The Patriot (2000 film)

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The Patriot
Promotional film 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 Tchéky Karyo
Music by	John Williams
Cinematography	Caleb Deschanel
Editing by	David Brenner Julie Monroe
Distributed by	Columbia Pictures
Release date(s)	United States June 27, 2000 United Kingdom July 14, 2000 Australia July 20, 2000 New Zealand August 10, 2000
Running time	164 minutes
Country	United States
Language	English
Budget	US$110,000,000 (estimated)
Gross revenue	United States $113,330,000 International $101,970,000 Worldwide $215,300,000[1]

The Patriot is a 2000 epic^[2] war film directed by Roland Emmerich, written by Robert Rodat, and starring Mel Gibson 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 South Carolina (and was entirely filmed there) and depicts the story of a war hero swept into the American Revolutionary War when his family is threatened. The protagonist, Benjamin Martin, is loosely based on real Continental Army officer Francis Marion and other Revolutionary War figures. The Patriot was nominated for three Academy Awards: Best Sound, Best Cinematography, and Best Original Music Score.

Contents 1 Plot 2 Cast 3 Production 3.1 Script 3.2 Casting 3.3 Filming 4 Reviews 4.1 Criticism 5 Historical authenticity 5.1 Depiction of protagonist 5.2 Depiction of antagonist 5.3 Depiction of historical battles 5.4 Depiction of atrocities in the Revolutionary War 5.5 Depiction of slavery 6 Score 7 References 8 Further reading 9 External links

[edit] Plot

At the beginning of the American Revolution, Benjamin Martin (Gibson) is a South Carolina veteran of the French and Indian War and a widower raising his seven children (Gabriel, Thomas, Margaret, Nathan, Samuel, William, and Susan) on his plantation. Gabriel (Ledger), the eldest, is anxious to join the American forces fighting the British in the Revolutionary War. Knowing war from personal experience, Ben tries to discourage his son's ambitions, but his son enlists anyway.

Gabriel returns home some time later, stumbling wounded into the family home and carrying military dispatches. The next day, a military skirmish has the Martins caring for the wounded from both sides. British soldiers - the ruthless Green Dragoons cavalry - arrive and kill the Colonial wounded, burn down the Martin house and arrest Gabriel as a spy, intending to hang him. When Ben's next eldest son, Thomas (Smith), protests against Gabriel's capture, he is shot and killed by the leader of the Green Dragoons, Colonel William Tavington (Isaacs).

Making use of his knowledge of fighting in the wilds, Ben and his two younger sons, Nathan (Morgan) and Samuel (Chafin) set forth to ambush the British column in the woods. They manage to kill most of the soldiers in an ambush and free Gabriel. The boys are horrified at their first glimpse of their father's ferocity. Gabriel rejoins the cause against his father's will again, stating it is his duty as a soldier. Ben decides to join as well, leaving the rest of the children in the care of their aunt Charlotte (Richardson), Ben's sister-in-law.

Continental Army Colonel Harry Burwell (Cooper), having fought alongside Ben in the French and Indian War, asks him to organize a militia designed to keep British General Cornwallis (Wilkinson) in the south until the French navy arrives to assist. French officer Jean Villeneuve (Karyo), is present to help train the militia.

Ben's South Carolina militia uses guerrilla warfare, attacking the British supply lines. To combat the militia, Cornwallis has Tavington track Ben's family to their refuge with Charlotte and burns down her plantation. However, the family escapes, and are led to a safe haven by Gabriel. Gabriel also marries his childhood friend Anne (Brenner). Soon after, Tavington orders Anne and her family, along with all their fellow townspeople, to be burned alive whilst locked in the church for aiding the Continentals.

A grief-stricken Gabriel rides out with others to avenge their loss. During the ensuing fight, Tavington kills Gabriel and escapes. Ben is devastated and his zeal for combat extinguished, but soon returns to the Continentals to avenge his sons. During the final battle, in which Ben uses the militia to lure the British into a trap, Ben fights Tavington in a vicious duel. Tavington manages to bring Ben to his knees while mockingly noting that his foe is not the better man. Ben then kills Tavington, noting his agreement, and that his sons were in fact better men. The tide of battle quckly turns and Cornwallis is forced to retreat and eventually surrender.

Martin and his family return to their home to find the militia helping to rebuild it.

[edit] Cast

• Mel Gibson - Benjamin Martin
• Heath Ledger - Gabriel Martin
• Joely Richardson - Charlotte Selton
• Jason Isaacs - Colonel William Tavington
• Chris Cooper - Colonel Harry Burwell
• Tchéky Karyo - Jean Villeneuve
• René Auberjonois - Reverend Oliver
• Lisa Brenner - Anne Howard
• Tom Wilkinson - Lieutenant-General Charles, Lord Cornwallis
• Peter Woodward - Major-General Charles O'Hara
• Donal Logue - Dan Scott
• Leon Rippy - John Billings
• Adam Baldwin - Captain Wilkins
• Jay Arlen Jones - Occam
• Joey D. Vieira - Andrew Head
• Gregory Smith - Thomas Martin
• Mika Boorem - Margaret Martin
• Skye McCole Bartusiak - Susan Martin
• Trevor Morgan - Nathan Martin
• Bryan Chafin - Samuel Martin
• Logan Lerman - William Martin
• Terry Layman - General George Washington
• Andy Stahl - General Nathanael Greene

[edit] Production

[edit] 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.

[edit] Casting

Joshua Jackson, Elijah Wood, 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]} Harrison Ford reportedly declined the lead role.^[3]

[edit] Filming

The film's 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".^[4]

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 Morris, as well as nearby Fort Lawn.^[5] Other scenes were filmed at Mansfield Plantation, an antebellum rice plantation in Georgetown.^[6] 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.^[4] Producer Dean Devlin and the film's costume designers examined actual Revolutionary War uniforms at the Smithsonian Institution prior to shooting.^[4]

When teaching Mel Gibson and Heath Ledger how to shoot a muzzle-loading rifle, technical advisor Mark Baker gave them the advice to "aim small, miss small", meaning that if you aim at a man and miss, you miss the man, while if you aim at a button (for instance) and miss, you still hit the man. Gibson liked this bit of advice so much he incorporated it into the movie, just prior to the ambush scene.^[5]

[edit] Reviews

The Patriot received mixed to generally favorable reviews from critics. The film scored a "Certified Fresh" rating of 62% rating among all critics (however only scored a "Rotten" rating of 38% among top critics) on Rotten Tomatoes, which notes that it "can be entertaining to watch, but it relies too much on formula and melodrama."^[7][8] 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".^[9] 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".^[10]

[edit] Criticism

Despite its financial success, The Patriot received some criticism from critics and historians for its inaccurate depiction of events in the Revolutionary War. Because of the level of violence in the film, including a scene showing two children killing a group of soldiers, the media considered that in the U.S. the film would be classified as 'R' for strong war violence.^[11] Historian David Hackett Fischer writes in an editorial submitted to the New York Times on July 1, 2000 that although the film purports to be a history of the American Revolution "egregious errors appear in every scene. "The problem is not merely that a director has failed an academic test of accuracy, but that the errors have weakened the film's dramatic impact by making our War of Independence appear so artificial," wrote Fischer. "He would have done better if he had listened to history more closely."^[12] A response to the opinion was voiced by Jeffrey Abelson: "If our children were taught history instead of demagogy and if they read more than they watched TV, historical inaccuracy in a piece of $9 entertainment would be mere distortion by another storyteller."^[13]

[edit] Historical authenticity

[edit] 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".^[4] The film's screenwriter, Robert Rodat, said of Mel Gibson's character: "Benjamin Martin is a composite character made up of Thomas Sumter, Andrew Pickens, and Francis Marion, and a few bits and pieces from a number of other characters".^[4] The primary figure, Francis Marion, was a militia leader in South Carolina known as the "Swamp Fox", who was decried by the British newspaper, The Guardian, as "a serial rapist who hunted Red Indians for fun", and quoted historian Christopher Hibbert as saying: "The truth is that people like Marion committed atrocities as bad, if not worse, than those perpetrated by the British."^[14] Hibbert does not provide sources for these opinions; but in the film, Gibson's fictional character acknowledges his involvement in acts of brutality during the French and Indian War. In his lengthy book Redcoats and Rebels: The American Revolution Through British Eyes, written before "The Patriot" was released, Hibbert has no criticism of Marion. In a commentary published in the National Review, conservative talk radio host Michael Graham said he understood Hibbert's desire to re-write history but rejected Hibbert's criticisms:

"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."^[15]

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".^[15]

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.”^[16] 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 says that based on the facts, "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."^[16]

[edit] 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.^[4] Ben Fenton, commenting in the British Daily Telegraph on the sadistic character of Tavington, 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."^[17] Tarleton's involvement in the Waxhaws massacre in South Carolina has stained his reputation, but 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^[18]. However when recounting the Battle of The Waxhaws, known to the Americans as the Buford Massacre or as the Waxhaw massacre, an American field surgeon named Robert Brownfield, recounted Tarleton's action:

"What actually happened is the subject of much debate. According to a rebel eyewitness, a field surgeon named Robert Brownfield, 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 rebels 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". Tarleton's men stabbed the wounded where they lay.

In Tarleton's own account, he virtually admits the massacre, stating that his horse had been shot from under him during the initial charge and his men, thinking him dead, engaged in "a vindictive asperity not easily restrained."

The Waxhaw massacre became an important rallying cry for the revolutionaries. Many people who had been more or less neutral became ardent supporters of the Revolution after the perceived atrocities. "Tarleton's quarter", meaning no quarter would be offered to British and Loyalist soldiers, became a rallying cry for American patriots for the rest of the war.

[edit] Depiction of historical battles

The climactic battle at the end of the film is based on a conglomeration of Pickens' actions at the Battle of Cowpens where Tarleton was defeated and Cornwallis was not present, and the battles of Guilford Courthouse, Hobkirk's Hill and Eutaw Springs where Marion fought and which Cornwallis won.^[12]

[edit] Depiction of atrocities in the Revolutionary War

^{[neutrality disputed]}

Also criticized was the film’s depiction of atrocities in the Revolutionary War, including the killing of prisoners of war, the wounded, and children, culminating in a group of townsfolk being burnt alive in a church, in a scene resembling the massacre of Oradour in German-occupied France during World War II.^[12] In a review article in Salon.com, Jonathan Foreman, film critic for the New York Post, wrote: "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 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."^[19]

[edit] Depiction of slavery

In a letter to the editor of the Hollywood Reporter U.S. director Spike Lee also accused the film’s portrayal of slavery as being "a complete whitewashing of history".^[20] Lee says 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. How convenient... to have Mel Gibson's character not be a slaveholder... The Patriot is pure, blatant American Hollywood propaganda."^[20]

[edit] Score

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

The film's main theme was played at Barack Obama's victory rally following his election to the office of President, when he, his running mate Joe Biden and their families appeared onstage following his victory speech.^[21]

[edit] References

[edit] Further reading

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

[edit] External links

• The Patriot at the Internet Movie Database
• The Patriot at Rotten Tomatoes
• The Patriot at The Numbers
• Government info on Southern Campaign, Banastre Tarleton and Benjamin Martin

Preceded by X-Men

Box office number-one films of 2000 (AUS) July 23 - July 30

Succeeded by Chopper

v • d • e Films directed by Roland Emmerich 1980s Das Arche Noah Prinzip (1984) · Joey (1985) · Hollywood-Monster (1987) 1990s Moon 44 (1990) · Universal Soldier (1992) · Stargate (1994) · Independence Day (1996) · Godzilla (1998) 2000s The Patriot (2000) · The Day After Tomorrow (2004) · 10,000 BC (2008) · 2012 (2009)