Anniversary of the Braveheart

On May 18, 1995, at the Seattle Film Festival, USA, Mel Gibson's film "Braveheart" was presented to the audience.

The film received 33 film awards, including 5 Oscar awards (out of 10 nominations received), including the most important ones: as Best Film and for Best Director, as well as Golden Globe for Best Director. But in Europe, this film has not received awards in the most important categories. Yes, he was awarded 3 British BAFTA Prizes (out of 7 nominations), but only in technical categories. Other European film forums have not even awarded this epic blockbuster a single nomination.

As for the film critics' assessment of the film, a sharp difference in the ratings of American and British film critics is striking. So, American critics literally chant the picture of Mel Gibson. Caryn James from The New York Times wrote: "The story of William Wallace, who led the Scots in a struggle for freedom from England's brutal rule, "Braveheart" evokes old-fashioned movie epics. Gibson's stroke of brilliance is to revel in those epic qualities - tragic romance and unbounded heroism, gorgeous photography and a cast of thousands - and add a swift contemporary kick."

Roger Ebert rated the film with three and a half stars out of 4 possible and described it as "an ambitious film, big on simple emotions like love, patriotism and treachery, and avoids the travelogue style of so many historical swashbucklers: Its locations look green, wet, vast, muddy and rugged. an action epic with the spirit of the Hollywood swordplay classics and the grungy ferocity".

But reviews from British critics sound less "epic." For example, Adam Mars-Jones from the Independent in a review entitled "It's bare knees against articulated metal pyjamas in Mel Gibson's latest butchfest" писал: "In the absence of satisfying moral dilemmas, Braveheart is an action film with an unhappy ending rather than the tragedy it would like to be."

Jeoff Andrew, an observer of the British publication Time Out, gave an even sharper and more definitive assessment of the film.: "From the opening shots, swirling through the mists o' time over snowy peaks and silvery lochs, to the final torture scenes in which disembowelment provokes only a brave grimace, Gibson's epic offers a stew of Hollywood clichés....Pure hokum."

But the reviews of British film critics, with all their harshness, are practically nothing compared to the assessments of Mel Gibson’s work by political observers of British newspapers. There were many accusations in the political media about the film, such as “Braveheart gave full rein to a toxic Anglophobia”, “xenophobic film”, “The Braveheart phenomenon, a Hollywood-inspired rise in Scottish nationalism”, etc. etc.

The reason for such sharp differences in estimates is very simple: a grandiose amount of historical inaccuracies and direct falsifications, which are filled with the film. On the net you can find at least half a dozen multi-page articles listing these historical inaccuracies. Perhaps the abundance of these historical inaccuracies in the film is due to the peculiarities of creating the script for this film.

The author of the script - Randall Wallace - turned out to be in Edinburgh in Scotland for some business that was completely unrelated to the creative process and saw a monument to the national hero of Scotland, William Wallace. Up to this point, the American screenwriter did not suspect the existence of his namesake in the history. But Wallace, who Randall, decided that he was a descendant of the famous Scots, and immediately got the idea to write a script for a film about the famous "ancestor". Naturally, Randall's goal was to present William in the most favorable light.

Lacking the slightest idea of ​​the era of William Wallace and his deeds, Randall Wallace took the poem of the 15th century minstrel known as Blind Harry, “The Actes and Deidis of the Illustre and Vallyeant Campioun Schir William Wallace” as the basis of his future script. . This poem among literary works is the second most popular in Scotland after the Bible. Naturally, the medieval poem does not and cannot contain all the historical details necessary for the production of the film. Therefore, all that was missing in the Blind Harry poem, Randall Wallace himself thought up. After all, at the university he studied Russian language and philology, and also achieved success in karate. This background is enough to write a script for an American historical film. And even if the American Film Academy, which gave the film 10 nominations, did not consider it possible to include Randall Wallace among the nominees, the Writers Guild of America awarded him the prize for the best original screenplay.

14 years after the film was released, Mel Gibson, apparently tired of the constant accusations on all sides of the historical incompetence shown in the film, decided to give an explanation. In an interview with the British newspaper The Daily Mail in October 2009, he admitted that the film was completely fictional, but stated that the fiction was needed solely for dramatic purposes. He said: "I think films are there first to entertain, then teach, then inspire. There probably were historical inaccuracies--quite a few. But maybe there weren't, who's to say, because there was very little history about the man. It wasn't necessarily authentic. In some of the stuff I read about him, he wasn't as nice as he was on film. We romanticized it a bit, but that's the language of film--you have to make it cinematically acceptable. Actually, he was a monster--he always smelled of smoke because he was always burning people's villages down. He was like what the Vikings called a 'berserker'. But we kind of shifted the balance a bit, because somebody's got to be the good guy and somebody the bad guy, and every story has its own point of view. That was our bias."

Since, according to Mel Gibson, it was necessary to portray someone as a "bad guy", Robert the Bruce and his father were assigned to this role in the film. And this extremely offended many Scots, since Robert the Bruce is also considered a national hero in Scotland. One could assume that this was done unknowingly. But something makes one doubt the correctness of such a conclusion. The fact is that only a few frames with landscapes in the film were made in Scotland, and all other shots were made in Ireland. Moreover, 1,600 extras featuring Scottish warriors took part in the film. And all these extras were soldiers of the Irish army. But in the days of William Wallace, the Irish fought side by side with the British against the Scots. So, most likely, the Russian proverb "the cat knows whose butter he has eaten".

Above were the most typical ratings of American and British film critics for the film "Braveheart". And what about the Russians? Russian critics, one might say, have woven their voice into the polyphonic chorus of the praise of American film experts. So, Evgeny Nefyodov wrote in his review: “Unfortunately, Randall Wallace’s excellent script turned out to be deprived of attention. In the history of the 13th century Scottish national hero who led the protracted war for independence from England, he was able to summarize the traditions of legends about freedom fighters that were composed at different times among many nations and very often inspired filmmakers. Wallace assured in an interview that he had never heard anything about that ancient Wallace, but thought he was his descendant, feeling the hero’s blood in his veins: “I can’t to prove it, but no one can refute it". And further, the film is inherent in " ... the depth of analysis of the socio-historical reasons for the inevitable defeat of Scotland in the confrontation of England, whose imperial ambitions multiplied in parallel with the growth of power: military and economic. "

Film critic from Novosibirsk Andrei Malov wrote: “As expected, “Braveheart” turned out to be pathetic through and by. But this pathos is nothing but a tribute to democratic ideals. You never get tired of wondering with what purposefulness American cinema continues to cultivate what seems to be archaic for the end of the 20th century ideas about national liberation wars. Deficit of their own historical events systematically encourages Americans to turn to a more saturated European history."

With one conclusion from the Malov's assessment of the film, can be agreed without any reservations: with the conclusion about the "deficit of their own historical events" among Americans. But the scanty history of the American nation, everywhere emphasizing its own exclusiveness, at the same time gives rise to the unceremoniousness with which they, the Americans, deal with the history of other countries. We have already touched on this topic, for example, in the publication on the film "Gladiator". And, just as with the film "Gladiator", we can doubt the justice of referring "Braveheart" to the genre of "historical film". Again, rather, this is a "costume action movie." Although, let’s give credit, there are more reliable historical details in the Gibson film than in the Ridley Scott film.

What can not be taken away from the Mel Gibson film is entertainment. So this is understandable: 72 million dollars were spent on making the film (equivalent to the current 123 million dollars). So the well-known Russian proverb “would be a chicken, cook and a fool” suggests itself. And the box office of the film is very impressive - 213 million dollars, of which 75 million dollars were earned inside the United States, and almost 138 million - outside the United States.

83% of IMDB and Kinopoisk users around the world gave this film a rating of 8 to 10. At the same time, 27% of users rated the film at a maximum of 10 points.

Based on the listed indicators of the success of the film "Braveheart", its rating according to the version of FilmGourmand was 8.594, which allowed it to take 284th place in the Golden Thousand.