What filmmaking techniques does Monty Python and the Holy Grail use?

CineCode breaks down 5 techniques in Monty Python and the Holy Grail (1975): Genre Subversion, Deadpan Absurdism, Direct Address, Expectation Collapse and Anachronistic Soundtrack.

Who directed Monty Python and the Holy Grail?

Terry Gilliam, Terry Jones directed Monty Python and the Holy Grail, released in 1975. CineCode also covers Time Bandits (1981), Brazil (1985), The Fisher King (1991), Twelve Monkeys (1995), Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas (1998), The Brothers Grimm (2005).

What films are similar to Monty Python and the Holy Grail?

Films that share techniques with Monty Python and the Holy Grail include Annie Hall (1977), Network (1976), Breathless (1960), The Fearless Vampire Killers (1967).

Comedy · Fantasy

Monty Python and the Holy Grail

Terry Gilliam, Terry Jones, 1975

King Arthur and his Knights of the Round Table set out on a quest to find the Holy Grail. They run into a series of more and more absurd obstacles, enemies and philosophical distractions. The film destroys the epic tale of knights and chivalry in the most devastating way possible, which is to take it completely seriously.

4 Narrative 1 Sound

At a glance

Monty Python and the Holy Grail is a 1975 comedy and fantasy film directed by Terry Gilliam, Terry Jones. This breakdown covers 5 techniques (4 narrative and 1 sound), each with the scene where you can see it. If you like how it is made, Annie Hall uses several of the same techniques.

Narrative

Genre Subversion

Setting up a film to look like a familiar genre, then breaking that genre's rules on purpose. You have to rethink what kind of story you are watching.

How this film uses it

The Pythons set up everything you expect from a King Arthur epic (the quest, the knights, the castle, the final battle) and take each one apart in turn. Coconuts stand in for horses, the Black Knight refuses to admit defeat and the Holy Grail is never found. Every promise the genre makes gets set up and then cancelled.

Where to see it

The coconut-horse opening. The film announces what the genre calls for and immediately swaps in its own absurd joke about how stage and screen fake things.

Narrative

Deadpan Absurdism

Showing extreme, violent or surreal events while the characters react as if nothing unusual is happening. That mismatch is funny and unsettling at the same time.

How this film uses it

The Pythons' method is to take medieval logic completely seriously and follow it wherever it leads. The witch trial's reasoning, the Black Knight's denial and the demands of the Knights Who Say Ni are all treated with earnest, by-the-book seriousness. The absurd humor comes out of that commitment. Nobody winks.

Where to see it

The witch trial. The villagers reason from 'if she weighs the same as a duck she is made of wood' to 'therefore she is a witch.' The film respects that medieval logic with no irony.

Narrative

Direct Address

Having a character look into the camera and speak to the audience, also called breaking the fourth wall. It makes you feel like their confidant and reminds you this is a film.

How this film uses it

The Pythons keep reminding you that this is a film. When a knight murders the historian, it is treated as a plot event with legal consequences in the real world, and the police finally shut down the film itself. The rules of filmmaking are just as open to being broken as the rules of the genre.

Where to see it

The ending. The police arrest Arthur and Bedevere for the historian's murder and break the camera, and the film stops. Breaking the fourth wall here becomes the way the story ends.

Narrative

Expectation Collapse

Building up the usual genre expectations, like the villain getting caught and the climax approaching, then refusing to deliver them. Your own anticipation is what makes the letdown hit so hard.

How this film uses it

Every climax the film promises is denied. The Black Knight fight ends in a stalemate and Arthur just leaves. At Castle Anthrax, you expect heroism and get temptation. The final battle is interrupted by police. The film pretty much runs on letting down, one after another, every expectation it creates.

Where to see it

The police arrest ending. Official authority stops the film's whole story in its tracks. You get police procedure in place of the promised climax.

Sound

Anachronistic Soundtrack

Playing music from a different era, such as hip-hop, rock or pop, over a story set in the past. The clash comments on how those past events connect to the present.

How this film uses it

The Pythons undercut the Arthurian setting with things that don't belong in it. There are coconut sound effects standing in for horses and an argument about constitutional theory that could only have been written in 1975. Things from the wrong era are called anachronisms, and they are how the film makes its point. The medieval world is always something the present invents.

Where to see it

The peasant confronting Arthur with Marxist political theory. Modern ideology is dropped into the medieval setting. The anachronism makes the political point at the same time.

Questions

Monty Python and the Holy Grail: quick answers

What filmmaking techniques does Monty Python and the Holy Grail use?: CineCode breaks down 5 techniques in Monty Python and the Holy Grail (1975): Genre Subversion, Deadpan Absurdism, Direct Address, Expectation Collapse and Anachronistic Soundtrack.
Who directed Monty Python and the Holy Grail?: Terry Gilliam, Terry Jones directed Monty Python and the Holy Grail, released in 1975. CineCode also covers Time Bandits (1981), Brazil (1985), The Fisher King (1991), Twelve Monkeys (1995), Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas (1998), The Brothers Grimm (2005).
What films are similar to Monty Python and the Holy Grail?: Films that share techniques with Monty Python and the Holy Grail include Annie Hall (1977), Network (1976), Breathless (1960), The Fearless Vampire Killers (1967).

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