Film: Braveheart

[Benefit]

I can't believe there's no Braveheart thread!

I don't think this was the best film of 1995, not by a long shot. The directing is solid, the acting is mediocre to good and the writing is spotty. And yet the film is extremely captivating and moving. The battle scenes are great, considering they didn't (I don't think) use CGI, I loved the gruesome brutality, the vigilante killer instinct they imbued Wallace with. It was incredibly cheesy (Wallace bursting into the bedchamber on a horse? Why the fuck didn't he just go in on foot?) but still somehow this didn't render the entire thing silly or stupid.

Instead of being stupid and contrived the way Troy was, it was extremely entertaining. It's not high art, but it entertained, it struck an emotional chord. Even the way Longshanks was demonized worked well within the context of the David vs. Goliath framework. They were very creative with historical fact (it would have been a physical impossibility for Wallace to drill Edward II's wife unless his dong could stretch across the English Channel) but you know what, who cares? Very little is known about Wallace anyway, so why not invent a background for this larger than life mythical figure and make it as engaging as possible?

I tend to dislike movies that are made simply for the sake of entertainment, movies that have glaring plot holes and completely unbelievable dramatic scenarios. This is why I don't like most Hitchcock films. But somehow this movie, while being cheesy, contrived and over the top, was still, I thought, a great film.

The score was awesome too. It was not subtle in any way, and you could predict the action by what the music was doing, but somehow it worked wonderfully.

 

[wizekrak]

This is one of my favourites as well. Solid story, good acting and strong violence. The "face smashing" scene is probably my favourite in the film due to the sheer power behind it.

There are a funny scenes as well (whether or not they are meant to be). "God tells me he can get me out of this one, but you're fucked!" is classic as well as when Longshanks throws the prince's friend out the window.

 

[Banquo]

rateheart %)

 

[cravNbeets]

i like the fact that you mention the score bene.... by far one of this films greatest assets... shit all around but still enjoyable

 

[tambourine-man]

Brainfart™

 

[m885]

Braveheart is one of my favorite movies, although those behind its production could have been more faithful to history and produced a better movie IMO.

 

[DarthMom]

i introduced this one to my 10 year old last week, and he loved it! he has been having fun pretending to play wallace, with his sword.

 

[RollinJ]

^ raising children to be like Mel Gibson is a crime against humanity

 

[DarthMom]

lol so very true, but raising him to be like william wallace is a good thing, and we like to talk about the themes and morals in films and stories, and not the tools that portray them.

 

[alasdairm]

i'm a scot and i was glad when this movie came out as it raises the profile of one of our national heros. i've stood at the location of the battle of stirling bridge and imagined what it must have been like.

arguments about the historical accuracy of the movie aside, it was a rousing, epic work.

alasdair

 

[m885]

^My biggest dissapointment with the film is the exclusion of the bridge in, well, the battle of Stirling bridge. However, this is still definitely in my top 10. I have a little bit of Scottish in me (like many Americans, I'm a mut) and I feel a connection with that when watching Braveheart. Mel Gibson may be insane in many ways, but this was a great movie.

 

[smotpoker]

This is one of the greatest war movies, movies period of all time. What can you not like about this movie? Even if it isn't %100 accurate, it's pretty hard to say for sure what happened back in the 1200-1300's time. The story is wonderful, it's got a deep love story that isn't sappy at all, something that is hard to pull off in my opinion. The war scenes are great, the ending one of the best I've ever seen. I still get misty-eyed whenever Wallace, in desperation and near death, cries out "Freeeeeeedooooom!".

5 stars, just because 6 isn't an option.

 

[smotpoker]

sorry aliasdarm, maybe this is worded better...Who here gave it one star? Why?

 

[mariacallas]

I saw this in the Theaters a looooooong time ago and I absolutely loved it. I've since then caught it on cable a good dozen times...but lately when I do chance upon it on HBO or Cinemax, I can't stand watching it anymore lol....maybe I've used up my Gibson threshold

PS. I think he just looks too damn fucking old to be playing the relatively youngish Wallace.....just my opinion.

 

[goatofthenever]

Great war movie, I love the Irish guy.
"It's my island!"

 

[alasdairm]

^My biggest dissapointment with the film is the exclusion of the bridge in, well, the battle of Stirling bridge.

yep - the bridge was a pretty significant feature in the execution of that particular battle

alasdair

 

[L2R]

Despite the way this film has aged, i thoroughly enjoyed it when it came out and can still very much appreciate it.

 

[tambourine-man]

sorry aliasdarm, maybe this is worded better...Who here gave it one star?

Moi.

Why?

Ooooooh... where to start? :D

I'm conscious of the fact that when someone starts a thread devoted to a particular film, that person usually does so because they have positive feelings toward it. Someone coming into the thread and bashing the film (like I'm about to) can lead to a thread derailment - but I guess that depends on the manner in which it's done. I'm not really about shitting on anyones' favourite film, but there's just too many thing about this movie that annoy the piss out of me.

Most of these annoyances could come under the vague description of "historical accuracy". Before writing this reply, I decided it might be wise to read up on the film - lest I be posting a garbled reply riddled with disgruntled bias. Anyway, I came across it's Wiki page and found it touched on some of the things that annoyed me and also mentioned hither-to unknown facts that have given me cause to dislike the film even more. Rather than trudging through each historical inaccuracy and bleating on and on about why it sucks, I'll simply refer you to the aforementioned Wiki page and suggest a quick glance at the 27-point critique of it's historical accuracy.

Of course, "the facts" should never stand in the way of good artistic interpretation - Hollywood is never going to be a history teacher and the world of film would be a boring place if it's products were unswervingly grounded in the dryness of historical fact. But Braveheart encapsulates and inevitably represents everything that I hate about Hollywood's nasty characature approach to historical revisionism.

The limp-wristed, uber-queer (ergo: sneaky, by homophobic default) heir to the throne particularly winds me up. Edward may well have been gay in real life, but the use of his sexuality as a plot mechanism is particularly distasteful - as is the way that his sexuality and devious character are used interchangably to emphasise his nefarious and weasely motivation. It's a low watermark as far as filmmaking goes and, given recent events involving Gibson's anti-semitism, it doesn't strike me as surprising that Gibson would attempt to employ such trashy 'social commentary'. Two birds, one stone: you get to bash the homos in real life, while simultaneously emphasising the deviancy of 'the bad guys'.

The "deep" and unsappy love story is, well... nonsense, but totally in-keeping with the film's attitude towards logic. Again, it isn't so much the fact that in real life Wallace and Isabella never fell in love, never got married, never had kids, never produced offspring with any claim to the throne... never even met... it's the fact that two totally unrelated historical figures were revised in order to tell some modern-day parable about the value of freedom over tyranny through the parallel stories - of both the beautiful Isabella being forced to marry the cruel English poofter, and the allegedly-long English occupation of Scotland - both of which can only be resolved by the American... *ahem* Scottish hero.

Then there's the miraculous swapping of sides of the Irish... it never happened! Taking liberties with the finer details of history is one thing, but just making shit up - indeed telling the opposite of what happened - is poor form. It's the equivalent of me making a film about how Abraham Lincoln and Chief Sitting-Bull tag-teamed up to take on the slave-driving Confederate States, while fending off the advances of a camp Richard Nixon, and rescuing Rosa Parks from her alcoholic husband. The fact that few of the main protagonists ever even met (or were even alive at the same time) apparently shouldn't matter, nor should the fact that history was completely rearranged (and in some cases just plain made up) in order to cash in on nationalistic sentiment.

Perhaps there's an element of wounded pride? Maybe if I wasn't English I wouldn't be all that bothered about another countries' history being mangled to make a Hollywood flick but, then again, I've noticed that the biggest fans of this film are invariably American or Scottish... so perhaps national identities are impossible to untangle from a film that uses a sledgehammer to shape an entertaining model of historical events? The strange thing is... I'm the least patriotic person you're ever likely to meet.

There's loads more I could mention (the bullshit black and white take on Scottish squalor in comparison to the English, the bullshit comic-book reasoning for Wallace's hatred of the English, the bullshit disarming of the Scots and it's unbearably blunt and undisguised parallel to the US 'right to bear arms', the bullshit "100 years of tyranny" that Scotland had suffered)... but I fear I've said too much already.

Try as I might, I just can't like the film. Invariably, I just want to put my foot through the tube. Having said that, I can see why it could be enjoyable.

 

[cravNbeets]

historical revisionism.

The limp-wristed, uber-queer (ergo: sneaky, by homophobic default) heir to the throne particularly winds me up. Edward may well have been gay in real life, but the use of his sexuality as a plot mechanism is particularly distasteful - as is the way that his sexuality and devious character are used interchangably to emphasise his nefarious and weasely motivation. It's a low watermark as far as filmmaking goes and, given recent events involving Gibson's anti-semitism, it doesn't strike me as surprising that Gibson would attempt to employ such trashy 'social commentary'. Two birds, one stone: you get to bash the homos in real life, while simultaneously emphasising the deviancy of 'the bad guys'.

i dont think he's portrayed as weasely or underhanded at all. his father certainly is. if anything, his foppish demeanor illustrates weakness (equally distasteful imo) and helps build a foundation, albeit a shaky one, for wallace's relationship with the future queen.

so you basically you werent able to overlook the historical inaccuracies bc you're english?

 

[tambourine-man]

Sort of. I was unable to overlook the historical inaccuracies because they seemed so glaring, contrived and downright cringe-worthy. Like I say, if it was another country's history - with which I had less than a minimum familiaritry with - then perhaps I would have evaluated the film purely on its entertainment merits.

You might be right about the son's portrayal. It's years since I last watched it, but I distinctly remember wanting to smother myself with a cushion on seeing the son's portrayal (although, I could have sworn that at some point, the son commits some devious act... though it may have been linked to cowardice, rather than deviousness).

What stood out, and remains firmly embedded in my mind, was the unabashed use of negative stereotypes as simplistic plot mechanisms to promote disgust in the audience. This article sums it up, really:

What then are the politics of Brave-heart's homophobic portrayal of Prince Edward? The director constructs Edward as the symbolic antithesis of manhood, incapable and unworthy of a place within the affairs of war and government. By defining Wallace's manhood in contrast to Edward's, Gibson invites a comparison of their politics. If Wallace fights for honor, justice, trust, integrity, and freedom, then the future Edward II must signify the negation of all these concepts. The effect of this portrayal is to construct the male homosexual as a representation of all that is repugnant.

Source: Masculinity and marginality in 'Rob Roy' and 'Braveheart.'

I've also just discovered that the screenplay was written by the same genius that wrote Pearl Harbour.

Anyway, enough hating. The action scenes were awesome and I can certainly see how the main battle scene inspired more than a few films that followed.