« It's all in the horns.... | Main | Dante Blogging - Inferno Canto XXV »
November 7, 2009
Gosh Braveheart is bad
I had forgotten.
I'm watching it tonight for the first time all the way through since it came out. It's AWFUL.
Maybe the worse is the ius prima noctis idiocy.... If you still believe in THAT one go buy this book, read it, and get back to me. Oh, while you're on the topic of 18th century perversion projected onto the Middle Ages, feel free to buy and read this one, too.
But who can tell. It's pretty awful.
Posted by CrankyProfessor at November 7, 2009 10:17 PM
Comments
I did watch it all the way through when it first came out (well, minus several episodes of putting my hands over my eyes): I was so appalled at the violence that even Mel Gibson's inherent appeal couldn't compensate. I also remember wondering whether a real historian would sign off on the plot. Now I know.
Posted by: Kalynne Pudner at November 7, 2009 11:23 PM
I can't even begin to count the ways in which I detest this film.
Perhaps the most depressing thing about it was to move to Scotland and find that the young people there had bought it as an accurate representation of their history -- in particular, of Scotland's relationship with England. Stirling, which already has a moody Victorian memorial to William Wallace nearby, recently lavished public funds on a pug-ugly statue of Gibson as "Braveheart." Cue black despair on the part of every Scottish historian (and sculptor).
BBC4 recently ran quite a good documentary on the use and abuse of Wallace's biography: "Three Lives of William Wallace." It will probably turn up on cable TV in the US.
Posted by: Nick Thompson at November 7, 2009 11:42 PM
Have you seen this?
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/scotland/article6890067.ece
Posted by: Another Damned Medievalist 
at November 8, 2009 9:47 AM
The 1990s did not constitute a great decade overall for Academy-Award winning best films. (Who remembers THE ENGLISH PATIENT now? Or even FORREST GUMP?). But the 1980s were worse. I really cannot remember the 1988 Academy Award picture unless I think really hard. Yes, RAIN MAN. I saw that again, and wondered how the Academy could have been SO wrong.
Posted by: John Thomas McGuire at November 8, 2009 12:50 PM
I'm with Nick: let me count the ways I hated it. Bleh.
I hate(d) Forrest Gump with even more ire.
Posted by: Bryan Alexander at November 9, 2009 3:08 PM