The Black Knight is a fictional character who first appeared as a minor antagonist in the 1975 comedy filmMonty Python and the Holy Grail by the Monty Python comedy troupe. A knight dressed in black who wears a helmet completely concealing his face, he is based on the black knight of the Arthurian legend. Like most of the characters in Holy Grail, he is played by a member of Monty Python, namely John Cleese, who primarily portrays Lancelot in the film.
The Black Knight appears in a single scene of Holy Grail, in which he guards a tiny bridge over a small stream and fights King Arthur, who wants to pass it; although a brave and skilled swordfighter, he is defeated by Arthur, who is soon bewildered by the knight's staunch refusal to admit his obvious defeat. He also appears in the musical Spamalot, in which Christopher Sieber premiered the role in 2005.
Overview
In the film, King Arthur (Graham Chapman), accompanied by his squire Patsy (Terry Gilliam), is travelling through a forest when he observes a fight taking place between the Black Knight (John Cleese) and a Green Knight (also played by Gilliam) by a bridge over a small stream. The Black Knight defeats the Green one by throwing his sword straight through the eye slit of the Green Knight's great helm.
Arthur congratulates the Black Knight and offers him a place at his court at the Round Table, but the Black Knight makes no response until Arthur moves to cross the bridge (in reality a small plank of wood). The Black Knight moves slightly to block Arthur and declares "None shall pass". King Arthur objects, and the Black Knight threatens Arthur with death.
Reluctantly, King Arthur fights the Black Knight and, after a short battle, the Knight's left arm is severed, and squirts out copious amounts of blood. The Knight refuses to stand aside, insisting "Tis but a scratch", and fights on. Next, his right arm is cut off, but the Knight still does not concede. As the Knight is disarmed, Arthur assumes the fight is over and kneels to pray. The Black Knight interrupts Arthur's prayer by kicking him in the side of the head and accusing him of cowardice. Arthur chops off the Black Knight's right leg. At this point, the Knight still will not admit defeat, and attempts to ram his body into Arthur's. Arthur is annoyed and sarcastically asks the Black Knight if he is going to bleed on him to win. With an air of resignation, Arthur finally cuts off the left leg as well. With the Black Knight now reduced to a simple torso with a head, he declares the fight a draw. Arthur then summons Patsy and "rides" away, leaving the Black Knight's limbless torso screaming threats at him.
Behind the scenes
According to the DVD audio commentary by Cleese, Michael Palin, and Eric Idle, the sequence originated in a story told to Cleese when he was attending an English class during his school days. Two Roman wrestlers were engaged in a particularly intense match and had been fighting for so long that the two combatants were doing little more than leaning into one another. It was only when one wrestler finally tapped out and pulled away from his opponent that he and the crowd realised the other man was, in fact, dead and had effectively won the match posthumously. The moral of the tale, according to Cleese's teacher, was "if you never give up, you can't possibly lose" – a statement that, Cleese reflected, always struck him as being "philosophically unsound".[1] The story would have been a deformed (or misremembered) description of the death of the Greek wrestler Arrichion of Phigalia.[citation needed]
Cleese said that the scene would seem heartless and sadistic except for the fact that the Black Knight shows no pain and just keeps on fighting, or trying to, however badly he is wounded. Also, as the scene progresses and Arthur becomes increasingly annoyed, his dialogue lapses from medieval ("You are indeed brave, Sir Knight, but the fight is mine.") to modern ("Look, you stupid bastard, you've got no arms left!"), and finally to just plain sarcastic ("What are you gonna do, bleed on me?"), while the Black Knight remains just as defiant ("I'm invincible!" he yells with only one leg left, to which Arthur simply replies "You're a loony.").
This scene is one of the best-known of the entire film. A famous line of the scene, "'Tis but a scratch", is similar to a line the character Mercutio speaks in Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet, wherein he demurs, saying "Ay, ay, a scratch, a scratch," referring to his mortal wound, and the former has since become an expression used to comment on someone who ignores a fatal flaw or problem. The phrase "'Tis but a flesh wound", following a character entering "with coconut shells tied to his feet" notably appeared in an early episode of The Goon Show titled "The Giant Bombardon", broadcast in 1954; the Monty Python group has acknowledged being influenced by the Goons.[2] Humorous reference to a potentially mortal injury being a "flesh wound" also appeared in the 1940 screwball comedyHis Girl Friday, in response to a maid being reported shot by a sheriff's deputy.[3]
Performance difficulty
The Knight was, in fact, played by two actors: John Cleese is in the Knight's armour until he is down to one leg. The Knight is then played by a real one-legged man, a local by the name of Richard Burton,[4] a blacksmith who lived near the film shoot (not to be confused with Richard Burton, the Welsh actor of the same name), because, according to the DVD commentary, Cleese could not balance well on one leg. After the Knight's remaining leg is cut off, the quadruple-amputee that remains is again Cleese.
In the musical Spamalot, the scene with the Black Knight was the most difficult to play on stage, according to Eric Idle. Penn & Teller created the illusion for the musical.[5]
Graham Chapman was a British actor, comedian and writer. He was one of the six members of the surreal comedy group Monty Python. He portrayed authority figures such as The Colonel and the lead role in two Python films, Monty Python and the Holy Grail (1975) and Life of Brian (1979).
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Monty Python and the Holy Grail is a 1975 British comedy film satirizing the Arthurian legend, written and performed by the Monty Python comedy group and directed by Gilliam and Jones in their feature directorial debuts. It was conceived during the hiatus between the third and fourth series of their BBC Television series Monty Python's Flying Circus.
Eric Idle is an English actor, comedian, songwriter, musician, screenwriter and playwright. He was a member of the British comedy group Monty Python and the parody rock band the Rutles. Idle studied at Pembroke College, Cambridge, and joined Cambridge University Footlights. He reached stardom when he co-created and acted in the sketch series Monty Python's Flying Circus (1969–1974) and the films Monty Python and the Holy Grail (1975), Life of Brian (1979) and The Meaning of Life (1983) with John Cleese, Michael Palin, Terry Gilliam, Terry Jones, and Graham Chapman.
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Spamalot is a stage musical with score by John Du Prez and Eric Idle, with lyrics and book by Idle. Based on the 1975 film Monty Python and the Holy Grail, the musical offers a highly irreverent parody of Arthurian legend.
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The Killer Rabbit of Caerbannog is a fictional character in the Monty Python film Monty Python and the Holy Grail. The scene in Holy Grail was written by Graham Chapman and John Cleese. The rabbit is the antagonist in a major set piece battle, and makes a similar appearance in Spamalot, a musical inspired by the movie. The iconic status of this scene was important in establishing the viability of the musical.
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Monty Python Live at Aspen was a reunion show featuring the surviving members of the Monty Python team: John Cleese, Terry Gilliam, Eric Idle, Terry Jones and Michael Palin, appearing on stage together for the first time since their Hollywood Bowl shows in 1980. Filmed on 7 March 1998 at the Wheeler Opera House in Colorado as part of The US Comedy Arts Festival, it featured the five Pythons in an interview with host Robert Klein. The late Graham Chapman was also allegedly in attendance as his "ashes" were brought out in an urn with his portrait attached to the front, only to be knocked over by Terry Gilliam.
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