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RR 2016/059 A Book About the Film Monty Python and the Holy Grail: All the References from African Swallows to Zoot Darl Larson Rowman & Littlefield Lanham, MD and London 2015 xxxii + 599 pp. ISBN 978 1 4422 4553 2 (print); ISBN 978 1 4422 4554 9 (e-book) £32.95 $50
Keywords Cinema, Humour
Review DOI 10.1108/RR-09-2015-0227
This book is an in-depth analysis of the 1975 film Monty Python and the Holy Grail, which has become a cult film in the USA, and has more recently been revived as the musical Spamalot. The film followed four television series, totalling 45 comedy programmes, starting in October 1969 and titled Monty Python's Flying Circus. They relied on skilled wordplay, surprise juxtapositions, anachronisms and silliness. Darl Larsen has previously provided an analysis of these programmes as Monty Python's Flying Circus: An Utterly Complete, Thoroughly Unillustrated, Absolutely Unauthorised Guide [...] (Larsen, 2008) (RR 2009/138). Larson is a Professor in the Media Arts Department and the Centre for Animation at Brigham Young University.
Monty Python and the Holy Grail was the second film from the Python team, but the first to tell a complete story. The format used in this book is to take each scene, including those that did not make it to the final film, and use pieces of dialogue or text from the script to open up discussion on a particular point. Rather than pick a selection of these, I have chosen to identify the topics and areas of interest that Larsen discusses. A good place to start is with King Arthur. He is a problematic figure in English (or British) history. Some doubt his actual existence, and his historical location and dates are unclear. If he actually existed, then he was probably about in the sixth or seventh century. However, the film is based as if post Norman Conquest, and uses late middle-age castles (real or models). The legend of King Arthur has produced a wealth of stories from the middle ages to Tennyson and beyond into comics. Monty Python (if I may refer them as a group which I should get away with as the Knights of the Round Table is a group name) has made good use of this literature in concocting their script...