Just after Robert Bresson’s Lancelot of the Lake and before John Boorman’s Excalibur there was Monty Python and the Holy Grail (1975), the Pythons’ classic Arthurian hallucination. Now rereleased in cinemas on its 40th anniversary, the film was their bridgehead into international stardom. Watched again now on the big screen, it is eerie to see how, without the gags, much of its cinematography and imagery could actually be taken entirely seriously. (“Ingmar Bergman’s gonna be jealous of this one!” co-director Terry Gilliam told a BBC Film Night location reporter at the time.)
Holy Grail fans will have already gobbled up the stage musical version Spamalot of 2004 – still touring – which pumped up the conventional showbiz factor, but the original movie gives you the surreal, subversive elements of anticlimax and self-sabotage. The extended fake “Dentist on the Job” opening has an anarchic daring and pure helium zane that no one would attempt now. The material is superb, Neil Innes’ music is tremendous and Gilliam’s animations are timelessly brilliant. You also have to listen to the associated LP The Album of the Soundtrack of the Trailer of the Film, surely the Pythons’ audio meisterwerk.
