Custom «Movie Critique» Essay Paper Sample

Brave heart is a 1995 movie. Mel Gibson is the movie director. Its contextual period is within the thirteenth century during the reign of the cruel King Edward "Long shanks" of England who had enthroned himself as the King of Scotland. William Wallace loses his father and brother during a war. William's uncle takes him to abroad to live with him. A few years later William returns so that he can settle and build a life in his homeland. He marries Murron, a girl he knew when he was young. William's wife, Murron, is assaulted by a soldier and later she is executed. William and other men forms an uprising against the English army and authority challenging justice and the man handedness of the leadership. Eventually this leads to the Scottish fight for independence. William Wallace plans and executes the greatest fight at Stirling, the Battle of Stirling Bridge. He invents spears that were as twice as long as men and used them to kill the entire English army. He proceeds to York one of the most essential military base and takes control of it. Later he leads the Fallkirk war, but two noblemen turn against him and he loses the war but kills them later. He refuses to give in to the King and he is sentenced for hanging. After the death of William Wallace, Robert the Bruce takes over and becomes the leader of the last Scottish war for freedom, the battle of Bannockburn. Robert the Bruce had been collaborating with William Wallace all along. Robert was the son of a noble leper.

Though the film has a couple of historical facts that are so true for instance the series of wars by William Wallace against the King of England King Edward 1 and most of the characters in the film like William Wallace, Robert the Bruce, Edward I, Princess Isabella, Prince Edward, the Sheriff of Lanark were true historical figures. The name Braveheart was in essence derived from a name one of Robert the Bruce's men used to describe King Robert the Bruce and not William Wallace. Secondly the film represents William Wallace as a poor man who married secretly to avoid the customs, precisely the custom of primae noctis. However William Wallace was a person from a stable background with a good education. He was a landed man, in those periods landed men were obligated to sign the Ragman Roll, the Ragman Roll was a promise to remain loyal to the king. During the thirteenth century the Scottish did not have the belted plaid as shown in the film, in fact when the belted plaid began being worn it was not in the peculiar style that we see William Wallace and the men wearing in the film.

Historically William Wallace did not ever meet the Princess, Isabella. Princess Isabella and King Edward married three years after William's death. She was barely nine years old when William Wallace died. As such the two - William Wallace and Prince Isabella could never have met as represented in the film. The film displays Robert Bruce in the field battle at Falkirk whereas he was not present during the war at all. Robert the Bruce occasionally changed loyalty between William Wallace course and the English authorities, may be for political reasons, as his father, the leper wanted him to take the ruler ship. Robert the Bruce never did directly betray William Wallace The movies illustration of the Battle of Stirling Bridge shows the Scots opposite the English on a level plain on identical terms, when in actuality it took place at a bridge where the outnumbered Scots were able to deliberate their army on the overextended English who were in the process of crossing the bridge. Lastly, Mel Gibson, the director in the DVD commentary of the film accepts that there are a couple of historical inaccuracies but bridges the gap by noting that the way proceedings were depicted in the film was much more "cinematically compelling" than the past details or conventional mythos.