Braveheart and the Resurrection of the Gael
This essay was originally featured on the Substack ‘Culture Crusade’.
Whether received with complete adoration or historical scepticism, there is no doubt that Mel Gibson’s Braveheart is a cinematic classic and one of the greatest historical epics put to film. Whether we like to admit it or not, just as the youth of Greece were raised on a Homeric diet of poetic heroic deeds, the youth of today imbibe the heroic through the medium of film. And on the merits of a historical epic, Braveheart is a masterclass, still sitting at the pinnacle of this phenomenon three decades on. Many aspects of the film remain striking: the tragic opera-like structure of the story, the powerful score, and its eminent quotability. There are certainly times when Braveheart takes liberties with history rather than maintain a strict fidelity to the sources, where a pastiche of Gaelic signifiers is drawn from more than one century. Yet, there is reason to believe that the notorious nitpicking of the film for historical accuracy is somewhat overblown, as the core of the story follows some of the oldest literature we have on Wallace’s rebellion. In fact, the degree of accuracy versus inaccuracy in the film, remains an important aspect to engage with, as it is one of the main objections to the value of Gibson’s project made by its detractors. Historical debates aside, its significance as a milestone piece of Celtic nationalist art, is perhaps the most germane aspect of the film. Braveheart deftly utilises the powers of established tropes from Romanticism, both Celtic and otherwise, eliciting sympathy for Scottish Gaelic culture and Gaelic sovereignty more generally at a time when such sentiments were in dire need. In fact, the film does this so well that it has facilitated a bigger picture politico-cultural resurrection of the Gael, increasing the popularity of the Scottish independence movement and interest in Gaelic culture more broadly. Gibson’s fusing all things Gaelic, Catholic, and tragic into a potent artistic concoction, ensured Braveheart’s silent but immense impact on a revival of Scottish nationalism and marked a change of sentiment, however tentative, in Irish-Scottish relations. Indeed, the degree of Irish involvement both within the film, in the production, and in the broader history of the period depicted, is a complex matter worthy of attention for its bearing on the overall meaning. But let us turn first to the thorny topic of historicity.
Parsing History from Myth
The script by Randall Wallace is loosely based on the poem on Wallace’s life called The Actes and Deidis of the Illustre and Vallyeant Campioun Schir William Wallace, or simply The Wallace, which was already a romanticised retelling of the Wallace saga, written down in the 1400s by the blind poet Harry. Randall had been put onto the poem and the Wallace mythos by a trip to Scotland, where he learned of the rebellion led by his namesake. The script would have been condemned to obscurity and consigned to the graveyard of unrealised projects if not for the serendipity of Mel Gibson coming across it at the height of his powers in Hollywood. Cometh the hour, cometh the Irish-American. Gibson’s contact with the script would haunt him for some time after, a period he describes as being beset by visuals of the story as his imagination gave cinematic form to the script. With his signature eye for tragedy, and a Catholic-inflected zeal, Gibson managed to render the tragic in Wallace’s story in a staggeringly emotive way.
The story of Braveheart dramatises the late 13th-century (and early 14th) Scottish rebellion against English rule, led by the figure of William Wallace, and so a customary summary is in order (spoilers ahead obviously). Beginning with Wallace’s early life in the highlands, his father meets a violent death at the hands of the English, after which he is brought away by an uncle to be trained in the arts of war. As an adult, Wallace returns to his village, seeking a peaceful life, and here he woos his childhood sweetheart, Murron, and secretly marries her. But the brutal enforcement of prima nocta by English lords (the right for a Lord to bed any bride on her wedding night) and the murder of his wife after an attempted rape, ignite his resolve to resist and commence the wars of Scottish Independence. Supported and guarded by his loyal friends Hamish Campbell and Stephen the Irishman, he rallies disparate Scottish clans, leveraging guerrilla tactics and charismatic leadership to challenge the numerically superior English forces, achieving a pivotal victory at the Battle of Stirling (without the bridge) in 1297, portrayed as a triumph of strategy and populist fervour.
Wallace’s campaign, driven by motives of nationalism, liberty, and personal vengeance, gains him both allies and enemies among the Scottish nobility, whose internal divisions and pragmatic alliances with England complicate the rebellion. His brief alliance with Robert the Bruce, a conflicted noble torn between loyalty to Scotland and political expediency, brings about a central conflict between the former’s idealism and the latter’s pragmatism. Wallace’s knighthood and appointment as Guardian of Scotland elevate his status, but his refusal to compromise with English authorities, led by King Edward I (“Longshanks”), leads to escalating conflicts. The Battle of Falkirk, marked by betrayal from Scottish nobles, results in a devastating defeat, forcing Wallace into hiding. Despite his continued guerrilla efforts, he is eventually betrayed by a Scottish noble, captured, and sentenced to be hanged, drawn, and quartered in London, whereupon he defiantly proclaims “Freedom!” with his final death rattle before the axe falls and ends the Wallace saga. The film concludes with a romanticised epilogue, depicting Robert the Bruce, inspired by Wallace’s sacrifice, leading the Scots to a decisive victory at Bannockburn in 1314, symbolising the enduring legacy of Wallace’s fight for independence.
What then is history and what is myth in this story? Braveheart, in my estimation, is self-consciously a dramatic reinterpretation of the past with some changes made for maximum cinematic impact, and as a result, the film is a favourite target of historians and Reddit fact-checker types. Some English people are also prone to attack it in part because of its anti-English sentiments. Certain narrative choices, like the moral binary of good Scots versus bad English, have even brought the charge of ‘ethno-narcissism’ against it. But such charges entirely miss the point; that such stories are supposed to give a clear moral high ground to their national strife. The English themselves have committed the same apparent sin through the centuries, in the words of Shakespeare and Henry V no less, and yet the bias does not at all hurt the status of such works as high art. Many also take issue with the skewing of timelines, and particularly the Wallace/Isabelle romance, which is both ahistorical and built upon altered dates of birth —Isabelle in reality was a child at Wallace’s death— but the love interest simply serves the story well. The addition of prima nocta to the plot is also one of the more contentious narrative adjuncts as there is no evidence of it in Scotland at the time, but to be charitable to the film, while the format may be wrong, rape and cuckoldry were indeed nefarious tools of war in Medieval times and would have almost certainly been a feature of Longshanks’ invasion and occupation of Scotland.
The choice of kilts is another infamous matter of contention, but perhaps not as flagrantly ridiculous as many have suggested. Though the ancestor to the recognisable kilt of today was the filleadh mòr or great kilt of the 16th century and onward, some historians, such as Fergus Cannon, have drawn attention to the use of the léine croich by Gaelic warriors of the 14th century (and we know that there was a very large Gaelic contingent at Bannockburn, including MacDonalds, MacGregors, and Campbells). Such a garment was worn by Gaels in Ireland and Scotland throughout the medieval period, and was like a large tunic, belted in such a fashion as to finish above the knee when needed. To the modern eye, this would basically look the same as a kilt —it was arguably a proto-kilt—, though more often than not it was saffron in colour rather than the earthy tartan seen in the movie. Complete fidelity to history would have seen many Scots —especially lowlanders— armoured similarly to the English, and many of the highland Gaels wearing a léine croich like the famous gallowglass illustrations of Albrecht Dürer, but this would have been confusing. The kilt was the obvious choice on multiple fronts. Logistically, Gibson could get his hands on a multitude of kilt suppliers, frantically gathering sufficient warrior costumes to dress the Irish army extras at his disposal, all while on a very tight budget that precluded bespoke esoteric medieval léine croichs. In fairness, I did notice upon my latest viewing what appears to be some shabby mustard coloured kilts amongst the Irish army, which may be a laudable nod to that Gaelic attire. In terms of the visual accessibility, cultural significance and historical integrability, the kilt was the perfect choice as a gateway into the archaic while also being recognisable to a 20th-century audience as a Celtic sartorial survival into modernity, lending credibility to the uniqueness of the Scottish Gaelic people from other cultures. The anachronism is forgivable in light of these points.
And so, skewing timelines for dramatic effect, manufacturing a royal romance, and adding a prima nocta plot to amplify the villainy of the English are perhaps the biggest culprits in inaccuracy, and admittedly, there is something 90’s kitsch about the blue face paint. But I believe the kilt gets a pass for the reasons just mentioned, and on the whole, these do not detract or distort the story beyond recognition and are an acceptable amount of artistic licence. It might surprise some Braveheart sceptics that the majority of the plot is somewhat faithful to the story as laid out in Blind Harry’s poem, which is the oldest lengthy source we have on the life of Wallace. To list briefly what the film faithfully applies from the poem; the hanging of Scottish nobles in an act of treachery by the English, the killing of Wallace’s wife Marion(changed to Murron for the film) at the hands of an English Sheriff and his killing of said Sheriff in retribution, his raids into the north of England (though not as far as York), and his betrayal by a Scottish noble (though not Bruce). Thus, the film’s narrative arc is mostly derived from the oldest significant source on Wallace, though as literature it is in parts wildly embellished, but why should the biographically believable core of it not be true? After all, it was written merely a century after Wallace’s death. Blind Harry claimed that his own main source was the biography of Wallace made by his personal chaplain, and it is not absurd to take him at his word here, even though he took flights of fancy in his own rendition. In truth, we will never be able to fully parse history from myth, but many of the so-called distortions of Hollywood supposedly committed by Braveheart are in reality a direct result of the growth of his legend in the 15th century. As the years go by, I have become more and more inclined to view those compelled to moan about the historical infractions while ignoring the significant truth in the story and the importance of Blind Harry’s influence as engaging in an exercise of fedora-tipping or political deflection. The endless historical nitpicking that has followed Braveheart since its release is telling in itself. No other work of comparable size has been subject to such standards, and one gets the feeling that this is not unconnected to broader currents in the Anglosphere with have sought to contain the art and symbols of Celtic nationalism. The repeated ridiculing of Braveheart by the British media borders on the neurotic, an impulse to demote Celticism to fancies of the imagination, romantic notions to be quickly scuttled. The question is, from where does Braveheart derive its power to invite such admiration, and such ire?
The Romanticism of Braveheart
In truth, Braveheart derives much of its power from its artistic resonance with Romanticism. Following in the vein of James MacPherson’s Ossian cycle, there is a strong strain of Celtic Romanticism, and both works are united in their idealisation of the Celtic past and their evocation of a lost heroic age. Macpherson’s Ossian poems, purported translations of ancient Gaelic bardic tales, were instrumental in shaping European Romanticism, offering a melancholic, sublime vision of the highland life and the Gaelic warrior-poet. Braveheart certainly engages in a similar mythopoeic endeavour.
There is even an echo of Rousseau and Wagner to be found within the film. To begin with the latter, Braveheart has an almost operatic feel to it, something like a late twentieth-century filmic reincarnation of The Ring Cycle, with its flawless act structure building up to a tragic-epic, aided by James Horner’s musical score which utilises the bagpipes –both uileann and highland—to raise the emotional pitch to rarely matched heights. The film executes a perfect synthesis of the musical, poetic, and dramatic art forms, to supply a prime example of how the cinematic medium can be what Wagner called the ‘Gesamtkunstwerk’, the ‘total work of art’. Just as Wagnerian opera reimagines Germanic mythic material into emotionally grandiose, nationalist epics centred on doomed but idealistic heroes, Braveheart transforms a murky historical Celtic figure into a national martyr and ends in heroic destruction and redemption. Mythic truth and emotion supersede reason, as the primary goal is the portrayal of freedom and heroism as transcendent ideals attained through suffering and death. To get bogged down in the historical minutiae is to miss the forest for the trees. The story of Wallace’s virtue transfigures the Scottish struggle into something noble and sacred, forging a national mythos whose impact far exceeds anything that a hyper-accurate biopic of Wallace could have hoped to achieve. The story, as it was sewn together via Randall Wallace’s scriptorial blueprint and Gibson’s amendments, form-giving direction, and acting, makes it seem like a vision that blossomed forth from the Gaelic collective unconscious, capturing something perennial about the Scottish Gaelic spirit and thus moralising its people. In this light, Braveheart continues in the tradition of Wagner’s Ring Cycle or plays such as Yeats’s Cathleen Ní Houlihan, —Tolkien deserves a mention too—, where a national mythos is forged for the sake of national self-understanding and the values of heroism and sacrifice are displayed as a kind of national exhortation.
Other elements of Romanticism peer out through Braveheart, most conspicuously the concept of the noble savage, into which it leans heavily. This motif, as it appears in the film, has two aspects: that of martial prowess and a connection to nature. Wallace and his highland militia are depicted as the epitome of a warrior race, rough-hewn but teeming with virtue and martial gallantry. Despite their ostensibly humble origins as farmers, when roused, they have a natural aptitude for war-making. The notion of their nobility and fierceness is exemplified in the final lines of the film, uttered by Robert the Bruce, when he calls them ‘warrior poets’. It may well be a trope, but it is a powerful one when executed by someone like Gibson. In terms of nature, throughout the film, the highlanders are so intimately connected to their landscape that they are inconceivable apart from it, and seem to exist as an organic outgrowth of the windswept, misty glens themselves. In their earthy-toned kilts, they live off nature in a more primal way, evidenced by the multiple deer hunting scenes and the ease with which they run atop highland peaks. This helps, on a mostly unconscious level, to build up the moral binary between friend and foe, as the Scottish are tied to the purity of nature, while the English are tied to gritty, urbane environments. The Gael and his hilly heimat are thus set in juxtaposition to the well-oiled mechanical English, who operate as cogs in an imperial machine, serving only the interest of the few, Machiavellian men such as Longshanks. Compared to the depiction of the headstrong, individualist and thus often squabbling Scots, the feudal English operate with a more centralised polity, which defeats their foes in organisation and mass deployment. Yet the more developed civilizational techniques of the English are paradoxically conveyed as cold, calculating, perfidious and immoral, an ode to civilizational debasement of human nature that was such a central motif in Rousseau's Romanticism and, to a degree, also present in the Gaelic Revival movement.
In truth, the film is not subtle about this debasement of the English, who in the Braveheart universe, exist on a spectrum from barely sentient thuggish rapists to arrogant murderous ponces. It’s at this acute level of good versus evil storytelling that some voice their displeasure, apparently at the use of Romanticism’s motifs to vilify the English –or just any vilification of the English? Take Fintan O’Toole’s objections, that it is ‘Scottish history strained through a late eighteenth-century drawing-room Romanticism’, and ‘a crass exercise in Anglophobia’, which deploys the ‘the crassest and crudest of make-weights—racism’. Yes, he really did say that. Fintan seems self-assured in his assertion that anti-English sentiments in the Celtic homelands were a romantic invention of modern nationalism. Of course, only someone with the requisite ignorance of medieval sources could conjure up such baseless liberal prattle. For instance, pay heed to these medieval words: ‘For so long as there shall be but one hundred of us alive, we will never consent to subject ourselves to the dominion of the English. For it is not glory, it is not riches, neither is it honours, but it is liberty alone that we fight and contend for, which no honest man will lose but with his life’. As Ireland’s leading Medieval historian, Séan Duffy, explains who wrote this; “Not some eighteenth-century romantic, not a Hollywood script-writer, but the men of Scotland in their Declaration of Arbroath sent to the Pope in 1320”. Duffy highlights the existence of the same sentiment in Ireland where the 1317 ‘Remonstrance of the Irish Princes’ states “..in order to shake off the harsh and insufferable yoke of servitude to them and to recover our native freedom which for the time being we have lost through them, we are compelled to enter a deadly war against the aforementioned, preferring under the compulsion of necessity to face the dangers of war like men in defence of our right..” Clearly, Braveheart’s portrayal of nationalism, fighting for liberty, and anti-English sentiments were all prominent motives for the period. Moroever, just how much narrative sympathy can realistically be expected to be afforded to the invading side of a war of conquest is another matter, but it’s hard to believe Braveheart overstepped here, given the historical context. Not unrelated to this issue, some have pinned the anti-English currents on the Irish influence on the film. But just how significant are the Irish connections to the film, from production, direction, acting, and historical characters?
Hibernian Hand’s in a Scottish Story
The Irish influence on the film is quite well known. The government lobbied to have the film shot in Ireland and offered generous tax incentives, horsemanship for the battles, and a friendly environment, which Gibson cryptically states was absent in Scotland based on his interactions with the industry there. Famously, Irish soldiers were supplied from the Curragh to make up the armies and extras required for shooting, and Irish castles such as Trim were repurposed to become York or whatever medieval city was required for the story. Considering the budgetary issues faced by Gibson and the producers, it seems that the Irish pitch by way of Michael D. Higgins, who was then Minister for Arts, was vital for getting the maximum from the funds available and thus keeping the grand scale of the movie alive. Sufficient funding was difficult to come by, and tempers boiled over, with one story describing how a frustrated Gibson fired an ashtray at producer Bernstein for his reluctance to sanction adequate funding for the project.
Irish actors pop up in many areas, Dubliner Brendan Gleeson plays the burly Hamish, but the diaspora is also omnipresent. Irish American, Patrick McGoohan, turns in a great performance as the sinister Longshanks. David O’Hara plays the (beloved if stage) Irishman Stephen, and Catherine McCormack (Irish grandparents) plays Wallace’s childhood sweetheart, Murron. But perhaps the biggest Irish influence is through the director, producer, and lead actor, as Wallace himself, Mel Gibson. Born in New York as the 6th of 11 children, Mel Columcille Gerard Gibson is of proud Irish Catholic pedigree; his first name being derived from St. Mel’s Cathedral in his Irish-born mother Anne Patricia Reilly’s native Longford. His father, Hutton Gibson, was an American of Irish Catholic extraction, whose maternal grandparents were from Mayo, and his paternal line was a family of wealthy tobacco merchants from the south, which was also mostly Irish. Hutton had even trained to be a priest earlier in his life and was a strong opponent of Vatican II reforms, a worldview into which Mel was inculcated.
It is no surprise, then, that so much of the film is agreeable to the Irish Catholic mind. Catholic imagery and themes permeate the film, and some might question how so, given the ostensible Protestantism of the Scots-Irish scriptwriter, Randall. However, any potential perplexity can be dispelled when it is noted that Randall was drawing on the poems of Blind Harry, penned at a time when Scotland was deeply Catholic and openly hostile to all things English. Furthermore, these themes were undoubtedly intensified or outright added in parts by Gibson, who has always brought his religious intensity to bear on his cinematic works. Much of Gibsons power is derived from understanding the power of christian symbolism and even sacramental imagery, and Braveheart uses this on multiple occasions, suffusing the Scots rebellion with the idea of a holy war. This, in turn, also feeds into the film’s moral absolutism that is so often a hallmark of Catholic art, sharing a Tolkienesque moral dualism of good versus evil. Martyrdom is also a dominant theme, and Wallace cuts a Christ-like figure throughout, battling injustice, oppression and bearing the weight of his Gaelic world on his shoulders before he is ultimately betrayed and sacrificed in a manner that will bring about the freedom of his people. He is betrayed by the Judas figure of old Bruce and must face his cross-shaped execution platform, all symbolism undoubtedly intentionally encoded by Gibson. This obviously fits like a glove onto Irish nationalist hagiography and has thematic resonance with the martyrdom of the 1916 Rising leaders, which catalysed the independent Republic, as Wallace’s sacrifice does for the Kingdom of Scotland.
The motif of Irish-Scottish alliance in the film has significant historiographical depth that supersedes the levity of the scenes in which it is represented. Stephen injects ample humour where the tension and violence might boil over into moroseness, but behind the eccentric façade is a fierce loyalty to Wallace and the cause of Scottish Galedom; reading Stephen as a personification of Ireland itself is not a huge leap to make here. The Irish make another notable appearance at Bannockburn, where they switch sides from the English to the Scots, embracing to cheers of ‘mo bhuachaill’; the subtext being that both nations could only possibly be allies and any other figuration being comically absurd. Though rightly pointed out as a fictional addition for the film, it should be noted that there were Irish allies who fought by the Bruce’s side, as well as Hiberno-Normans who fought with the English. The film harkens back to a time of Irish-Scottish alliances, but does so amidst the reality that the relations between both countries have been vastly different at different stages of history, with amiable feelings and political camaraderie being at their highest levels when both countries were firmly Gaelic and facing a unifying English enemy. Scotland, of course, was founded by the Dal Riadan Gaels around the time that Rome’s influence was collapsing in Britain. The term Scot itself is derived from the Latin term Scotti used to describe the Irish raiders that pillaged and settled the west coast of Britain –most intensely in modern day western Scotland-- , and well into the Middle Ages, Ireland and Scotland were known as Scotia Major and Scotia Minor, respectively.
Though the film chose different means to depict the connection between both countries, it should be noted that there was a profound De Bruce connection to Ireland. Robert’s mother was a Gael from the Firth of Clyde, and his wife was the Irish princess Elizabeth De Burgo, daughter to the earl of Ulster and descendant of Richard Óg de Burg and the O’Brien dynasty. Robert had lands in Ulster inherited through his Gaelic mother, through whom he was also related to the O’Neill Kings of Tyrone, and he spent years of his life there, whether in his youth, exile on Rathlin island, or his later life returns. It is also reported that the Bruce’s army carried the relics of two Irish saints with them into battle at Bannockburn. Robert’s most significant Irish connection, however, was the invasion of Ireland in 1315, carried out by his brother Edward. This involved his sanctioning a force of the same size as that of Bannockburn to go to Ireland in hopes of installing his brother as High King, allying with the Gaelic Kingdoms, and crushing Anglo-Norman influence on the island. The sources from this era show how de Bruce invoked the blood connection between both countries, citing how they were of the same blood, the same customs, and the same language, but the end goal had been a pan-Gaelic empire from Cork to Inverness, did not come to fruition.
As the Middle Ages came to a close, camaraderie generally gave way to hostility in tandem with the waning Gaelicness and Catholicism of Scotland through the 16th and 17th centuries. As lowland Presbyterians cemented their political control of the highlands, and sectarian hatred seeped into the motives of dispersing the recalcitrant highlander Catholics, the view from Edinburgh was increasingly that highlander and Irishman alike constituted the self-same Gaelic enemy. There is even clear evidence in the language of the lowland officiators of the time, with the Gaelic language of the highlands being referred to as simply ‘Erse’ (Irish). The distinction, it seems, between Irish and Scottish Gael was one hardly worth making. Later still, there is a fascinating reference to Wallace by the United Irishmen, who attempted to convince the Scots in the latter years of the 18th century to reestablish the independence of that late medieval era, and thus also come to the aid of the United Irishmen, a wish that, if it had come true, would certainly have echoed Edward De Bruce’s coming to Ireland to aid the Gaelic Irish in 1315. Alas, it was not to be, and Scotland continued on her path of Anglicisation, culturally, linguistically, and politically through an increasingly ardent unionism. With this divergence in mind, it’s possible to see how profound Braveheart is as a cultural artefact for halting and reversing the divergent paths.
The Realities of Resurrection in Contemporary Caledonia
Assigning premeditation to the political impact of Braveheart is, frankly, conjecture, and it is not even necessary to do so to view their artistic project as a resurrection of all things Gaelic. That said, it will always be interesting to note how an ethnically aware producer and director of Irish Catholic stock, and the then sitting Irish Minister for Arts —a literal Gaelic poet—, and a Scots-Irish scriptwriter, were responsible for a seminal piece of art in the revival of Scottish nationalism. Whether intentional or not, it is not hyperbole to suggest that Gibson’s film has acted as the thin edge of the wedge that can part the Scottish psyche from British unionism and toward kinship with its Gaelic Ur-culture. In this sense, the detractors who sardonically jibe at the Gaelic pride kindled by the film by labelling it ‘Braveheart brain’, are at least right in diagnosing the effects on the national psyche. One could grant that in some ways, there was something un-Scottish about it, at least in the sense that it is a monumental break from the unionist Zeitgeist within which the average Scottish national saw militant Celtic nationalism as the calling card of their Irish neighbours. In fact, Braveheart was pivotal in sparking a turn in national sympathies for the devolution movement in Scotland, which before had difficulties in passing. Its release in 1995 is credited by some as one of the primary causes —reaction to Thatcher certainly another— of the wave of nationalist sentiment that pushed the referendum vote for devolution across the line in 1997. For the first time in nearly 300 years, the Scots opened their own parliament in 1999, and though a far cry from full independence, it is the most significant move towards the re-establishment of a non-Anglocentric, pro-independence worldview in many centuries. The film was also an understated driver of support for the SNP over the years, with many party leaders, such as Alex Salmond, appropriating the message of the film in the 90s and 00s. Regardless of that party's disastrous outcome, it was at one time a plausible nationalist vehicle, and it is certainly a shame that such cultural energy was wasted on such a red herring of a party. Furthermore, to Braveheart’s eternal credit, it did include a sprinkling of the Gaelic language throughout, and it is surely attributable to the SNP’s failures as a nationalist party that the Gaelic language interest was not capitalised upon to increase the rather dismal number of Scottish Gaelic speakers.
Such evident shortcomings within Scottish politics bear pointing out a broader, uncomfortable issue: that modern Scottish culture has often not been a friendly environment for Gaelic culture, to put it lightly. It is worth noting that the impetus for the movie was Randall’s script, plus Gibson’s resonance with the project, neither of whom is directly Scottish themselves. In fact, the film is deeply diasporic in the sense that it idealises the Gaelic homelands without much heed to the percolating anti-Gaelic sentiment that has festered for a quarter of a millennium since Randall’s ancestors left Scotland and Ireland for America. In the interim, it is not an exaggeration to state that the Lowland political approach to Gaeldom could be characterised as appropriating the outward symbols of Highland culture as a costume, to be trotted out for military and ceremonial occasions, safe in the knowledge that the actual progenitors of that culture were resoundingly defeated, depopulated, and reduced to a sanitised romantic artefact.
Braveheart’s Lasting Legacy
It was into such a hostile cultural environment that Braveheart was thrown, and against all the odds, and in the most unlikely of manners, it has acted like the electrodes attached to the sewn-up corpse of Frankenstein, breathing new life into a quasi-deceased national project in Scottish Gaeldom. The film swapped out Gaelic cultural cringe for esteem, and has been a thorn in the side of the Anglophilic, unionist element of Scottish politics ever since. Moreover, the extent of its political impact brings to light the importance of artistic production to nationalism. There is the sobering realisation that the proliferation of articles, protests, or institutions is often subsidiary in spiritual and emotional impact to the work of art, especially the ‘total work of art’. It is Braveheart’s filmic rendition of Celtic Romanticism that has influenced the masses the most, and —even if not entirely consciously— is best understood as an attempt at politico-cultural resurrection, to restore the Gael in one of his most rightful ancient kingdoms. It also remains one of the few mainstream artistic representations of pan-Gaelicism, or pan-Celticism more broadly, keeping the embers of those ambitions alive in our culture from the Bruce to today. The historic discrepancies —slightly overstated as they are— are simply not enough to dent the importance of the film. In these trying times, Braveheart’s valorisation of struggle, sacrifice, and the will to achieve ‘a country of our own’, is a moralising message to Celtic nationalists the world over —all nationalists really— to fight on, for that elusive thing, that far from trite ideal invoked at Wallace’s defiant end; ‘Freedom.’