lancelot is brought to life with furious intensity, which makes his preposterous circumstances far more entertaining. When surreal humour is delivered with a wink, it seems contrived. When surreal humour is performed with great seriousness, it is more convincing. Indeed, it reminds us that our world can be pretty damn absurd as well.
The grimy Englishness of The Holy Grail helps to make it an extremely 70s-y film. It was even funded by, among others, Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd and Ian Andrew from Jethro Tull. The idealism of the Swinging Sixties had declined, and the well-heeled ambition of the 80s lay ahead, and between them was a period of dark esoterica and absurdism as people dived into what remained of old narratives and rituals.
A recurring online post lambasts the Pythons for attacking traditional Englishness with their spiteful satire only to lament the venomous wokesters of the modern world. Among things, this ignores how much the Pythons clearly liked the myths and legends they were parodying. There is a lot of affection and curiosity in their jokes and in their cinematography. I would be amazed if there have not been a lot of people who have been drawn to English history and literature after seeing the film. I wonder if people who think you cannot make fun of someone as well as liking and respecting them, or make fun of something as well as liking or respecting it, have ever had friends.
Monty Python and the Holy Grail might be a lot of fun to watch but it doesn’t sound like it was a lot of fun to film. Graham Chapman was going through withdrawals and was sick and scared. Terry Gilliam, who was used to pushing bits of paper about, was something of a directorial tyrant. The cast spent a lot of time shivering on Scottish mountains, in heavy costumes, above precipitous drops. (“Fifty minutes of hard climbing,” reports Michael Palin in his glum diary, “Camera broke mid-way through first shot.”)
Glamorous? No. But Chapman’s commitment to his role made his performance great. Gilliam’s dedication, and those windswept Scottish landscapes, made the film convincing. Sometimes, a lot of seriousness goes into being silly.
