I've had a problem with Mel's movies since Braveheart, but The Patriot always really annoyed me.
This chap does really good reviews, and I'm not saying that the film is totally lost (it looks great for instance), but the History Buffs vidcast hits the nail on the head.
Independence was the start of a process.
These Hollywood guys do it one movie (badly)...
Now, if you're currently researching how the truth is shaped to provide sustenance for later generations (someone should do a PhD on this...), this movie is invaluable evidence.
A bold post to be sure, Darren, but in glad you tackled this! Personally i was lost when the cannon balls started exploding (solid shot exploding!) And when Lord Cornwallis shows up at Cowpens.
ReplyDeleteI also thought their take on "the green dragon" Tarleton was ridiculously over the top. hollywood hyperbole.
Like most of us, i watched it for the uniforms, which, were also disappointingly erroneous!
Cheers mate ...I know, it's a difficult one, but that review hits the spot for me.
DeleteEvery time I see the Tarleton analogue in that movie, and Mel looking like an 18th century Mad Max, I just shake my head LOL ...and yeah, the solid shot, and the misplaced battles and ...oooh just too many.
Now a more poignant story might be about the Irish immigrants who ended up fighting on opposite sides - in comparison to where they had been in previous wars. Ulster Scots fighting in the Continental armies with Gaelic Irish fighting for the British. Now, there is a poignant story.
Wow isnt that the truth. Talk about complexities and great potential for really good stories.
DeleteThis movie is embarrassing crap as far as history is concerned, and needlessly inflammatory (the scene with the townspeople locked inside the church which is set ablaze is particularly egregious. No such epsode ever occurred during the Revolution.
ReplyDeleteThanks Gonsalvo.
DeleteYes, it's an annoying movie, very much in the same vein as Braveheart perhaps, but closer to home in that the the American Revolution is certainly still relevant in terms of recent history.
I'm hoping that people are becoming a little more enlightened and therefore that it wouldn't get remade today - mind you, if my research thus far is anything to go by, rewriting history, even well after the event, is nothing new.
I suppose that the political 'mood' of the moment still creeps into the screenwriter's 'craft' at times, but it's not an exact science.
Mix the right amount of producers. directors, inept screenwriting and 'money' and anything can get made. It's the responsibility of the viewing public to decide validity or otherwise after that. We can only hope that enough people still care.
You do realise that a whole political movement has grown up around Mel Gibson in Braveheart? There was a time people recognised films as a simple pleasure very loosely based around some fact. Gibson's Braveheart trod and trampled historical fact into the mud and created the narrative of those poor Scots. As for the Patriot, I cant bear to go there it was so dire.
ReplyDeleteThanks for that.
DeleteI'm in - where do I sign up?
Braveheart and Patriot (and many others) very much in the 'pop-corn entertainment' Hollywood bracket and enjoyable enough in that fashion but nothing approaching a proper history based approach beyond a broad brush premise.
ReplyDeletePants or not I do have them in my collection as they are 'War' movies and I suspect a lot of us do (dirty little secrets eh) :-)
As usual Steiner nails it! (And i too have the DVD, right there next to Braveheart and We Were Soldiers...)
DeleteMy dirty little secret is my collection of Michelle Pfeifer movies.
DeleteAnd yes, I even have Scarface...
'Say hello to my little friend...'
Heello nice blog
ReplyDelete