Talk:Braveheart

Explanation of changes: no one, not even the film's makers, contend it is historically accurate; it wasn't only Scottish historians, but historians in general who noted its inaccuracy; and the effect on the Scottish National Party, important as it may have been to them, is a footnote, not belonging in the initial paragraph. A list of inaccuracies might be useful here. Someone else

This is a movie folks, not a documentary. It is fiction and any article about a bloody movie is no place for anyone to voice political opinions. What crap! ....DW

Removed paragraph:

The Scottish National Party benefited politically from the film Braveheart, receiving a 10% increase in the opinion polls after they handed out political leaflets to Scots cinema-goers before they saw the film. Mel Gibson spoke against this, saying he was appalled by the exploitation of the film for political purposes.

The political consequences of a film and the effects that a film has on society is an important thing for us to consider. The above paragraph should be reinserted after this article becomes more extensive. It is probably not appropriate to have half the text of the article about the political aspects. --mav

Braveheart is no more an inaccuracy than any given Hong Kong depiction of Wong Fei Hung. Film isn't about historical accuracy, it is about using history to create drama. Philwelch 06:34, 28 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Hm... There is no doubt that the number of historical inaccuracies in this film were a talking point, and there is no doubt that the film had political ramifications beyond its intention. So I think it would be worth mentioning a few of them. I actually think perhaps we should have an article Historicial inaccuracies in the film Braveheart or some such. We have a precedent in Historical Anomalies (Blackadder) Mintguy (T) 09:51, 20 Aug 2004 (UTC)

I agree that the film is not a documentary. However, the inaccuracies are relevant to the film and should be included in the article, not relegated to a separate page. To be fair, some of the inaccuracies are minor and actually improve the story. I have added a paragraph stating this.

Some of the listed inaccuracies, such as the date of Isabella's marriage and omitting Edward I's second wife, are IMHO very minor and could be removed from the list.

I question one very significant plot point which may be in error. At the beginning of the film, Edward I is shown executing all the claimants for the Scottish throne. I could find no historical evidence for this, and I believe it is a significant plothole. Why would the other Scottish nobles ally with someone who killed everyone who was willing to cooperate with him? Are the murdered nobles the Competitors for the Crown of Scotland? If so, Edward actually cooperated with them and appointed John Balliol. If that had been in the movie it would have justified the nobles' cooperation and their internal rivalry. Corvus 00:52, 7 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Yes, you are absolutely right. The mass hanging of Scottish nobles at the start is unhistorical, although it does occur in Blind Harry's epic poem "Wallace". There are a number of other significant errors, do people really want all of them in the article? If so, it could be expanded by some way. PatGallacher 01:34, 2005 Mar 7 (UTC)

According to one source, the legend arose out of an error made by Blind Harry. This gruesome incident did not, in fact, occur. The poet invented it after misreading a line from an earlier poem about Robert the Bruce, which tells how certain Scottish nobles were hanged “in ar” (a legal term meaning “by a circuit court”). The poem “Barns of Ayr” describes the incident when 360 Scottish nobles, led by Wallace’s uncle, Sir Ranald Crawford, were summoned by the English to a conference. As each passed through a narrow entry, a rope was dropped around his neck, and he was hanged. Wallace, warned by a local woman, escaped and that night, he and his followers crept into the town, fastened the doors of all the houses lodging Edward’s 4000 soldiers, and set fire to them. Anyone who broke out was butchered by the waiting Scots. Even the prior of Ayr, apparently, together with 8 of his friars, took swords and dispatched the 140 soldiers billeted with them. “Men call it yet the Friars’ Blessing of Ayr,” says the poem. (Folklore, Myths and Legends of Britain (London: The Reader’s Digest Association, 1973), p. 519-20) --Polylerus 00:15, 24 August 2005 (UTC)

Inaccuracy Rewrite

I created a whole section called "Historical Relevance" and really tried to tone down the accusatory nature of the existing criticisms. Yes, Braveheart is not really very historically accurate, but it IS a work of fiction. However, I think it's an interesting pheonomenon that people take movies like this as fact (is there a word for this elsewhere on Wikipedia??), which is why I left these complaints in. Robbyslaughter 00:04, 25 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Good job Robbyslaughter. I think many of the criticisms were triggered by the overly villainous portrayal of the English, and the romanticised portrayal of the Scots. I remember reading a newspaper article in England after the movie came out, suggesting that the "inaccuracies" in the movie were not mistakes or dramatic license, but a deliberate attempt by Gibson to promote Scottish nationalism. Corvus 1 July 2005 05:49 (UTC)

Most of the inaccuracies listed are absolutely correct, but I deleted a couple. I doubt if we have a contemporary description of Wallace's appearance (since e.g. the first Scots king of who we have a surviving drawing is James II of Scotland) and I suspect that descriptions of him as a tall man come from a while later e.g. Blind Harry. It is a matter of interpretation whether he can be accurrately called a "common man", he was one of the minor aristocracy, not quite an ordinary peasant, but probably seemed like an upstart to the major nobles; this is one point where we should give the filmmakers a bit of leeway. By the way, the name Wallace means Welsh, it is unclear whether this is because his ancestors came from Wales, or because of origins in the Brittonic kingdom of Strathclyde. PatGallacher 02:22, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

I maintain the thing about Wallaces obviously Norman origins. a) "William" is a Germanic name, and interestingly one that is not commonly seen in Britain before the Norman invasion. b) "Wallace" means "foreigner" rather than "Welsh" properly speaking, though of course, both terms are closely related. Either way, it's clearly Germanic, and shows this family to be relatively new as compared to the Gaelic speaking people, or even families descended from later Norse settlers. Scottish nobility of Norman ascent is not unknown... just look at the early Stuarts. --Svartalf 14:07, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

"Wallace" was as a word denoting Britons was borrowed into Norman French too, it's ultimate Germanic origin should not be overly stressed. It should also be remembered that there were many Flemings settled in High Medieval Scotland, perhaps even more than English Germans, and they, speaking a language at the time very similar to (Middle) English, used a similar word (giving the modern word "Walloon"). If Wallace's father was really Alan/Alun/Ailin, rather than Maol Choluim/Malcolm, and if he came from Ayrshire (unlike Renfrewshire, almost totally Gaelic at this time), then it's highly likely his ancestors were Bretons or Breto-Normans, who arrived in western central Scotland in the French marcher lordships created by David I. In fact, if Ayrshire was his home, it would be these marcher lordships that would be the sole explanation, as there was only one/two burghs in the area, Ayr itself and Irvine. The version of French spoken in Brittany today is called the Gallo language (n/b Ws and G/Gus are interchangable, and for this period, the difference is largely orthographic). Equally, the simplest explanation may also be true, that he was descended (or his familiy attached itself to) a family with that surname who had arrived from the Anglo-Welsh marcher country, where the people were ideally suited to be settled in the Gaelic-English borderlands of the Clyde valley and around. The native Scots did not in general adopt surnames unless they were at the top of society (for instance, only the Chief of Clann Duib could call himself MacDuib(h) (Macduff)), so there is something foreign in Wallace's background. However, if it makes any difference, the two Celtic names of his two possible fathers, and various source accounts, indicate that he was certainly a Gaelic speaker; he repeatedly led armies of Galwegians and, in fact, one source reports that at his trial, he was accused of and admitted to, targetting and murdering speakers of the English language - Calgacus 14:45, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

a) Of course the Wallaces are Breto-Normans. It is a matter of record that the earliest recorded member of the family, Richard Wallace, was a tenant/vassal of an early member of the House of Stuart, during its humbler origins.

b) Sorry to contradict but Gallo is not "a version of French spoken in Brittany". It is related to French, being an Oïl language, but developed independantly, and can easily stretch the intercomprehensibility barrier. To boot, it was spoken only in Eastern Brittany (the West being Bretonspeaking... and it's no longer spoken much, anymore, being mostly reduced to quirks of pronunciation and vocabulary, heavier influences having turned into a sort of peasant patois. I won't contest that the word "Gallo" has the same sources as "Welsh" and "Wallon", though I'm checking on that. and the w/g difference is not "orthographic", it's a result of regional variations and evolution of languages. c) Yes, the presence of a surname alone shows he was a member of the aristocracy, but the use of the first name William points to Franco-Norman traditions, as "William" was not much used in Britain before the Norman conquest, and noble families tended to be conservative in giving names to children. and he may well have spoken Gaelic, since before complete English domination, foreigners did tend to assimilate in Gaelic speaking societies, but this does not change his foreign origin or belonging to the aristocratic class. Plus there's the fact that Alan is a traditional Breton name, which the family might have imported into Scotland. and Yes, Assimilated or no, he was as Scotsman, but not a common man. --Svartalf 20:45, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

a) There you go, so I was right. ;) It's interesting, since I though the de Morville marcher lordship was the most likely. What, may I ask, are the arguments connecting Richard with William Wallace? b) I read the Gallo language article just as you did, so there's no need to repeat its contents. Gallo is a version of French, at least as much as "Scots" is a version of English. This would be a pointless argument to have, since it relates to the larger unresolvable controversy between language and dialect. Being a Oïl language, Gallo is a dialect of French to many people; if not to you, then that's fair enough. I doubt Gallo has the same source as Welsh and Walloon, and I'm guessing its borrowed from Breton Galleg, which means literally "Foreign (Gall)-ish(-eg)" , and is applied both to Gallo and French (compare Gaelic Beurla Ghallda) c) I think you misunderstood me. I was merely saying that Wallace's use of a surname, when he was relatively low-ranking, hints at a non-Gaelic cultural background. Alun/Alan, BTW, had Gaelic equivalents, esp. the name Alpin or Ailin (used by the Gaelic rulers of Lennox) (borrowed into Picto-Gaelic from Old English Ælfwine). I should also mention that there were a few people floating around a century or so before, native Gaels that is, with the name nickname Breatnach (Wallace could easily be a French translation if the name became hereditary). - Calgacus 21:04, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

I maintain that Gallo is not a version of French, unless you mean that Provençal is a version of Italian, or English a version of Flemish or German. It is indeed a closely related language, but quite distinct, having evolved in its own direction and quite independantly of the "mainline" French language that took definitive form around Paris and higher in the Loire valley, and its speakers were not considered "French". The case is quite different from that of the relation of French to its cousins in Belgium and Switzerland. Of course, given the large differences that have evolved between the two, I'd hesitate before claiming that Scots and Irish Gaelic still are local versions of each other.Also, while Galleg is indeed Breton for French, I doubt that Gallo has the same source, the the Gallo speakers in Upper Brittany were Bretons to the same extent as the folk more to the West... and it was the language of the capital cities of Nantes and Rennes. --Svartalf 22:13, January 16, 2006

Yeah yeah, I told you this argument is a waste of time. You can go through the same stuff with any dialect, and you'll get the same things said on both sides. BTW, I'm aware of the dots in later Irish orthography; they're not relevant to the absent hs. - 22:21, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

Of course I can, and will... I fear my friend that we fully disagree, and I can't find it in myself to find your position right. You seem to work with much to broad strokes for accuracy. --Svartalf 22:28, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

I've just had the same argument too many times. Trust me, it ain't worth having; it just won't go anywhere. - Calgacus 22:31, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

Someone claimed that "The film also makes no mention of Andrew de Moray, Wallace's companion-in-arms and a major contributor at this battle [Stirling]." If I remember correctly, was it not Moray who brought the largest portion of the forces to the battle in the film (the one's who wanted to run) and was later told to flank the English with his cavalry?

added the fact that the wrong arrow heads are used in the large battle.

rating

Is it true that this movie was orignially givena rating of "X" or "NC-17" and that the violence had to be toned down in order to receive an "R" rating?

blue-dyed face

Why has that wead snippet been removed several times? ~~