That clip was from Braveheart which is my latest entry into our Looking Back Twenty Years series of reviews. The year was 1995, and Braveheart walked off with 5 Oscars including Best Picture and Best Director. Mel Gibson would not direct for about 8 years had passed until 2003. It was then that he directed his controversial film, The Passion of the Christ, which was released near the end of February, 2004.
I recall seeing Braveheart in a big movie house in Manhattan and was quite impressed at the time. But twenty years have passed and all of us see things with different eyes. Attitudes have changed, both personally and collectively. Besides that, both film makers and movie stars have grown older, and some have exhibited strange or awkward behaviors which cannot help but color our memories.
On top of all of that, we just get smarter as we age, in general. Not because we are truly gaining wisdom, but rather because information arrives in our brains much quicker, and we have the benefit of added life experiences and maturity. Okay, maybe maturity is not as universal as one would hope.
Braveheart was filled with bravery and courage, with romance and dastardy acts, and with heroes of epic proportions as well as villains never to be forgotten. As much as this film was about William Wallace the freedom fighter for Scotland, it was also about the inequities of the English nobility and rulers.
But when you look past the clanging swords, the brutal deaths on the fields of battle, the English were always wearing helmets and protective gear on their heads, while the Scots and the Irish did not. The English were tidy in one sense, but oppressive and morally corrupt in another sense.
Longshanks: The trouble with Scotland is that it is full of Scots.
Wallace and his cohorts were manly, rough and tumble, shaggy and long haired, but beneath their gruff exteriors – they were a gentle and loving folk. Which is why this film is as much about Wallace’s love for Murran as it is about fighting to rid the land of the oppressors.
The scenes with Murran and Wallace courting and loving each other forever are almost so ethereal. so nearly spiritual, and romantic, that we are helpless before the images. We are carried along by Gibson’s canvas of visual splendors. And Murran’s smile would melt the heart of anyone. Which is why her demise was so difficult – not only for Wallace himself, but also for the viewers.
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