Mel Gibson’s Braveheart

Braveheart had trouble finding an audience when it was initially released but once it caught on it inspired a wave of historically inaccurate epic revivals that have been loved the world over. Braveheart pushes timelines around to have several historical personages who’s lives barely or didn’t overlap involved in intense interpersonal conflicts. Braveheart begins with Robert the Bruce narrating:

“Historians from England will call me a liar, but history is written by men who hanged heroes.”

Fuckin’ A! Before anybody has a chance to accuse you of poor research, state you’ll call them herokillers when they try. I think more films should start this way. I’d love if it From Russia with Love started with Sean Connery narrating:

“Hishtoriansh from Rushia will cole me a liyah, but they’re jusht a bunch of Shtalinisht bullshiting babyrapersh.”

It would help set the tone for things to come as it did in Braveheart. This guy who plays Robert the Bruce, the future King of Scotland, has a weak frame and a goatee to hide his lack of jawline. He has a modern look as though he belongs in a Kevin Smith movie putting his dick in a slushee machine but he is, in 1280 A.D. Scotland not putting his dick in a slushee machine, but playing the channels of power among Scotland’s nobility.

The film establishes that the King of England, Edward the Longshanks (best way of trying to make Edward a cool name ever), has taken control of Scotland and imposed a law that allows nobles to have first shag with any woman on her wedding night. HOLY SHIT! Who thought the Scotspeople would put up with that? I mean a tax hike is one thing, but when the taxman empties your pockets and then fills up your wife that’s just a recipe for revolt.

Shakira once wrote a song in which the chorus was:

“I’m starting to believe it should be illegal to deceive a woman’s heart.”

At the time I thought that was a pretty absurd proposal. I sorta figured that Shakira didn’t know anything about writing sound legislation. But after seeing the lawmakers in Braveheart pass the wiferapin’ clause through the system, I’m starting to think making it illegal to deceive a woman’s heart might not be that far off.

So, needless to say the English soldiers try to have their way with Mel Gibson (playing William Wallace)’s lady, he fights a bunch of them off, they kill his wife to get back at him, and then he goes on a rampage. That’s basically the crux of the film.

What ensues is a lot more like one of those 1970s revenge movies or that other Mel movie, Payback, than it is like Ben-Hur or Lawrence of Arabia. Mel Gibson directs this film and employs a Sam Peckinpah approach to brutal showdowns juxtaposed with slowburn character moments. Mel’s character, William Wallace, is established early on as being well educated and traveled. He uses his knowledge of foreign languages and philosophy to stab guys, hit their heads with hammers and set them on fire. At one point Mel and his posse are thinking of how they’ll fight heavy cavalry in few days. Mel scratches his head and comes up the idea of making really long spears. I think he must’ve got this idea from seeing the Eiffel Tower during his travels. Mel directed this film as to avoid really spelling that out for audience, but they make a big deal of Mel’s character speaking fluent French, so the origins of his spear idea are just left in the subtext.

Mel proves himself to be a distinct director with this film and would go on to direct an even more Sam Peckinpah style movie called Apocalypto. Mel’s defining touch is that he acknowledges that the whole world doesn’t speak English. A lesson he no doubt learned during his time in Australia. In Braveheart, the princess is from France and when she speaks to her chambermaid it’s in French. They put some subtitles on so that audience members who don’t speak French would understand. I like this touch of authenticity, it makes up for all the tools they used that weren’t invented yet, and all the historical personages whose lives never overlapped, and all that stuff that never happened. Mel took this even further by making his next two features entirely in dead languages. Good job Mel!

Mel comes up with some insane visual sequences. The best is one where one of the nobles who betrayed William Wallace is having a nightmare of Wallace riding out of flames with badassed warpaint on his face. The traitor wakes up and calms himself only to see Mel standing over him on a horse that he has ridden into the traitor’s bedroom. His nightmare has become a knightmare! Get it? Mel then smashes the guy’s head in with a steel ball on a chain and rides the horse out the window and leaps off into a moat below. Frankly, if he’d been there on a motorcycle I wouldn’t have noticed the inaccuracy because the moment was just so damn cool.

Later he drops the cold corpse of one traitor from a high beam onto the dining table while the other traitors are having supper. Obviously stating that revenge is a dish best served cold. This is the kind of ironic murdering that history would not really see again until the SAW movies. Mel didn’t even need a freaky puppet to instil fear in his victims.

I’m not sure if these scenes were added once they found out Mad Max himself would be taking the lead role and they knew he could pull off this level of high-art revenge. But they really add a spark to the movie and give this William Wallace a cold personal edge that comes from speaking fluent French.

On the DVD they chat with the writer of this film who’s name is Randall Wallace and is an American. He claims that before a family trip to Scotland he had never heard of William Wallace and then did some research (thinking about ways to stab guys and set them on fire) and wrote this film. I found this pretty funny, since William Wallace is a well-known historical personage. I guess the American school system isn’t that good in terms of European history, but the way this Randall Wallace guy says it you’d think he’d been doing geological research and somehow missed this until he got Scotland and noticed every second street had a statue of him. I checked out other historical epics and found that this trend did not repeat. The Messenger was not written by some lady named Sally of Arc, nor was Downfall written by a bloke named Dave Hitler who had never heard of the other guy with that name. That would have been too funny. Anyway, I’m not going to give this Randall Wallace chap too hard a time because he wrote a good yarn and travels with his family. Stand-up guy.

A lot of the historical epics that followed Braveheart ran into trouble really selling what idea the hero was fighting for and maintaining the historical setting. In Gladiator, Maximus claims to be fighting for democracy, but what did democracy mean back then? The people pissed in public so the idea of a private voting booth seems a little far off. In the ridiculous King Arthur, the guy who should’ve played James Bond instead of Daniel Craig is fighting for some notion of “everyman being born free”, I can accept the historical theory that King Arthur and Abraham Lincoln were the same guy, but he then he really pushes it and talks about an idea resembling citizenship, not subjecthood. I’d love to see Clive Owen and Kiera Knightley setting up an old-fashioned passport booth, but it’s a sight to which we are not treated. Braveheart goes with a timeless message of “don’t fuck my bitch”, a sentiment that never seems before its time. In fact, my only minor problem with this movie has been its title, I think Mel Gibson’s Don’t Fuck My Bitch! would have been much better.