Posted by Christina on July 16, 2001 at 08:54:45:
In Reply to: PatriotHeart - or whatever, that movie that Ben didn't like, was called posted by John on July 15, 2001 at 17:25:48:
: Ben, you are very just in defending your country’s good name..... But who around here is
: knocking your country? My post about an Anglophobic conspiracy more or less agreed with
: you; recent (big budget- mass audience) film (last 10 or so years) hasn’t treated British history
: very well at all, the epitome is Patriotheart....or was it Lethal-Patriot? ... no it was The Road-
: Patriot. I haven’t heard anyone on this site defending that movie though. I’m an avid reader and
: am passionate about history, and to me the movie was somewhat of a disappointment; they could
: have made a great movie about Marion and Tarleton and the inherent ugliness of a guerilla
: war..even in America - and they ended up with that monstrosity about the Nazi occupation of
: South Carolina.
: Some problems I had with that one were.....
: Banaster Talterton fought ugly, seldom gave quarter and burned suspected rebel sympathizers
: out of their homes. But by all accounts that I’ve ever read, he let the people out of the buildings
: before he burnt them.
: The movie didn’t have to, and shouldn’t have been about that the complexities and cruelty of
: slavery, but to sugarcoat it like that was annoying. Most Americans are mature enough to
: understand or at least appreciate that an otherwise good man could have been unable/unwilling
: to overcome the evil of his own times.
: “Swamp Fox”Marion did have quite a successful run of guerilla tactics against the Brits...
: perhaps they could have shown some of those instead of the series of clever and amusing Mel vs
: the clueless redcoat stunts.
: The battles were awful and followed no historic event. How ever did you Brits get those 24
: pounders in the field like that.
: Speaking of bad artillery scenes and back to your original concerns with how the Redcoats faired
: in LOTM, I had a bit of a problem with the siege scene, where the Frogs are shelling the fort and
: what are the Brits doing? They’re running around in confused circles in their fort and clustering
: around french artillery explosions for the benefit of athletic stunt men.
: Also, I would have thought the Royal Infantry would have done better in”Massacre Valley”,
: what with the Indians charging out in the open like that.... except, then I read some accounts and
: It seems that while the Brits were allowed to march out under arms, they weren’t allowed
: ammunition. (Also there is no historic evidence of that scale of massacre, Cooper and others
: I’ve read have the Indians falling on the baggage train and killing a few soldiers and civilians
: that got in the way.)
: John
Everybody's points on "The Patriot" are well put and well taken, and I swore last year I'd never post on this subject again, but I recently had a discussion about this movie with a friend and we came up with the same defense of it...it was A MOVIE. FICTION. They took a real historical person, some real events and ran with them. Sure there was some reaching, but it still, in my opinion, was a REALLY GOOD movie. It got many people I know interested in the Revolution who previously couldn't have cared less about that period of our history. It succeeded in getting folks to finally come out and visit our many Revolutionary sites here in South Carolina. A lot of them come asking questions, "Okay, did this part really happen?" And then they find out it didn't, but are able to learn what really DID happen. The slavery question? I've never seen any film or play about the Revolution that really addressed that issue, because it hadn't come to the forefront as an issue in this country yet. That would happen later, in the 19th century...
I'm not being argumentative, really. I just feel the need to defend this film a little bit. It had its merits. It had a good story. It was darned fun to watch. And in my opinion, anything that brings interest to this vital part of our history is good in my book.
That's my story and I'm stickin' to it...
thanks for listening.
Christina