An essay about the film Braveheart using film terminology. PDF

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An essay about the film Braveheart using film terminology....

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Death Prophecy In 1959, Fidel Castro siezed Cuba and the revolution triumphed. My grandfather, who was born in 1951, spent thirty years fighting against Castro and his injustice and he committed many crimes against the government such as burning down an entire field of sugar cane. As a result, he stopped fighting and protesting against the government. I remember when he told me this story, he was peeling a sugar cane as the warm summer breeze hit his face. I asked him “Why did you stop grandpa? Didn’t you want the people to be free?” so he said, “I started to fight the government because I didn’t want my family to be oppressed, but if I had kept protesting and starting fires, then I would’ve had no family left to fight for.” For as long as my grandfather lived in Cuba he was constantly being watched because that’s what happens when the government declares you a political prisoner and marks you as an enemy of the state. In the film Braveheart, William Wallace (Mel Gibson) as a child sees his father, brother and several other nobles from Scotland get murdered by the English soldiers. Many years go by and Wallace, now an educated man, returns to his village where he reunites with Murron (Catherine McCormack) and they decide to get married in secret. Furthermore, the English end up executing Murron and the ultimately leads Wallace to begin the war for Scotland’s independence. In Tim O’Brien’s “How to Tell a True War Story” the idea of what truly makes a war story real comes into question as O’Brien states there is certain criteria that a war story must meet in order to be considered credible. In my opinion, When keeping Tim O’Brien’s “How to Tell a True War Story” in mind, Mel Gibson’s film Braveheart should be classified as a true war story because it was a love story and it did not make me feel uplifted.

Nevertheless, Braveheart was all about love, which involved the romance that William Wallace had with Murron. In fact, it was his love for her was what began the war between the people of Scotland and the British. After William Wallace fell in love with Murron, they married in secret after the King of England declared that on the day of her marriage a Scottish bride could be forced to have sex with an English Lorde for that was his right, according to the King. Based on the idea that the film was truly about love, it would make it a true war story, O’Brien states in his short story “A true war story is never about war. It’s about sunlight. It’s about the special way that dawn spreads out on a river when you know you must cross the river and march into the mountains and do the things you are afraid to do. it’s about love and memory” (81). One day, one of the English soldiers tried to rape Murron and as she was defending herself, she bit off a piece of his right cheek. Wallace takes out the soldiers and saves her. In a medium long shot, we see as Wallace thought he has just saved her but as they walked out, the English soldiers gather in front of them. Via a medium shot, Wallace rushed Murron to the nearest horse and he asked, “Can you ride?” so she responded “Aye,” and he launched her onto the horse. However, before Murron rode, the soldier that tried to rape Murron yelled “Come back here, you bastards” in a medium close-up. The English soldiers ran towards Wallace as Murron galloped away. After seeing his love get way, Wallace sighed, but soldiers surrounded Murron and slapped her with a long stick; as a result, she fell off her horse and was captured. Then, in a medium shot, Wallace disguised himself as an English soldier by wearing the dark red uniform with a yellow symbol in the front in order to escape, so he sprinted to the forest where he had hoped to find Murron. Through a medium shot, he anxiously begins to examine the area for Murron and yelling her name as he is taking off the English soldier uniform. Later, he found out that the English killed her because

she attacked the King’s soldier and according to the colonel “an attack on the King’s soldiers is like an attack on the King, himself.” In a close- up, Murron is shown as she stares at the hillside, her eyes filled with tears as she hopes Wallace will come to her rescue. The colonel, in a two shot takes pulls out a knife and slits her throat, and in an extreme close-up her eyes are shown dazing towards the ground as she dies. Before Wallace marries Murron, he asks her father for her hand in marriage, in a medium close-up he says “I came back home to raise crops and, god willing, a family. If I can live in peace, I will,” in a long shot Murron’s father responds “You say you want to stay out of the troubles? If you can prove it, you may court my daughter. Until you prove it, my anwser’s no.” William Wallace had no intention of fighting the British, his intention was to live a peaceful life, but they killed his wife. The death of his wife was what encouraged him to fight for Scotland’s independence, proving that the film was never really about the war itself. Also, Braveheart never made me feel uplifted, since William Wallace was captured by the British and tortured until he died. According to history, Wallace was tortured much more gruesomely than in the film. In the film Wallace was hanged, stretched, and disemboweled, meaning they basically cut him open and slowly pulled apart his lower intestines. In addition, Tim Obrien’s criteria for “How to Tell a True War Story” states “If at the end of a war story you feel uplifted, or if you feel that some bit of rectitude has been salvaged from the larger waste, then you have been made the victim of a very old and terrible lie” (65). The film lacks emotional satisfaction because Wallace is tortured and executed in the end. Framed at a close-up, Wallace is stretched but through hallucination, he spotted his wife, Murron. All the while, Wallace clutched Murron’s cloth. In a medium close-up, the executioner raised his ax, then it jump cuts to Robert the Bruce as his hands are clutched together and his eyes are filled with tears. As a result, Wallace had an

absent expression on his face until he saw Murron in the crowd, then the expression became appealing as if he were waiting for her permission so he could die. Using rack focus and slow motion, the axe was about to cut off Wallace’s head, but via Wallace’s point of view shot, Murron smiled. After Wallace was executed, we saw Wallace’s arm stretched out as his left hand released Murron’s cloth, which, via slow motion, fell. The entire film was very intense but the execution scene was uniquely horrifying because it brought out the worst of human beings, the scene exposed how the thirst for blood and power could take way the humanity of an entire nation. For example, during the execution scene a medium close-up shot was taken of a blonde little boy as he is watching Wallace being tortured and he is smiling. Braveheart was not uplifting at all but it’s the ending scene that really takes away the inspirational aspect of the film. Not only is a true war story filled with love, it also contains the real pain that is felt during times of war. I believe the film Braveheart is a true war story. Ultimately, it was about love, not war, and it’s anything but uplifting. Furthermore, Wallace’s love for Murron was what began the war between Scotland and Britain and it was his love for her that drove him to fight for freedom until the day he died. Also, the story wasn’t uplifting because after all the good that he did he was tortured, beheaded, and he didn’t even have a proper burial. The film also contains many other characteristics that according to Tim O'Brien's standards would classify it as a true war story. In fact, O’Brien’s standards sustain high credibility because he fought in Vietnam. Also, I believed there were parts of the film that William Wallace felt that the love for his wife would get him through the war and instead he was executed before the war ended, Mel Gibson wanted to show viewers the reality of life, and how unfair it is. Overall, the film contains the characteristics that, according to Tim O'Brien, would make it a true war story. My grandfather’s story also contained

many of these characteristics. Much like my grandfather, William Wallace fought for his family because in a true war story, war didn’t matter, and the story doesn’t end with a happy ending....