Just a housekeeping reminder, this blog is an examination and celebration of the comedy of Monty Python's Flying Circus, the BBC television show. Having done all the episodes and most of the albums (see below,) we're now taking a look at THE movie, the one that everyone (in the States) knows and loves, and seeing how the group's sketch comedy roots impact on the material, for good and for ill. Sketch comedy clearly inspires most of what Monty Python creates, but when making a movie with sincere cinematic ambition, sketch comedy chops can limit you, lead you down the road to an episodic structure that fails to build adequately. This possibility becomes more probable when the lads are writing by committee (as Python tended to write,) and there's no lead writer or unifying vision with veto/editorial power. Can the creators overcome their own instincts and build comedic narrative tension into a climax?
The results seem mixed. The film begins with a series of inspired comedy bits, but none of them seem to carry forward. The "plot" beats-- the gathering of the team, the divine gift of the Quest, and the knights and their individual attempts to find the Grail-- all of them bring us back to the end of the second act. with no consequences or results. The team is still together, still looking, just as they were at the end of Act 1, and it's tempting to think that we're just spinning our wheels.
But consider a few things. One of them-- these guys are much smarter than we are. They were as aware of their sketch comedy limits as any pompous blogger, and chose a classic narrative that accommodated, even enabled, their instincts. The King Arthur story, like a lot of early British mythology, is episodic in nature. This structure allows them to insert their sketches, while letting the momentum of the narrative carry them forward, like jazz musicians riffing on "A Tisket, A Tasket" ad nauseum, only funnier (and shorter.) Another of them-- They have created a kind of build with the frequent use of callbacks, such as beating cats like rugs, the coconuts, and the return of characters to comment on the movie. It may not build tension all that much, but it does reward the audience for paying attention to the earlier scenes, and keep them engaged in future scenes, on the look for more of the callbacks (and there will be more!)
However! (Remember, I said the results were mixed?) There is some solid evidence that the lads are trying to meet the challenge of extended cinematic narrative. As we get more into the film, we start to see multi-scene sequences, some mediocre (The Knights of Ni-- sorry, I just don't find this bit funny.) and some inspired (The Quest of Sir Launcelot-- exquisite!) We also see, in these extended sequences, indications that the entire troupe is contributing bits to the overall sequence, creating a more unified vision. Finally, in the famous "Scene 24", we find a scene where there is no joke. Gilliam, as a cackling cataracted lunatic, tells Arthur and Bedevere to seek an Enchanter who will lead them to the Grail, whereupon he disappears. The only purpose of this scene is to create an expectation of getting closer to the Grail, the goal. This is narrative structure.
It pays off in the last scene we examined, wherein the reunited knights meet Tim, the Enchanter, who tells them (in between intimidating displays of pyrotechnics) that the Grail awaits in a cave, but before they reach the cave, they will face certain death. And it will pay off further as we continue.
And, hey, if you all don't already own this movie, buy it here! Be honest with your media needs-- you know you want to watch it over and over again. (Plus, it's on Netflix right now, so what's your excuse?)
We begin with a very Bergman-esque shot-- skull profile, close in the foreground, and the knights in the background seem to trot out of its nose, led by Tim. The "horses" aka the guys banging the coconuts, get spooked, so the knights have to dismount. Great dedication and fealty to the coconut gag here. Tim guides them to a craggy ridge, beyond which lies a smokey clearing and a cave-- "The Cave of Caerbonnog!" Bones litter the clearing, and Arthur, terrified, is about to brave it, when a cheesy orchestral bang alerts us that it's too late. Out from the cave lurches-- the cutest little white bunny you ever saw!
The lads have built up tension before in this film, but usually the reveal is some large knight, with three heads or a flair for the monosyllabic. This time, they went the other way. Not content to play the gag, the boys now comment on it. Once it becomes clear that, when Tim spoke of Death with sharp pointy teeth, he was speaking of this cute bunny, the knights get pissed off. "You silly sod! You got us all worked up!" Tim protests that that's no ordinary rabbit, but "the most foul, cruel, and bad-tempered rodent y'ever laid eyes on!" And he is proven correct, when a redshirt knight goes to chop its head off, and the rabbit turns the tables, in a hysterical practical effect only Gilliam could have pulled off. The rabbit zip lines towards the anonymous knight's neck, just beneath the helmet. A quick cut to close up of the white bunny at the knight's neck, bulging with viscera and blood, and we're back to a long shot. The knight has been decapitated, and his corpse falls to the ground. "Jesus Christ!" screams Arthur, and Tim exults in his vindication-- "I warned you, didn't I?"
Thus begins one of the greatest and most memorable bits in the film, the Killer Rabbit bit. It's hard to guess who wrote it. It's silly enough for Palin to have created it, it's cruel enough for Chapman/Cleese (plus they have a thing for animals, those two,) and it's cinematic enough for Jones/Gilliam to have come up with it. More than any other piece in the movie, this one feels like a team effort from concept to execution. It's a truly wonderful bit, and if you haven't seen it, I envy you your first experience of it, and stop reading this tiresome piece and watch it!
The Knights charge the bunny, outnumbering it 10-1, but it doesn't matter. The rabbit zips around from neck to neck, its white fur dripping with blood and gore. Idle's cowardly Sir Robin barely holds it at bay with his shield, Galahad can't get a bead on it, and finally Arthur sounds the retreat; "Run Away!" as Tim cackles at their comeuppance.
The Knights regroup, trying to figure out a way round this fluffy killing machine. We get the first beat of a new running gag as they try and count their dead-- three, but Arthur calls it five. "Three, sir," Galahad corrects him. "Three," Arthur agrees. Sir Robin suggests running away some more, ("Oh, shut up! And go and change your armor.") But bloodthirsty Launcelot suggests the Holy Hand Grenade!
In a new bit that feels like equal parts Idle and Palin, as well as performed by Idle and Palin, Brother Maynard (Idle) brings down a chest from the overlooking ridge, and inside is what looks like a thurible, or censer, a round ball with a cross on its peak. For instruction, Maynard orders his foppish minion, Palin, to consult the book of Armaments. (blissful sigh). Palin, in a high-pitched Knights of Ni voice, reads a funny biblical passage-- "Oh, Lord, blesseth thou this, thy Holy Hand Grenade, that with it, thou might blow thine enemies to bits, in thine mercy"-- that comes with instructions to pull the pin, count to three, and "lobbeth". Counting to three turns out to be an issue with Arthur's 3/5 dyslexia, but they manage to get the grenade thrown, and the rabbit blown to bits.
But there are consequences to explosive tactics, or blowback, as we call it here. The Detectives investigating the homicide of the Historian hear the grenade go off. They are on the case and making progress, having caught up to the abandoned shrubbery garden Arthur gave to the Knights of Ni. (I imagine the word "Ni" can't stand up to the Po-po, and they scampered.) Hearing the explosion, they run towards its source. The clock is ticking!
The Cave of Caerbonnig secured, the Knights make their way into the deep, dark, dank cave. Lots of production value and cinematic ambition here, thank you,Terries. Finally they get to a wall with an inscription carved into it. Brother Maynard is called in to read it, since the language is Arimathean. The inscription says that the Grail is in the Castle "Arrrrrgh". There is a lot of discussion about what this means-- did he die while writing it, was he dictating, is there a Castle Arrrrrrgh, etc.
But all of this is just misdirection; the real clue stands behind them, a many-eyed horned dragon. We've seen this beast before, in the animated seasonal montage from the last sequence, and this time he's come to dinner! He gobbles up Brother Maynard in short order, and chases after the rest of the knights as we morph into a Gilliamination. The chase goes backwards and forwards, but seems to spell doom for Arthur and the Knights, who have spent their Holy Hand Grenade on a cute bunny. As the dragon closes in, however, in a very self-aware cheat, Palin's voice over takes us to Gilliam at a drawing desk. Gilliam draws, grimaces, and falls backwards, dead as Palin recounts that the animator died, and the threat disappeared. The quest for the Grail could continue.
Not sure how I feel about his resolution-- it doesn't feel earned, but neither does the threat. And it's undeniably funny. It casts the creators as sadists just looking to make things difficult for our Hero, and in essence, that's what writers are. Just as the bunny gets its revenge at the start, so the fictional characters tormented by us often tend to survive us.
Meanwhile, back at the cave mouth, the murder investigation is picking up pace. The detectives, having found the source the of the noise that alerted them in the first place, sift through the carnage and bones. This tends to implicate the blameless knights, doesn't it?
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