Braveheart (1995)

Producer and director Mel Gibson who put up $15 million of his own money to make this film does it all in this brawling historical epic about the 13^th century Scotsman and folk hero William Wallace, who valiantly led his people to freedom from under the hand of the arrogant English. Wallace was the first in history to fight not for self, not for land or the spoils of war, but for nation—for freedom. He used the steel of his blade and the fire of his intellect to rally his countrymen to liberation. The story of William Wallace was adapted by Randall Wallace, a distant relative to William Wallace, from 300 pages of rhyming verse written by a poet known as Blind Harry.

 

Gibson turns in his most memorable performance, and his most acclaimed, alongside other lesser-known (in the States) actors such as Catherine McCormack, Sophie Marceau, and Patrick McGoohan, who is decidedly hateful King Edward the Longshanks (Edward I). McGoohan played the Warden in the 1979 Clint Eastwood-Don Siegel collaboration Escape From Alcatraz.

 

Despite flaws (see trivia below), the sword clanging Braveheart took home five Academy Awards: Best Picture, Best Director, Best Makeup, and Best Cinematography. The film also features an excellent musical score by composer James Horner. (See below links.) As always, it is recommended that you see the widescreen version of the film if at all possible.

Related Links:

• Braveheart Encyclopedia
• Complete Braveheart site
• Dedication page
• Andy's Movie Sounds
• MacBraveHeart
• Bomis: Braveheart Web Ring
• Filmtracks: Braveheart Soundtrack
• Score: Braveheart soundtrack
• Movie poster
• Bravehearters

 

Trivia for Braveheart:

 

• Several of the major battle scenes had to be re-shot, as extras were seen wearing sunglasses and wristwatches.
• Director/producer Mel Gibson was investigated by the RSPCA, who were convinced that the fake horses used were real.
• When asked by a local why the Battle of Stirling Bridge was filmed on an open plain, Gibson answered that “the bridge got in the way.” “Aye,” the local answered, “That's what the English found!”
• The castle (King John's castle, Trim, Co. Meath, Ireland) where a lot of the scenes were shot was also used to film scenes for The Big Red One (1980).

·        The extras used for the battle scenes were mostly members of the F.C.A., the Irish version of the territorial army. As they were drawn from many different army companies, and the members of these are usually drawn from the same locality, local rivalry between such companies is common. Apparently, some of the battle scenes seen in the movie are far more realistic than you might imagine, with rival companies actually using the occasion to try the beat the lard out of each other!

·Continuity: Juxtaposition of the young Murron and her sister at Malcolm and John's funeral.

• Audio/visual unsynchronized: A man is seen playing the Highland Pipes at William's father's funeral, but they sound like Uillean Pipes.
• Continuity: The boulder that Hamish throws at William goes to pass him by the left shoulder, but ends up passing his right.
• Continuity: The amount of blood on Hamish's forehead after being hit by Wallace's rock.
• Continuity: William's sword after he flees town to meet Murron.
• Continuity: Campbell's arrow wound disappears during Murron's funeral.
• Continuity: Steven's hair when he joins the group.
• Continuity: When Stephen throws his short sword into Faudron's chest, Faudron drops his own sword. In the next shot, Faudron is seen holding his sword as he drops to the ground next to Wallace.
• Continuity: In the first battle scene, there is no army behind the charging cavalry.
• Continuity: In the first battle against the heavy horse, the Scottish army can be seen briefly with their poles raised before they do so later.
• Continuity: Wallace's paint changes slightly, including disappearing smears.
• Continuity: Wallace draws an arrow twice when hunting the deer.
• Continuity: Scarf on the chin of the Princess when she talks to Wallace.
• Continuity: Wallace's horse disappears after Robert the Bruce trips it.
• Revealing mistakes: Obvious fake horse that falls into the lake.
• Continuity: The body that falls from the rafters is wearing undergarments as it falls, but is naked when it is on the table.
• Continuity: The door to the jail cell where Wallace is held prisoner.
• Factual errors: the English killed Wallace’s wife after they chased Wallace.
• Factual errors: Wallace was killed in 1305, but Edward “Longshanks” survived until 1307. Prince Edward and Princess Isabel were married in 1309, and she had her first child in 1312.
• Revealing mistakes: In the final scene, Hamish's battle-axe blade can be seen flapping.
• Factual errors: Numerous other historical liberties taken.
• Continuity: As a child, William Wallace throws an object with his left hand. As an adult, he throws objects with his right.
• Continuity: Mel Gibson is seen running into battle with his sword drawn. It then cuts to the king overseeing the battle, then cuts back to Mel Gibson charging with no sword in hand. The movie cuts to another scene again, and upon returning to Mel Gibson charging into battle he once again has his sword.
• Revealing mistakes: During the battle of Stirling, the men fighting behind Wallace's shoulders are clearly not fighting, but are looking at each other for the next move.
• Factual errors: The “prima noctes” never existed. It is pure fiction.

 

 

Quotes from Braveheart:

 

Uncle Argyle: They are saying goodbye in their own way. Playing outlawed tunes on outlawed pipes.

 

Robert's father: Alas, you know what it means to hate. Now you're ready to be a king.

Robert the Bruce: My hate will die with you.

 

Princess Isabelle: The king desires peace.

William Wallace: Longshanks desires peace?

Princess Isabelle: He declares it to me, I swear it. He proposes that you withdraw your attack. In return he grants you title, estates, and this chest of gold which I am to pay to you personally.

William Wallace: A lordship and titles. Gold. That I should become Judas?

Princess Isabelle: Peace is made in such ways.

William Wallace: Slaves are made in such ways. The last time Longshanks spoke of peace I was a boy. And many Scottish nobles, who would not be slaves, were lured by him under a flag of truce to a barn, where he had them hanged. I was very young, but I remember Longshank's notion of peace.

 

Robert the Bruce: Lands, titles, men, power... nothing.

Robert's father: Nothing?

Robert the Bruce: I have nothing. Men fight for me because if they do not, I throw them off my land and I starve their wives and children. Those men who bled the ground red at Falkirk fought for William Wallace. He fights for something that I never had. And I took it from him, when I betrayed him. I saw it in his face on the battlefield and it's tearing me apart.

Robert's father: All men betray! All lose heart.

Robert the Bruce: I don't want to lose heart! I want to believe as he does!

 

William Wallace: There's a difference between us. You think the people of this land exist to provide you with position. I think your position exists to provide those people with freedom. And I go to make sure that they have it.

 

King Edward the Longshanks: Not the archers. My scouts tell me their archers are miles away and no threat to us. Arrows cost money. Use up the Irish. Their dead cost nothing.

 

Stephen: The Almighty says this must be a fashionable fight. It's drawn the finest people.

 

Englishman: ...from which you will pay the King an annual duty...

William Wallace: I said I have an offer for you.

Englishman: You disrespect a banner of truce?

William Wallace: From his king? Absolutely. Here are Scotland’s terms. Lower your flags, and march straight back to England stopping at every home you pass by to beg forgiveness for a hundred years of theft, rape and murder. Do that and your men shall live, do it not and every one of you will die today.

Englishman: You are out-matched. You have no heavy cavalry. In two centuraries no army has won without it...

William Wallace: I'M not finished! Before we let you leave. Your commander must cross that field, present himself before this army, put his head between his legs and kiss his own arse.

 

Robert the Bruce: You have bled with Wallace, now bleed with me.

 

Princess Isabelle: The king will be dead in a month and his son is a weakling. Who do you think is going to rule this kingdom?

 

William Wallace: Of course running a farm's a lot of work but that will all change when my sons arrive.

Murron: So you've got children?

William Wallace: Not yet, but I was hoping you could help me with that.

Murron: So you want me to marry you then?

William Wallace: Well it's a bit sudden but alright.

Murron: Is that what you call a proposal?

William Wallace: I love you, always have. I want to marry you.

 

William Wallace: I came home to raise crops, and God willing, a family. If I can live in peace, I will.

 

William Wallace: It's all for nothing if you don't have freedom.

 

William Wallace: It's fine Scottish weather we're having. The rain is falling straight down and kind of to the side like.

 

William Wallace: Why do you help me?

Isabelle: Because of the way you are looking at me now.

 

King Edward the Longshanks: He can invade lower England.

Phillip: We would stop him!

King Edward the Longshanks: Who is this person who speaks to me as though I needed his advice?

Edward’s son: I have declared Phillip my high counsellor.

King Edward the Longshanks: Is he qualified?

Phillip: I am skilled in the arts of war and military tactics, sire.

King Edward the Longshanks: Are you? Then tell me, what advice would you offer on the present situation...

[Throws him out of the window]

 

William Wallace: Before we let you leave, your commander must cross that field, present himself before this army, put his head between his legs, and kiss his own arse.

 

William Wallace: In the year of our lord thirteen fourteen, patriots of Scotland, starving and outnumbered, charged the fields of Bannockburn. They fought like warrior poets. They fought like Scotsmen. And won their freedom.

 

William Wallace: I love you. Always have. I want to marry you.

 

Stephen: [Speaking heavenward.] Him? That can't be William Wallace. I'm prettier than this man. Alright, Father, I'll ask him. [To William.] If I risk my neck for you, will I get a chance to kill Englishmen?

Hamish: Is your father a ghost, or do you converse with the Almighty?

Stephen: In order to find his equal, an Irishman is forced to talk to God. [Looking heavenward.] Yes, Father. [To William and his men.] The Almighty says don't change the subject; just answer the fookin’ question.

 

William Wallace's father: Your heart is free. Have the courage to follow it.

 

King Edward the Longshanks: Whom do I send? Not my gentle son. The mere sight of him would only encourage an enemy to take over the whole country.

 

Nicolette: Englishmen don't know what a tongue is for.

 

William Wallace: Ay, fight and you may die, run and you'll live. At least a while. And dying in your beds many years from now, would you be willing to trade all the days from this day to that for one chance, just one chance to come back here and tell our enemies that they may take our lives, but they'll never take our freedom.

 

[After killing a would-be assassin.]

Stephen: I didn't like him anyway. He wasn't right in the head.

 

Old Campbell: [after his wound is cauterized] That'll wake you up in the mornin'.

 

Hamish: Some men are longer than others.

Old Campbell: Your mother's been telling stories about me again, eh?

 

English Commander: I hope you washed your ass this morning. It's about to be kissed by a king.

 

Malcolm Wallace: It's our wits that make us men.

 

William Wallace: The answer is yes. Fight for me, you get to kill the English.

Stephen: Excellent!

 

William Wallace: Sons of Scotland, I am William Wallace.

Young soldier: William Wallace is 7 feet tall.

William Wallace: Yes, I've heard. He kills men by the hundreds, and if he were here he'd consume the English with fireballs from his eyes and bolts of lightning from his arse. I am William Wallace, and I see a whole army of my countrymen here in defiance of tyranny. You have come to fight as free men, and free men you are. What will you do with that freedom? Will you fight?

 

William Wallace: Go back to England and tell them there that Scotland's daughters and sons are yours no more. Tell them Scotland is free.

 

Englishman: William Wallace, you stand in taint of high treason.

William Wallace: Against whom?

Englishman: Against your king. Have you anything to say?

William Wallace: Never in my whole life did I swear allegiance to him.

Englishman: It matters not. He is your king. Confess and you may receive a quick death, deny and you must be purified by pain. Do you confess? Do you confess?

[Sigh]

Englishman: Then on the morrow you shall receive your purification.

 

Princess Isabelle: A baby, not of your line, grows in my belly.

 

King Edward the Longshanks: The trouble with Scotland is that it's full of Scots.

 

William Wallace: They may take our lives, but they'll never take our freedom!

 

Stephen: The Almighty thinks he can get me out of this, but he's pretty sure you're fooked.

 

William Wallace: Every man dies, not every man really lives.

 

Lord Bottoms: As lord of these lands I shall bless this marriage by taking the bride into my bed on the first night of her union.

Morrison: By God, you will not!

 

[Lord Bottoms has previously taken Morrison's wife as his own.]

Morrison: Do you remember me?

Lord Bottoms: I never did her any harm. It was my right.

Morrison: Your right? Well, I'm here to claim the right of a husband.

[Kills Lord Bottoms]

 

Old Campbell: I'm dying. Let me be.

Hamish: No. You're going to live.

Old Campbell: I've lived long enough to live free. And proud to see you become the man that you are. I'm a happy man.

 

Englishman: The prisoner wishes to say a word…

William Wallace: FREEEEEEDOMMMMM!!!

 

 

Cast overview, first billed only:

Mel Gibson ....  William Wallace 

Sophie Marceau ....  Princess Isabelle 

Patrick McGoohan ....  Longshanks - King Edward I 

Catherine McCormack ....  Murron 

Angus MacFadyen ....  Robert the Bruce 

Brendan Gleeson ....  Hamish 

David O'Hara  ....  Stephen 

Ian Bannen ....  The Leper 

James Robinson  ....  Young William 

Sean Lawlor ....  Malcolm Wallace 

Sandy Nelson ....  John Wallace 

James Cosmo ....  Campbell 

Sean McGinley ....  MacClannough 

Alan Tall ....  Elder Stewart 

Andrew Weir ....  Young Hamish 

 

 

 

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