Still, the film isn’t a bad melodrama and Gibson himself is rather good, and gets some equally good performance out of a cast without a huge amount of star wattage, although I’m kicking myself for not recognising Patrick McGoohan as King Edward I until now. The whole thing looks good and the battle scenes, so often dull and hard to follow, are genuinely dramatic and gripping.
It may play a few tricks with history- Edward I did not die at the same time as William Wallace was hung, drawn and quartered, and Robert the Bruce didn’t have much success until years later- but Braveheart is an entertaining and fun, if rather violent, Hollywood treatment of a somewhat neglected historical saga. Still watchable after all these years.
I personally think this film is average but I agree there is no point in simply criticizing films for being more fictional than historically accurate. I feel the characters are one dimensional though. In fact, considering the film makes it clear it is dealing with an unreliable narrator, I thought that the exaggerations and lies about Wallace’s great deeds in the film ("William Wallace killed 50 men, as if it was one") were going to be a subtle commentary on the oral process of composing the Blind Harry poem. The poem does reference actual historical figures, but in magical and fantastic contexts, so one can imagine that the original Wallace story started out very basic and then grew more fantastical from telling to telling. That could have been a really good idea and framing for the movie, and a call-back to the opening voiceover, "Historians from England will say I am a liar, but history is written by those who have hanged heroes".
ReplyDeleteThen Wallace suddenly sleeps with Princess Isabelle (despite having known each other for just one scene, not to mention it comes across as awkward as Wallace is actually technically cheating on his dead ghost wife Murron) and, yeah. Ah well.
Agreed that there is no point in critiquing such movies for not being documentaries.
ReplyDeleteI know that this film is now known for being attacked for its historical inaccuracies, but my main gripe is that the characters Feel one dimensional (Wallace’s affair with the French Princess after knowing each other for one scene is an example) In fact, I think the film makes it clear it’s dealing with an unreliable narrator and I think the film missed an opportunity to address historians it is meant to be a folk version of Wallace’s story. that the exaggerations and lies about Wallace’s great deeds in the film ("William Wallace killed 50 men, as if it was one") were going to be a subtle commentary on the oral process of composing the Blind Harry poem. The poem does reference actual historical figures, but in magical and fantastic contexts, so one can imagine that the original Wallace story started out very basic and then grew more fantastical from telling to telling. That could have been a really good idea and framing for the movie, and a call-back to the opening voiceover, "Historians from England will say I am a liar, but history is written by those who have hanged heroes".
Interesting way of seeing it, as the tall tale an unreliable narrator. Not, I suspect, what Gibson was going for- he's not that subtle- but no less valid for that!
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