Page 3 - Setting the
Stage for British Ire
Following Braveheart, Britain kept a watchful eye on Hollywood. In 1998,
some bristled when Saving Private Ryan had nary a Brit on-screen and
British General Bernard Montgomery was called "over-rated." In 2000,
Hollywood gave the British several reasons to protest. The year began with news
of Hollywood usurping the successful British literary import, Harry Potter.
The casting of a British youth to play Harry as well as casting well-known British
actors like John Hurt, Emma Watson, Robbie Coltrane and Alan Rickman in supporting
roles did little to dispel complaints of creative theft, since the studio and
most of the creative people working on the film would be Americans. Hollywood
has often imported European films and remade them, such as Point of No Return
and City of Angels.
Hollywood rarely produces anything original and often copies itself. In 1992,
two movies about Christopher Columbus, Christopher Columbus - The Discovery
and 1492: Conquest of Paradise, had raced each other to the box-office,
only to both bomb. In April 1995, a few weeks before Braveheart premiered,
another Scottish kilt movie was also released. Rob Roy, the title character
played by Irishman Liam Neeson, was a 18th century Scotsman in a kilt on a personal
crusade against English nobles.
In March 2000 the publicity machine started for the first big summer box-office
entry, U-571. U-571 follows an American submarine crew who in
1942 steals the German Enigma coding machine by impersonating a U-boat crew.
The big historical gaffe is that it was a British crew who pulled it off in
1941. Director Jonathan Mostow did enlist the services of Lt. Commander David
Balme, an English seaman who was part of the real mission, and David Kahn, leading
expert on Enigma encryption.
However, the fact remains that he directed a film that supplanted Englishmen
with Americans, rewriting history for moviegoers who don't check up on the facts.
Many older Western Europeans resent the cocky American tourist attitude that
'we' saved Europe from Hitler and movies such as Saving Private Ryan and this
one have come to be considered solid evidence of America's superheroism in World
War II.
The Patriot: Mel Gibson strikes again
Following on the heels of the May 2000 releases of U-571 and Gladiator,
publicity cranked up for the July 4th blockbusters such as The Patriot.
Many reviews of The Patriot drew parallels with Braveheart, calling
it 'Braveheart with the Stars & Stripes'. Mirroring what had been
said in early reviews of Braveheart, The Patriot was criticized
as being an hour too long.
There were other criticisms: Mel Gibson's Benjamin Martin was called a retread
of William Wallace in Braveheart with Gibson again only out for revenge;
Director Roland Emmerich had made an overly melodramatic movie to the point
of nausea with his slow-motion flag-waving; the film wrongly portrayed the British
like Nazis; only one slave is present in the film while the others are 'employees'.
