A knightly epistle about a Catholic martyr for the national origin of Scots – this is the shortest way to describe a cult work with Mel Gibson in the lead role. But is Braveheart Does it truly deserve the name of a Catholic movie or even a Catholic regulation created in an orbit? I have far-reaching doubts about this...
Gibson is identified as a “Catholic creator”, but let us note 2 facts. First of all, he is mostly an actor and he made fewer films on his own. He is the manager of 7 productions, of which only 1 can be described as Catholic (it is evidently about Passion). Second – as an actor in the “Catholic” production he took part for the first time in 2002 and it was a movie We were soldiers.. Recently, he tried his best at Father StuBut it worked out how it worked out, which is bad (about this movie I wrote here.). Braveheart It was created in 1995, and I do not know that it is to be a manifesto of Catholic worldview or that the lead actor treats it that way. Not to mention, the Catholic subject was treated as a stepmother, which was immediately discussed.
A lot has been written about William Wallace’s actual story. The intent of this text is not to find how much the movie is in line with reality, but to measure it from a Catholic perspective. So I'm just going to mention what's on the subject. First of all, Wallace is the hero of 2 antagonistic “narrations”: the right takes him to the banners due to the fact that he was a patriot and a Catholic; the left condemns him in the pulpit, due to the fact that being a patriot and a Catholic, he was besides violent (which is not denied by a more insightful right).
I'm going to image it on 2 examples. The Onet portal erstwhile published a text Remember “Braveheart”? There aren't many movies that make past so fake. The author focuses solely on the atrocities the protagonist has committed to fighting the English, and besides points out to the creators a very loose approach to the facts of his life. On the another hand, years ago, in the no longer existing portal of the Italian TFP (pontifex.roma.it) the text was published (discussed in “La Stampa”, Vatican Insider and in Polish Aletea), which stated that Wallace's top historical weapon was his “fierce Catholic faith”, and the fact that he was raised by 2 monks was even raised to the rank of any kind of a hermit life (it was written that “half warrior, half monk” erstwhile the uprising broke out “not wearing a kilt but a habit” – aside from the curious fact that in those days the Scots had not yet worn kilts).
However, 1 can agree with the author of the text in the Pontifex portal: the movie starring Mel Gibson silenced the Catholic identity of William Wallace. There will be a further part of the text in which I invitation the Reader to draw attention to what the creators have missed, and what... they have unnecessarily recolored, depriving this communicative of its Catholic potential.
A made-up lover of a Scottish hero
Before death (historical) William Wallace asked for 2 things: a priest to be able to confess and his psalter to pray with King David. The scene showing this did not appear in the film. Similarly, like Catholicism as specified (except for the wedding scene, which he secretly gives to William and Murron the friar in the woods).
Even more crucial – erstwhile we effort to measure the moral sound of this movie – it seems that the creators have voluntarily added to it. This is about the figure of French Princess Isabella, who became the wife of the heir to the throne, Prince Edward. Well, erstwhile the Scottish uprising began, Isabella was late put distant from her breasts, and erstwhile Wallace was dying, she was inactive a kid and her leg had not yet stood in English court.
So why did the creators add and exposure this character so powerfully (except for the fact that Sophie Marceau is playing it)? It's to break the moral backbone of stories. Forgive me for specified a scapological answer, but I'm already explaining.
The real Wallace lost his father and brother at the hands of the English, but he's not even certain he had a wife. Thus, adding a wife (played by Catherine McCormack) seems a good move, as it adds (recently very nicely and classically guided) a romance warp. And Princess Isabella is there, as they say, and she didn't get caught. He could betray the king as well as anyone else – without introducing this love triangle.
Wallace's affair with Isabella introduces pagan symbolism—as if it became a surviving trophy of a Scottish warrior who challenged England and, by the way, possessed her future first lady. It is known that Isabella was not delighted with her position (that is why she betrayed her husband – both politically and personally), but it is nevertheless possible to fishy that she had entered into a matrimony in an crucial way. Meanwhile, Wallace does not show the slightest scruples or remorse (because of having sex with his wife) or an emotional dilemma (taking into account that he had just buried his wife, whom he had previously loved for many years).
The full subject of the romance with Isabella is led as if it were completely normal, that a man gains in the political intrigue of the “head” in the form of the wife of an enemy prince. To view this from a strictly Catholic perspective, regardless of the motivation or circumstances, specified sexual intercourse should be considered a grave sin. This would cast a serious shadow on Wallace's opinion as a “marriage” for national affairs. Why would I say it would? Of course, due to the fact that this thread is made up!
This is all the worse due to the fact that the joint scenes of Gibson and Marceau are accompanied by tender music, and the motive for the antemortem confession, as I mentioned, was completely omitted. The only break in this communicative is that Wallace thinks of his wife before he dies, while Isabella is shown herself. Of course, we can guess that according to the customized of the time, the condemned was given the chance to join the sacrament of penance, but this was not shown, which grossly disrupts the moral sound of the film.
If the movie had been made before 1968, so during the period of validity in Hollywood of the alleged Hays Code, that would not have been the case. Catholics from Pope Pius XI of the Legion of Decentness forced the creators of the Dream mill to introduce a number of safeguards of public morality, including the ban on showing extramarital sex.
In this sense Braveheart – although he belongs to the pantheon of outstanding films of our time – he is besides a kid of the cultural revolution. And in the dumbest way possible, due to the fact that “incrusted”. The thread, which constitutes a flaw in this knightly era, was invented against past and added only to make it more spicy and to make the bed scene with Sophie Marceau attract more viewers to cinemas. This is an highly interesting case of how ignoring moral principles in the name of profit distorts the structure of the work at a point so crucial that it changes its essence.
The unanswered question will most likely be: How much did Gibson's disposition play here? Was the thread with Isabella written “under it”? Didn't he protest? Anyway, erstwhile we look at the peripety of his private life, you might fishy that there's something on the subject...
Filip Obara
See also:
Deconstruction after Catholic: “Behind the horizon” – innocence and property ethos vs. proletariat dictatorship
Deconstruction after Catholic: “Grease”, Travolta’s love and survey of (fallen) innocence
