Monty Python and the Holy Grail

What's that approaching from behind that hill? Is it a bird. is it a plane, is it a knight on his horse?? No, its just a 'king' with his servant behind him clapping coconut shells behind him. 
Monty Python and the Holy Grail is the epitome of a medieval representation through cinematic production.  It contains various different characteristics and components that associates it with the medieval time period. Just look at the title, it even has one of the most famous medieval characteristics in its name, the Holy Grail.  But what is unique, however, is how the film chooses to portray this time period.  It is no secret that this is a comic movie, and with that, the audience can assume that this production will poke fun at many of the different features from England during the medieval time period.  Through this movie, the people during the medieval period look unintelligent, dirty, naive, and violent.

The credits that precede the actual film are completely accurate, except for the "translations" that are found underneath the actual text.  These are making a mockery of Old English writing, using the different symbols and characters found in that language to replace normal ones used today.  This language carries out throughout the rest of the production, however, it is not as archaic.  The actors just have accents instead of speaking a whole different tongue.  Their language is also different form modern day language because the knights will occasionally answer in poems or riddles.  Making it sound more eloquent but really it doesn't make much sense. 

There is one specific scene in the movie when King Aurthur is parading through a sea of people and everyone stops to stare.  "Who is this person?" They all ask.  It is a mystery until one citizen speaks a little louder than the rest and points out that he must be a king or nobility because he is the only one not covered in "shit."  And for the remainder of the movie, those who were not nobility were covered in dirt and feces.  Now, this is not an untrue statement that people during this time period were dirty but it was a very crude way to explain the state of most of the citizens. The audience is looking down on the citizens of the movie now because it's disgusting but we take for granted our indoor plumbing and our sanitation techniques.  Because without them, we would be just like the rest of the characters in this movie.

Throughout the entire film, the knights, especially King Arthur look incredibly naive.  They are on the search for the ultimate grail that they never obtain.  They go from castle to castle, encountering many different obstacles along the way.  You know, the regular quest based story.  They make intellectual mistakes as well as battle mistakes.  Some of their men even got brutally attacked by a bunny rabbit.  They even encounter a clairvoyant which is a very medieval touch.  They ultimately get arrested for the killing of the historian telling their story.  They lose most of their men along the way but this does not really seem to affect them much.  In the end, they do not even get to see their Holy Grail because they are arrested. 



Violence is seen throughout this movie, mostly committed by the knights on the quest for the holy grail but there was instances, one that was very striking, of violence elsewhere.  There was one scene where they were trying to charge a woman of witch craft and

dressed her in the stereotypical attire, they even went as far as to attach a fake pointy nose to her face.  They killed her anyway because they had the logic that witches weigh as much as ducks and put her on a faulty scale.  Other than the maltreatment of women, the knights showed their typical violence by chopping people's heads, arms, and legs off in duels and raids throughout a castle.  One scene that made an important statement was that after Sir Lancelot raided the castle of the wedding, the king of the castle found him and after he found out that he was royalty too, he introduced him to the rest of the guests, most who were mutilated by him prior to this conversation.  Everyone was just supposed to forget that he just ran around the castle with his sword chopping people's heads off and respect him because he is nobility and was an honorary guest of the king.  Here, the nobility can literally get away with murder.  

Although this movie does contain many different medieval aspects, one cannot rely on this for any correct historical information, or take this film too seriously.  Yes, they did use aspects that were historically significant and correct, but they twisted them and played with them in a way that would make their audience laugh.  The movie also contained some modern features, like a cop car, among many. 

Credits for the images: Google Images and Youtube.com