Braveheart

[StevePulaski]

Braveheart (1995)
Directed by: Mel Gibson

Rating: ★★★½

It takes a simple and marginally informed soul to criticize Mel Gibson's filmography based on his actions and statements as a person, but it takes a stronger one to commend his undeniable filmmaking skill. Gibson has made his directorial career largely about the martyrs of different time-periods in history, those to whom history books might dedicate a page or a short blurb, and expands their legacies into sprawling pictures about the will of the human spirit. The Passion of the Christ and his most recent film, Hacksaw Ridge, position the worn and weathered man against an army of groupthink, where radical ideas like forgiveness, enlightenment, and pacifism do not sit comfortably alongside age-old, traditionalist ideology.

Gibson directs Braveheart as the epitome of an epic film, decorating it with romance and bloodshed, triumphs and torture, and interjecting some light-hearted comedy to prevent the mutilations and impalement of humans and horses from becoming too much to bear. He also challenges himself to play William Wallace, an intelligent, mulleted warrior who goes on to lead an army of angered and disenfranchised Scotsmen to rebel against King Edward (Patrick McGoohan) and his oppressive regime following his move to conquer Scotland. He does it all with the allies of his friend Hamish (Brendan Gleeson) and the newly appointed Robert the Bruce (Angus Macfadyen). Through passionate rallies and a persistent personality, Wallace helps turn the disillusionment of the Scots into fuel for a bloody fire against the well-equipped and highly skilled Englishmen.

This is a story and battle as old as time, only the names and teams have changed as we watch the underdogs attempt to upset the more poised and adept favorites that any oddsmaker would clearly choose. In one telling scene that summarizes both sides up very nicely, the Scotsmen and the English come face-to-face in a large field, perfect for battle. After some taunting on part of the Scots, the English fire their bows into the air to reign on the rugged, unkempt army of disobedient leeches. Most of the Scots react just in time. They shield themselves from bows falling like rain, with only a few suffering injuries. In response, the Scots pull down their kilts to moon the opposing team. They've won in their minds and the battle hasn't even truly begun.

Gibson paints Wallace as a warrior with intellect and the ability to marshal men onto his side in the name of unity and "freedom," a foreign concept during this time-period, roughly the late-1200s and early-1300s. He's an arresting figure in appearance and presence. His stature frequently appears larger than those around him and his confidence is unmatched by any of the other troubled men of Scotland. It's an obvious danger for a filmmaker to try and do too much with his own work, so Gibson's role as director, producer, and lead actor understandably prompts concern. However, by the end of the film's fairly quick three hour runtime, you have a difficult time imagining someone else making this film, or even approaching this story.

But where Gibson really shines and makes this his opus is behind the camera, making the film a sprawling and unmatched medieval epic in scope and beauty. His visual look, aided by cinematographer John Toll (The Thin Red Line), gives the film a doomy quality in its focus on swampy greens, muddy terrain, and ominous purple skies that seem to darken faster and witness all the action on the battlefields. The natural beauty is absolutely immaculate, and loans itself to being immersive and visually arresting. Often times during the bloodshed, such as when horses are impaled by the Scots, who just narrowly avoid being trampled based on their implicit trust of Wallace, the skies and the environment seem to play supporting characters in the action.

It's also the directorial grace of Gibson's easy hand that makes the locations come to life; they're not just shown, they are absorbed within a wide-angle lens that he knows how to employ and a sense of skillfulness that shows he has studied and learn from filmmakers before him.

Braveheart packs a commendable amount of range into its three-hour runtime. Once again, it adheres to the standards of the most treasured epics of cinema, like Ben-Hur and Lawrence of Arabia. It fuels its ultimately masculine story of savagery and violent barbarism with a romantic subplot between Wallace and Princess Isabella (Sophie Marceau), King Edward's son's wife. The film forces that element a bit too much, and screenwriter Randall Wallace undoubtedly illustrated a fictional romance in order to give Braveheart a bit of a softer edge to break up the endless bouts of violence within the film. Like most of the melodramatic moments of the film, the romance works best when it's not burdened by an occasionally overbearing score. Like even the best epics, the music can overplay every moment, but here, it at least becomes fitting when bagpipe orchestration takes over during some of the exterior shots.

Braveheart that it shouldn't work as well as it does given how much it tries to do. Epics are notorious for biting off more than they can chew in the regard of character, scope, and tone, but Gibson, through all the brutality and romance, never loses sight of Wallace's precocious ideological desire for freedom and liberty. Like any epic, themes come largely in buzzwords and words we cherish without fully understanding, but I'd be lying if I didn't get shivers down my spine hearing Wallace's rallying "freedom!" wail before his execution. Braveheart is a film to prompt emotional relevance based on its grandiose scope and diverse emotions encased within its lengthy runtime, all while its gifted filmmaker never loses sight on the story's main character and his personal resilience.

Starring: Mel Gibson, Patrick McGoohan, Angus Mcfayden, Brendan Gleeson, and Sophie Marceau. Directed by: Mel Gibson.