The Patriot (2000 film)

The Patriot
Theatrical release poster
Directed by	Roland Emmerich
Produced by	Dean Devlin Mark Gordon Gary Levinsohn
Written by	Robert Rodat
Starring	Mel Gibson Heath Ledger Jason Isaacs Joely Richardson Chris Cooper Tom Wilkinson
Music by	John Williams
Cinematography	Caleb Deschanel
Editing by	David Brenner Julie Monroe
Studio	Centropolis Entertainment Mutual Film Company
Distributed by	Columbia Pictures
Release date(s)	June 30, 2000 (2000-06-30)
Running time	165 minutes 175 minutes (extended cut)
Country	United States
Language	English
Budget	$110 million
Box office	$215,294,342

The Patriot is a 2000 historical war film directed by Roland Emmerich, written by Robert Rodat, and starring Mel Gibson, Chris Cooper, and Heath Ledger. It was produced by the Mutual Film Company and Centropolis Entertainment and was distributed by Columbia Pictures. The film mainly takes place in rural York County, South Carolina and depicts the story of an American swept into the American Revolutionary War when his family is threatened. The protagonist, Benjamin Martin, is loosely based on real Continental Army officers Francis Marion, Nathanael Greene, Andrew Pickens and other Revolutionary War figures.

Plot

At the beginning of the American Revolution, Benjamin Martin (Mel Gibson) is a South Carolina veteran of the French and Indian War and a widower raising his seven children. The year is 1776, and Martin is called to Charleston to vote in the South Carolina Assembly whether a levy should be passed in support of the Continental Army. Fearing the consequences of a war with Great Britain, Martin refuses to vote in support of the levy, which is nonetheless passed. Ashamed of his father's perceived cowardice, Martin's eldest son, Gabriel (Heath Ledger), enlists in the Continental Army against his father's wishes.

A few years pass and Charleston falls to the British Army. During a battle, Gabriel returns home wounded and carrying military dispatches. The Martins care for wounded British and American soldiers after the nearby battle. A detachment of British Dragoons arrives, led by the ruthless and brutal Colonel William Tavington (Jason Isaacs). They arrest Gabriel as a spy and intend to execute him back at their camp despite Martin's pleas. When Martin's next eldest son Thomas attempts to free Gabriel, he is shot and killed by Colonel Tavington. Tavington orders the Martin house burned, and the American wounded killed. Martin and two of his young sons get revenge by ambushing the British convoy, freeing Gabriel in the process. Only one British private survives and tells Tavington his frightening sight of a single man slaying all of his fellow soldiers before he vanished.

Gabriel and Martin decide to rejoin the American army and fight the British, leaving the rest of the children in the care of Martin's sister-in-law, Charlotte (Joely Richardson). Due to his battlefield experience, Martin is appointed a colonel and put in charge of the local militia. His goal will be to keep Lord Cornwallis (Tom Wilkinson) occupied in South Carolina in order to prevent him from marching north. Martin recruits and trains his force with the assistance of Major Jean Villeneuve (Tchéky Karyo), a French infantry officer, who is assigned to Martin's South Carolina militia unit and promises French aid. The militia use guerrilla warfare, harassing British supply lines, capturing goods, and burning half the bridges and ferries leading to Charleston. These tactics earn him the disdain of Lord Cornwallis, who perceives these actions as uncivilized. He reprimands Tavington for using brutal tactics which only increase the opposition.

However, irritated at the lack of progress and insulted by Martin's clever ploy to free eighteen of the militia captured by the British regulars, Cornwallis reluctantly enlists Colonel Tavington to use whatever means necessary to capture Martin and crush his militia, knowing full well the tactics Tavington will employ. Tavington learns the identities of some of the militia members and proceeds to attack their families, and burn their homes. Martin's family is forced to flee Charlotte's plantation as it is burned, and settle along the coast with a group of former black servants. There, Gabriel marries his longtime love Anne (Lisa Brenner) and Martin bonds with Charlotte. During his campaign, Tavington rides into a town known to support the militia and has the inhabitants locked in the church, but not before learning the whereabouts of Martin. He then orders the church burned, killing all inside, including Gabriel's new wife. An infuriated Gabriel, with a small group of militia, attack Tavington's encampment. Gabriel shoots Tavington, but Tavington mortally wounds Gabriel with his sword. Martin arrives only to have Gabriel die in his arms.

Heartbroken, Martin briefly wavers in his commitment to fight, but later rejoins the Continental Army. At the Battle of Cowpens, the Americans and British fight in a decisive battle. During the chaos, Martin finally finds and duels Tavington. However, Tavington proves the superior fighter and severely wounds Martin. Just as Tavington prepares to finish off Martin, Martin picks up a bayonet, swings around and stabs Tavington twice, killing him and avenging his family. The Battle of Cowpens ends in a decisive American victory and Cornwallis is forced to call a retreat. After a series of defeats, Cornwallis is besieged at Yorktown, Virginia, where he surrenders to a combined American and French force. Martin returns to his farm to find his family, neighbors and fellow militia men rebuilding his home, as they begin life anew.

Cast

• Mel Gibson as Benjamin Martin: The main protagonist. A veteran of the French and Indian War as the "Hero of Fort Wilderness" and widowed father of seven children, Benjamin does what he can to avoid fighting in the Revolutionary War knowing the implications surrounding it. When his oldest son, Gabriel joins up, and his second born son, Thomas is killed, he takes it upon himself to join and fight with the colonial militia. He is nicknamed "The Ghost" by the British. He is based on a composite of historical characters which include Thomas Sumter, Daniel Morgan, Nathanael Greene, Andrew Pickens, and Francis Marion.
• Heath Ledger as Gabriel Martin: Benjamin's eldest son and child, he decides to join up with the Continental Army against his father's wishes. He is killed during an attack on the Green Dragoons camp.
• Joely Richardson as Charlotte Selton: Benjamin's sister-in-law and owner of a plantation. She looks after Benjamin's children while he is fighting. At the end of the film, it seems that she married Benjamin and had a child by him, but only after, it should be noted, Benjamin agrees that "she is not her sister," his late wife.
• Jason Isaacs as Colonel William Tavington: The main antagonist. Colonel of the Green Dragoons, he is portrayed as a charismatic sociopath and a brutal commander. Long ago, his late father wasted away the family money, along with William's inheritance. He becomes interested in becoming a landowner in the Ohio territory after the war. He is nicknamed "The Butcher" by Brigadier General O'Hara. The character is loosely based on Banastre Tarleton.
• Chris Cooper as Colonel Harry Burwell: One of Benjamin's commanding officers in the French and Indian War and a colonel of the Continental Army. He fought in the 1775 Battle of Bunker Hill. When his wife gives birth to their firstborn son, they name him after Benjamin's late eldest son, Gabriel. His character is loosely based on, Lieutenant Colonel ("Lighthorse Harry Lee") Henry Lee II.
• Tchéky Karyo as Major Jean Villeneuve: A French soldier who trains Martin's militia, he holds a grudge against Martin for his part in the French and Indian War, but they become close friends by the war's end. He explains in the film that he watched his wife and two daughters, 12-year-old Violette and 10-year-old Pauline (both green-eyed), being burned in the ship that carried them by the British, which explains his hatred for them. He serves as Martin's second-in-command.
• René Auberjonois as Reverend Oliver: A minister of Pembroke who volunteers to fight with the militia. He also tries to give spiritual advice to his fellow soldiers. He is one of the eighteen captured men taken to Fort Carolina and released later on by Benjamin. He aides Gabriel in killing Captain Bordon, but is mortally shot by Tavington. Before dying, he courageously tosses his musket to Gabriel so that he may finish off Tavington.
• Lisa Brenner as Anne Howard-Martin: Gabriel's childhood friend and love interest, whom he marries later in the film. She is killed in the town church along with the rest of the town on Tavington's orders.
• Tom Wilkinson as Lieutenant General Charles, Lord Cornwallis: A general of the British army. While pompous and arrogant, he is disgusted by Tavington's savage tactics. Cornwallis is a skilled commander, with Martin calling him a genius, but he sees militia as nothing more than "farmers with pitchforks" and is easily duped by Martin in a key scene. His two Great Danes, Jupiter and Mars, are a gift from His Majesty, King George III.
• Peter Woodward as Brigadier General Charles O'Hara: Cornwallis' second-in-command. Like Cornwallis he also does not share Tavington's views on war.
• Donal Logue as Dan Scott: One of Benjamin's men. He is a racist and bullies the former slave Occam, but grows to befriend him, especially when saved by him while wounded. During the last battle, Dan mentions that it is October now, signifying to Occam that it has been 12 months since the former slave signed up to battle, making him a free man. After Occam mentions that he is aware of this and is fighting now on his own accord, he tells Occam he's honored to fight by his side.
• Leon Rippy as John Billings: One of Benjamin's neighbors and oldest friends who joins the militia. He is one of the 18 captured men taken to Fort Carolina and released later on by Benjamin. Afterward, John helps Charlotte Selton and Benjamin's children escape the burning of the Selton plantation. He commits suicide after Tavington's men kill his wife and son and sets fire to his property.
• Adam Baldwin as Captain James Wilkins: An officer in the Loyalist Colonial militia recruited into the Green Dragoons by Captain Bordon. He knows everything about Benjamin Martin, and is called upon by Tavington to divulge such information when required. Earlier on, at the South Carolina Assembly in Charleston, he is one of the twelve out of forty to vote against a levy for the Continental Army. He fights alongside Tavington, and also shares these brutal views on how "all those who stand against England deserve to die a traitor's death." When he is forced to burn the church at Pembroke, with town residents inside by Tavington, only then does he regret his own words and realize what kind of man his commanding officer really is. He is last seen fighting alongside the British in the Battle of Cowpens. His fate is not shown.
• Jamieson K. Price as Captain Bordon: Tavington's second-in-command of the Green Dragoons and chief intelligence officer. He is just as ruthless as his commander, "strong-arming" prisoners during interrogations. He is killed by Gabriel in the youth's raid against the Dragoons.
• Jay Arlen Jones as Occam: An African slave. He is sent to fight in his master's place. He is taunted and bullied by the other members of the militia, but is treated as an equal by Benjamin, Gabriel, Jean, and later on by Dan Scott and the others. He gives out information of the captured eighteen militia men at Fort Carolina while escaping Tavington's trap. After serving a year in the Continental Army, he becomes a free man, but nonetheless still served with the militia until the end of the war.
• Joey D. Vieira as Peter Howard: Anne Howard's father, who lost his left leg and most of his hearing while fighting the French and Indian War. He likens British taxation policies to the British taking his other leg.
• Gregory Smith as Thomas Martin: Benjamin's second son, he, like Gabriel, is anxious to fight in the war, but Benjamin says he has to wait because of his age. He is shot and killed by Tavington when he protests against Gabriel's arrest. Tavington rebukes him as a "stupid boy" for his actions afterward.
• Mika Boorem as Margaret Martin: Benjamin's oldest daughter, she is often seen taking care of her younger siblings.
• Skye McCole Bartusiak as Susan Martin: The youngest daughter and child among Benjamin's seven children, she has a problem with speaking, which may be a post-traumatic reaction to the death of their mother; only later on does she finally open up. Her feelings towards her father change radically as the film progresses, and after Benjamin leaves from the furlough to rejoin his militia, in a very emotional scene, she seemingly forgives him and tells him she'll say anything he wants to make him stay, to which Benjamin can only promise to return, which Susan accepts.
• Trevor Morgan as Nathan Martin: Third son, he and Samuel help around the farm. When Gabriel is taken prisoner and Thomas is killed, he and Samuel help his father on a rescue mission. Unlike Samuel, he is "glad" to kill British soldiers.
• Bryan Chafin as Samuel Martin: Fourth son, he is usually seen helping Nathan around the farm. When Gabriel is taken prisoner and Thomas is killed, he helps his father, Benjamin, rescue Gabriel by killing several British soldiers, even though he doesn't want to kill. For a short while, he becomes scared of his father after he witnesses him brutally killing and mutilating, post-mortem, a British soldier with a tomahawk.
• Logan Lerman as William Martin: Benjamin's fifth and youngest son, he is often seen being taken care of by his sister, Margaret.
• Terry Layman as General George Washington.
• Andy Stahl as General Nathanael Greene.
• Grahame Wood as a friendly British Lieutenant at Martin's farm who interacts with both Benjamin Martin and Colonel Tavington. He sees Tavington's orders to kill the Colonial wounded and other prisoners revolting, but remains silent and follows through with the orders without question, largely out of fear for his own life. He dies shortly afterwards in Martin's skirmish to rescue his son, Gabriel.

Production

Script

Screenwriter Robert Rodat wrote 17 drafts of the script before there was an acceptable one. In an earlier version of the script, Anne is pregnant with Gabriel's child when she dies in the burning church. Rodat wrote the script with Mel Gibson in mind for Benjamin Martin, and gave the Martin character six children to signal this preference to studio executives. After the birth of Gibson’s seventh child, the script was changed so that Martin had seven children.

Casting

Joshua Jackson, Elijah Wood, Jake Gyllenhaal, and Brad Renfro were considered to play Gabriel Martin^{[citation needed]}. The producers and director narrowed their choices for this role to Ryan Phillippe and Heath Ledger, with the latter chosen because, in their opinion, he possessed "exuberant youth."^{[citation needed]}

Filming

The film's German director Roland Emmerich said "these were characters I could relate to, and they were engaged in a conflict that had a significant outcome – the creation of the first modern democratic government."

The movie was filmed entirely on location in South Carolina, including Charleston, Rock Hill - for many of the battle scenes, and Lowrys - for the farm of Benjamin Martin, as well as nearby Fort Lawn. Other scenes were filmed at Mansfield Plantation, an antebellum rice plantation in Georgetown, Middleton Place in Charleston, South Carolina, and Hightower Hall and Homestead House at Brattonsville, South Carolina, along with the grounds of the Brattonsville Plantation in McConnells, South Carolina. Producer Mark Gordon said the production team "tried their best to be as authentic as possible" because "the backdrop was serious history," giving attention to details in period dress. Producer Dean Devlin and the film's costume designers examined actual Revolutionary War uniforms at the Smithsonian Institution prior to shooting.

Reception

The Patriot was nominated for three Academy Awards: Best Sound (Kevin O'Connell, Greg P. Russell and Lee Orloff), Best Cinematography, and Best Original Music Score.

The Patriot received generally favorable reviews from critics. The film scored a "Certified Fresh" rating of 62% rating among all critics (and scored a rating of 57% among top critics and 80% among the public) on Rotten Tomatoes, which notes that it "can be entertaining to watch, but it relies too much on formula and melodrama." Regarded as Roland Emmerich's best film to date^{[citation needed]}, The Patriot was one of two Emmerich films to ever be given a "fresh" rating from that website (the other was Independence Day). On Metacritic, the film earned a rating of 63 out of 100, indicating "generally favorable reviews". New York Times critic Elvis Mitchell gave the film a generally negative review, although he praised its casting and called Mel Gibson "an astonishing actor", particularly for his "on-screen comfort and expansiveness". He said the film is a "gruesome hybrid, a mix of sentimentality and brutality". Jamie Malanowski, also writing in the New York Times, said The Patriot "will prove to many a satisfying way to spend a summer evening. It's got big battles and wrenching hand-to-hand combat, a courageous but conflicted hero and a dastardly and totally guilt-free villain, thrills, tenderness, sorrow, rage and a little bit of kissing". Other general complaints included the film's lack of historical authenticity, the depiction of the antagonists, and some cases of poor acting.

Historical authenticity

Depiction of protagonist

The Patriot's producer, Mark Gordon, said that in making the film, "While we were telling a fictional story, the backdrop was serious history". The film's screenwriter, Robert Rodat, said of Mel Gibson's character: "Benjamin Martin is a composite character made up of Thomas Sumter, Daniel Morgan, Andrew Pickens, and Francis Marion, and a few bits and pieces from a number of other characters". The film was harshly criticized in the British press in part because of its connection to Francis Marion, a militia leader in South Carolina known as the "Swamp Fox." After the release of The Patriot, the British newspaper The Guardian denounced Francis Marion as "a serial rapist who hunted Red Indians for fun." Historian Christopher Hibbert said of Marion,

"The truth is that people like Marion committed atrocities as bad, if not worse, than those perpetrated by the British."

However, The Patriot does not depict the American character Benjamin Martin as innocent of atrocities; in fact, Martin describes slowly mutilating and killing prisoners during the French and Indian War. In Hibbert's book Redcoats and Rebels: The American Revolution Through British Eyes, written before "The Patriot" was released, Hibbert included no criticism of Marion. Conservative radio host Michael Graham rejected Hibbert's criticism of Marion in a commentary published in National Review:

"Was Francis Marion a slave owner? Was he a determined and dangerous warrior? Did he commit acts in an 18th century war that we would consider atrocious in the current world of peace and political correctness? As another great American film hero might say: 'You're damn right.' "That's what made him a hero, 200 years ago and today."

Graham also refers to what he describes as "the unchallenged work of South Carolina's premier historian Dr. Walter Edgar, who pointed out in his 1998 South Carolina: A History that Marion's partisans were "a ragged band of both black and white volunteers".

Amy Crawford, in Smithsonian Magazine, stated that modern historians such as William Gilmore Simms and Hugh Rankin have written accurate biographies of Marion, including Simms’ “The Life of Francis Marion.” The introduction to the 2007 edition of Simms' book was written by Sean Busick, a professor of American history at Athens State University in Alabama, who wrote,

"Marion deserves to be remembered as one of the heroes of the War for Independence." “Francis Marion was a man of his times: he owned slaves, and he fought in a brutal campaign against the Cherokee Indians...Marion's experience in the French and Indian War prepared him for more admirable service."

During pre-production, the producers debated on whether Benjamin Martin would own slaves, ultimately deciding not to make the protagonist a slave owner. This decision received criticism from Spike Lee, who in a letter to the Hollywood Reporter accused the film’s portrayal of slavery as being "a complete whitewashing of history". Lee wrote that after he and his wife went to see the movie, "we both came out of the theatre fuming. For three hours The Patriot dodged around, skirted about or completely ignored slavery." Mel Gibson himself remarked that “I think I would have made him a slave holder. Not to seems kind of a cop-out.”

Depiction of antagonist

The antagonist, the fictional Colonel William Tavington, is "loosely based on Colonel Banastre Tarleton, who was particularly known for his brutal acts", said the film's screenwriter Robert Rodat. After the release of The Patriot, several British voices criticized the movie for its depiction of the fictional villain Tavington and defended the historical character of Banastre Tarleton. Ben Fenton, commenting in the British Daily Telegraph, wrote:

"there is no evidence that Tarleton, called 'Bloody Ban' or 'The Butcher' in rebel pamphlets, ever broke the rules of war and certainly not that he ever shot a child in cold blood."

Although Tarleton gained the reputation among Americans as a butcher for his involvement in the Waxhaw massacre in South Carolina, he was a hero in Liverpool. Liverpool City Council, led by Mayor Edwin Clein, called for a public apology for what they viewed as the film’s "character assassination" of Tarleton. What happened during the Battle of The Waxhaws, known to the Americans as the Buford Massacre or as the Waxhaw massacre, is the subject of debate. According to American field surgeon named Robert Brownfield who witnessed the events, the Continental Army Col. Buford raised a white flag of surrender, "expecting the usual treatment sanctioned by civilized warfare". While Buford was calling for quarter, Tarleton's horse was struck by a musket ball and fell. This gave the Loyalist cavalrymen the impression that the Continentals had shot at their commander while asking for mercy. Enraged, the Loyalist troops charged at the Virginians. According to Brownfield, the Loyalists attacked, carrying out "indiscriminate carnage never surpassed by the most ruthless atrocities of the most barbarous savages".

In Tarleton's own account, he stated that his horse had been shot from under him during the initial charge in which he was knocked out for several minutes and that his men, thinking him dead, engaged in "a vindictive asperity not easily restrained."^{[citation needed]}

Whereas Tavington is depicted as aristocratic but penniless, Tarleton came from a wealthy Liverpool merchant family. Tarleton did not die in battle or from impalement, as Tavington did in the film. Tarleton died on January 16, 1833 in Leintwardine, Shropshire, England, at the age of 78, nearly 50 years after the war ended. He outlived Col. Francis Marion who died in 1795, by 38 years. Before his death, Tarleton had achieved the military rank of General, equal to that held by the overall British Commanders during the American Revolution, and became a baronet and a member of the British Parliament. There he was, unfortunately for his legacy, a fierce defender of the African slave trade upon which his family fortune was based.

Depiction of atrocities in the Revolutionary War

The Patriot was criticized for misrepresenting atrocities during the Revolutionary War, including the killing of prisoners of war and wounded soldiers and the burning alive of a group of townsfolk in a church. While atrocities such as these indeed happened on both sides during the war, the more striking aspects of these British atrocities, it was said, had been borrowed from war crimes committed by Germans during World War II. The key incident of the deliberate burning down of a church packed with unarmed American civilians had no factual basis, and no parallel in the revolutionary war or in European 18th century wars against other occidental peoples. The New York Post film critic Jonathan Foreman was one of several focusing on this distortion in the film, and wrote the following in an article at Salon.com:

"The most disturbing thing about The Patriot is not just that German director Roland Emmerich (director of Independence Day) and his screenwriter Robert Rodat (who was criticized for excluding British, Canadian (Juno Beach) and other Allied soldiers from his script for Saving Private Ryan) depict British troops as committing savage atrocities, but that those atrocities bear such a close resemblance to war crimes carried out by German troops - particularly the SS in World War II. It's hard not to wonder if the filmmakers have some kind of subconscious agenda ... They have made a film that will have the effect of inoculating audiences against the unique historical horror of Oradour - and implicitly rehabilitating the Nazis while making the British seem as evil as history's worst monsters ... So it's no wonder that the British press sees this film as a kind of blood libel against the British people."

Washington Post film critic Stephen Hunter, a historian of the era, said: "Any image of the American Revolution which represents you Brits as Nazis and us as gentle folk is almost certainly wrong." The historian Richard F Snow, editor of American Heritage magazine, said of the church-burning scene "Of course it never happened – if it had do you think Americans would have forgotten it? It could have kept us out of World War I."

On the other hand, some reviewers claimed the film to be generally accurate in its depiction of the war in the Carolinas as exceptionally brutal. For example, Kirkus Reviews quoted South Carolina historian Dr. Walter Edgar on the subject:

Though critics faulted ... The Patriot for attributing actions to the hated British Legion that were in fact those of the SS in WWII, Edgar (History/Univ. of South Carolina) writes that atrocities were many in the South Carolina backcountry: women and children slaughtered, prisoners executed without trial, whole towns put to the torch... "in the 1990s instead of the 1780s, [officers] such as Banastre Tarleton and James Wemyss would have been indicted by the International Tribunal at the Hague as war criminals."

The concept of patriotism

Slate columnist and noted socialist Michael Lind criticized the identification of the leading character's actions with patriotism. Specifically, Lind stated that "this movie is deeply subversive patriotism. Indeed, patriotism is a concept that neither the screenwriter [...] nor the director [...] seems to understand". He further wrote that "The message of The Patriot is that country is an abstraction, family is everything. It should have been called The Family Man". The New York Times columnist Paul Krugman agreed with this assessment, writing: "The Gibson character was presented as a man who refused to get involved until his own family was hurt -then, he went to war for personal revenge. [...] As Lind said, the truth is that that's more or less the opposite of patriotism, which is about making sacrifices for the national good, not serving your personal motives or interests.".

Score

Main article: The Patriot (soundtrack)

The score was composed by John Williams, and was nominated for an Academy Award.

Further reading

• "The Patriot: The Official Companion" by Suzanne Fritz and Rachel Aberly
• "The Patriot: A Novel" by Stephen Molstad

Note

In the movie, Mel Gibson's character says in the movie, "Why should I trade one tyrant three thousand miles away for three thousand tyrants one mile away?". Those words were actually spoken by Massachusetts Royal Governor Thomas Hutchinson during the protests over British taxes that led to the war. He was referring to the colonial legislature.

The final battle was a combination of Cowpens and Guilford Court House. However, Cornwallis' order to fire the cannon on friend and foe alike was accurately depicted.

External links

• The Patriot at the Internet Movie Database
• The Patriot at Rotten Tomatoes
• The Patriot at Box Office Mojo
• Government info on Southern Campaign, Banastre Tarleton and Benjamin Martin
• The Patriot: Extended Cut Blu-ray Disc Review at HD Report