"Monty Python And The Holy Grail", and its comic predecessor "A Connecticut Yankee In King Arthur's Court" by Mark Twain, seem on the surface to be foolish "distortions" of the original texts, chiefly (as you note) those of Malory and Tennyson. But the Pythons and Twain both carefully orchestrated their parodies by coming to understand how and why the source material works. Ritchie and company, in contrast, don't give a fig about that.
I don’t know that Python was especially careful! I mean, Holy Grail is marvelous, but I don’t think I see a passionate or close engagement with the arthur legends? It’s a work of supreme silliness!
Terry Jones studied history at Oxford and he knew his stuff about that. So he brought that perspective as a basis for how they wrote the sketches and jokes.
I agree with you, David. The Pythons did engage with the legends while subverting them. Holy Grail reminds me of another film that does this, Young Frankenstein—another supremely silly work—that parodies the earlier monster films and the original novel. There may be a place for both kinds of films, but these are different from the Ritchie take.
"Monty Python And The Holy Grail", and its comic predecessor "A Connecticut Yankee In King Arthur's Court" by Mark Twain, seem on the surface to be foolish "distortions" of the original texts, chiefly (as you note) those of Malory and Tennyson. But the Pythons and Twain both carefully orchestrated their parodies by coming to understand how and why the source material works. Ritchie and company, in contrast, don't give a fig about that.
I don’t know that Python was especially careful! I mean, Holy Grail is marvelous, but I don’t think I see a passionate or close engagement with the arthur legends? It’s a work of supreme silliness!
Terry Jones studied history at Oxford and he knew his stuff about that. So he brought that perspective as a basis for how they wrote the sketches and jokes.
I agree with you, David. The Pythons did engage with the legends while subverting them. Holy Grail reminds me of another film that does this, Young Frankenstein—another supremely silly work—that parodies the earlier monster films and the original novel. There may be a place for both kinds of films, but these are different from the Ritchie take.