Page 4 - The Patriot:
Mel Gibson strikes again Con't
One review printed in the London Sunday Telegraph written by Jonathan
Foreman called the film 'as fascist a film as made in decades', and likened
Benjamin Martin to Hermann the German, a German barbarian that had been held
up in Nazi propaganda. The article even argued that by portraying the British,
in the guise of villain Colonel Tavington, as committing such atrocities as
burning down a church with all the town's inhabitants locked inside back in
the 1780's, made 1940's Nazi brutality 'look normal'.
The church burning in the movie bears resemblance to the infamous massacre at
Oradour sur Glane, France. In 1944, as the Germans were retreating from Allied
forces, the Nazi SS shot all the men and boys of the town, and then locked all
the women and children in the church and burned it down. Some critics sarcastically
suggested that the scene was left over from Saving Private Ryan, screenwriter
Robert Rodat's World War II script.
Such a massacre did not happen in the American Revolution, but by scripting
a similar event, the British become brutal precursors of the Nazis through the
film's revisionist history. This Sunday Telegraph article held
Director Roland Emmerich, emphasizing his German heritage, and screenwriter
Robert Rodat responsible, while letting Gibson off the hook for being 'only
an actor' who naïvely did 'not consider the political or historical implications
of such a portrayal of the British'. The article by Mr. Foreman was one of the
most vehement examples.
Many other reviews here in America and in England followed the pattern that
Quentin Falk used in his review for the London Sunday Mirror.
He opened with 'think Braveheart as Mel Gibson swaps the Scots flag for
the fledgling Stars and Stripes'. The plot is then described with sarcasm through
clichés: 'He's a pacificist [sic] widower…with a dark past…spurned
to action…by the slimy Colonel Tavington'. Then in a surprising change
of tone, the review ended positively with 'no denying the power of this sprawling
adventure … in the finest tradition of big-screen conflicts'. Falk gave
the film four out of five stars.
Another review in the London Sunday Mirror by Mariela Frostrup
used clichés to undermine the movie. 'Naturally, their idyllic life in
a picture perfect Southern plantation house where the slaves are free and there's
always apple pie in the oven is brought to an abrupt end.' Before summing up
her review, Ms. Frostrup added a postscript about slavery: 'The fact that slavery
wasn't completely abolished for another 200 years is a detail which escaped
the screenwriters', meaning, according to Ms. Frostrup, that slavery was finally
abolished in the early 1980's or the events of the movie took place in the 1680's.
She finished her review by giving the movie four out of five stars.
Most reviews here and in England targeted Mel Gibson, rather than Director Roland
Emmerich or screenwriter Robert Rodat, for the revisionist history because of
his association with Braveheart and greater name recognition. In The
Patriot Gibson was simply the star, while Roland Emmerich directed and Dean
Devlin produced. The creative team of Devlin and Emmerich was trying to rebound
from their big budget, box-office flop from 1998, Godzilla.
