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What Are The Techniques Used In Monty Python And The Holy Grail

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Monty Python and the Holy Grail, directed by Terry Gilliam and Terry Jones (1975), is a clever film that uses a variety of techniques to satirise King Arthur and his Knights of the Round table. Three techniques the film uses are breaking the dramatic illusion, 2-D animation and anachronisms. This is what puts them apart from other films in their time. First I’m going to talk about breaking the dramatic illusion.

Many times in the film Terry Gilliam and Terry Jones use a technique called breaking the dramatic illusion. It is a technique when the filmmaker mentally pokes you in the ribs to give you a reminder that you really are watching a movie while other films do the opposite and try to pull you into the story.

My first example is the scene …show more content…

ARTHUR: There it is! The Bridge of Death! ROBIN: Oh, great. KNIGHT: Look! ARTHUR: There's the old man from Scene 24! BEDEMIR: What is he doing here?

With this technique the filmmakers can belittle the famous story of King Arthur and his Knights of the Round Table by making this story look trivial. They also use this technique as a tool to put more jokes into the film.

Now I’m going to talk about anachronisms. An anachronism is when two or more things come from different time periods, like a power tool in a story set in the middle of the 14th century.

My first example of an anachronism is when the french soldiers in the castle talk about the airspeed velocity of a european and african swallow. This is clearly modern science not 932 AD science.

GUARD #1: It's not a question of where he grips it! It's a simple question of weight ratios! A five ounce bird could not carry a 1 pound coconut. ARTHUR: Well, it doesn't matter. Will you go and tell your master that Arthur from the Court of Camelot is here. GUARD #1: Listen, in order to maintain air-speed velocity, a swallow needs to beat its wings 43 times every second,

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