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The war of independence in feature films: The Patriot (2000) and the ‘special relationship’ between Hollywood and Britain

2005; Routledge; Volume: 25; Issue: 4 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1080/01439680500262892

1465-3451

Mark Glancy,

Theater, Performance, and Music History

Abstract It is one of the more curious points in film history that the American War of Independence has been largely neglected in feature films. Stories centred on the country's origins would seem to offer vivid cinematic material, and not least because there are so many dramatic episodes associated with the revolutionary period: the Boston Tea Party, Paul Revere's ride, the first shots fired in Lexington, the signing of the Declaration of Independence, and Washington crossing the Delaware, to name but a few. Equally, the Founding Fathers would seem to make ideal cinematic heroes, and it is easy to envisage scenes in which a young George Washington admits to having chopped down a cherry tree, Thomas Jefferson writes the Declaration of Independence and Benjamin Franklin experiments with electricity. Indeed, throughout the 20th century (and into the 21st) the Founding Fathers have remained among the best-known figures in American life. Their stories and deeds have been kept alive in the country's classrooms, from elementary school lessons through to university level courses. Their views continue to be cited by liberals and conservatives alike in debates on contemporary issues. They are the subjects of a continuous stream of best-selling biographies and historical studies. And of course their achievements and the events of 1776 are commemorated enthusiastically in annual Independence Day celebrations. Yet despite their iconic status, and the centrality of the ‘founding myth’ within American culture, few films have dramatised the revolutionary period and fewer still have found any commercial or critical success. In fact, the War of Independence has long been considered ‘box-office poison’ in Hollywood, and most attempts to make films on the subject have been disastrous. Why has the revolutionary period proven to be so unsuitable for feature films? This question will be investigated by considering a range of films set during the War of Independence, and by focussing on the release and reception of the most recent of these, The Patriot (2000). If any film was likely to make the revolutionary period palatable for film audiences, it was this one. Made at a reported cost of $100 million, The Patriot features one of the most bankable stars of the era, Mel Gibson, in a leading role.Footnote1 The storyline—centred on a close-knit family threatened by extreme violence—is an oft-repeated Hollywood formula that seems never to wear thin with audiences. In keeping with recent trends, the film's battle scenes are captured with as much gruesome detail as modern special effects can offer. The film also offers some of the more traditional pleasures associated with historical dramas, including lavish production values, elaborate period costumes and sets, and a rousing musical score by John Williams. And a sense of epic grandeur and historical importance is conveyed by a running time of 160 minutes and an endorsement from the Smithsonian Institution.Footnote2 This combination of attractions was put to the test when the film was given a wide release throughout the United States over the Fourth of July weekend, 2000. Initially, The Patriot enjoyed notable success with both film critics and audiences, but its box-office rankings quickly faded, and it became engulfed in a series of acrimonious debates, which seemed to alienate rather than intrigue American audiences. In Britain, meanwhile, critics and commentators publicly condemned the film even before it opened, and then after a tepid opening week, cinemas quickly dropped it. As in the United States, much of the controversy surrounding the film was ostensibly focused on issues relating to its historical accuracy, but the vehement reactions that the film provoked suggest that there was far more at stake than this, and that the War of Independence remained a divisive and problematic subject for audiences in both countries. While The Patriot was not a consistently popular film in either the USA or Britain, it certainly became a prominent and controversial one. It generated an extensive body of news reports, feature articles and editorials in mainstream American and British newspapers and magazines; it was the subject of commentary and debate on television and radio programmes; and it proved to be a source of extensive discussion on a range of websites. These sources, together with reviews and box-office reports from film industry trade papers, are analysed here in order to determine why a drama depicting events more than 200 years in the past could resonate so strongly with modern audiences. In drawing upon such material as evidence, this paper follows the method of ‘reception studies’, which utilises the ideas, opinions and publicity materials associated with a film at the time of its release in order to interpret ‘the range of possible readings’ open to audiences at a given historical juncture.Footnote3 This method suits the particular body of evidence relating to The Patriot; opinions on the film were given a wide airing and they are well documented. It is particularly helpful in considering the diverse reactions to the film. A key principle of reception studies is that films do not have a single and inherent meaning. Rather, audiences create meanings in relation to their own identities and historical circumstances. Hence, it is not the purpose of this paper to determine whether any of the readings of The Patriot is correct, or whether the film is historically accurate. Rather, the primary concern is to consider the range of readings that arose when the film was first released, and to account for how and why these readings were generated. Acknowledgements I am grateful to Peter Kramer, Roger Law, John Ramsden and Jeffrey Richards for their comments on earlier drafts of this paper. Mark Glancy is a Senior Lecturer in History at Queen Mary, University of London. His publications include The 39 Steps: A British Film Guide (I.B. Tauris, 2003) and When Hollywood Loved Britain: The Hollywood ‘British’ Film, 1939–45 (Manchester University Press, 1999). Notes Notes 1. Gibson's salary was widely reported to have constituted $25 million of the $100 million production budget, making him one of the best paid stars in Hollywood. See Susan Wloszczyna, Mel Gibson Enlists In Bid for Box-Office Revolution, USA Today, 28 June 2000, p. 1d. 2. An image from the film appeared on the cover of the Smithsonian's monthly magazine, while an uncredited article praised the care taken in accurately reproducing artifacts from the period. See Capturing America's Fight for Freedom, The Smithsonian Magazine, July 2000. 3. The definitive source on this method is Janet Staiger, Interpreting Films: Studies in the Historical Reception of American Cinema (Princeton, 1992). For a useful discussion of reception studies, and one which emphasizes the need to seek sources which offer ‘resistant, negotiated or alternative readings’ in addition to mainstream readings, see Martin Shingler, Interpreting All About Eve: a study in historical reception, in M. Stokes and R. Maltby (eds) Hollywood Spectatorship: Changing Perceptions of Cinema Audiences (London, 2001), pp. 46–62. 4. Lincoln was played by Walter Huston in D.W. Griffith's first ‘talkie’, Abraham Lincoln (1930). But interest in Lincoln is most apparent in the late 1930s, when he was played by Henry Fonda in Young Mr. Lincoln (1939) and by Raymond Massey in Abe Lincoln in Illinois (1940). He also appears as a character in the Civil War drama Of Human Hearts (1938), played by John Carradine, and his words and image loom large in Mr. Smith Goes To Washington (1939). 5. Jamie Malanowski, The Revolutionary War is Lost on Hollywood, The New York Times, 2 July 2000, p. 9. 6. See also Bill Desowitz, The Battle behind The Patriot, The Los Angeles Times, 27 June 2000, p. 1f; and Richard Willing, The Colonies won the war but rarely can conquer Hollywood's heart, USA Today, 3 July 2000, p. 1a. 7. For further discussion of Hollywood's dependence on earnings from the British exhibition market, see H. Mark Glancy, When Hollywood Loved Britain: The Hollywood ‘British’ Film, 1939–45 (Manchester, 1999). 8. Jeffrey Richards, Films and British National Identity: From Dickens to Dad's Army (Manchester, 1997), pp. 170–171. 9. Hollywood continued to make ‘British’ films in these decades. Although they were not as consistently successful as they had been in previous decades, there were some notable box office hits, including Ivanhoe (1952) and The Knights of the Round Table (1953). Perhaps a better sign of the shared cinematic culture in these years is the number of popular films that look back on Anglo-American cooperation in wartime, such as The Bridge On the River Kwai (1957), The Longest Day (1962) and The Great Escape (1963). 10. See Top Theatrical Markets in the international edition of The Hollywood Reporter, 11–17 July 2000, p. 8. 11. It was reported in the London Times that when the jury saw The Spirit of ’76, they ‘returned a quick verdict’, finding Goldstein guilty. This would seem to indicate that the film was obviously subversive in intent. But Anthony Slide's balanced appraisal of the remaining evidence suggests that the jury may have been influenced by the anti-German hysteria that swept the country at the time of the trial. Unfortunately, the film itself has not survived. See Cinema as German Agent: Slander of British Soldiers, The Times, 20 April 1918, p. 6; and Anthony Slide (ed.), Robert Goldstein and The Spirit of ’76 (New Jersey, 1993). 12. Richard Schickel, D. W. Griffith: An American Life (New York, 1984), p. 486. 13. Robert M. Henderson, D. W. Griffith: His Life and Work (Oxford, 1972), p. 246. 14. Schickel indicates that the production costs for America rose from a budgeted $623,000 to nearly $900,000, and that the box office was ‘disappointing’; R. Schickel, op. cit., pp. 488–492. Henderson reports that the film did eventually recoup its costs, but only after ‘years of distribution, re-issue, and the sale of stock footage for other films’; R. Henderson, op. cit., p. 249. Both sources agree that the film did little to help Griffith's troubled financial situation. 15. Mr. Griffith's new film banned, The Times, 11 August 1924, p. 8. 16. Griffith invited the press to a private screening of the film and gave a speech in which he declared, ‘The picture, Love and Sacrifice, is of no consequence. It is the fact that I, who love Britain and the British, have been called anti-British that has brought me here today’. Pictures and Picturegoer, 24 October 1924, p. 51. 17. Griffith and the censor, The Bioscope, 11 September 1924, p. 23. 18. Loving Us, Kinematograph Weekly, 11 September 1924, p. 53. 19. The Times, for example, stated that ‘there is much in this film that cannot be forgiven’ but also argued that its artistic shortcomings were a greater offence than its depiction of the War of Independence. The Times, 8 September 1924, p. 10. The Bioscope warned its readership that the film was ‘excessively long and exceedingly dull’ and would not be of interest to the British public; The Bioscope, 11 September 1924, pp. 38–39. Similarly, the reviewer for Kinematograph Weekly stated that the film was ‘an ordinary love story with sentimental scenes in slow motion’; Kinematograph Weekly, 2 October 1924, p. 46. 20. John E. O’Connor, A reaffirmation of American ideals: Drums Along the Mohawk (1939), in J.E. O’Connor and M.A. Jackson (eds) American History/American Film: Interpreting the Hollywood Image (New York, 1988), pp. 97–119. 21. Ibid., p. 102. 22. John Ford was an Irishman, but as George MacDonald Fraser has pointed out, many of his films nevertheless offer robustly pro-British sentiments. See George MacDonald Fraser, The Hollywood History of the World (London, 1988), p. 178. 23. Pressbook: The Howards of Virginia, The British Film Institute Library, London,UK. 24. The Scarlet Coat was one of the few films on the subject to be directed by an American. But in this case the director, John Sturges, was probably chosen because of his skill in using both Cinemascope and Eastmancolor. Sturges’ previous film, the Western Bad Day at Black Rock (1954), was highly praised in both regards, and The Scarlet Coat was also filmed in these relatively new formats. 25. Other films that could be considered in this category include Alexander Hamilton (1931), in which George Arliss plays the first US Treasury Secretary. However, the film's story begins after the revolution. Similarly, Jefferson in Paris (1995) begins after the War of Independence and depicts only the years that Thomas Jefferson spent as the American Ambassador in Paris. Sweet Liberty (1986) is a comedy set mainly in the present that depicts an author's travails as he watches a Hollywood production team ruin his historical novel, which is set during the War of Independence. I am grateful to Tony Aldgate for bringing Sweet Liberty to my attention. 26. The ‘myth of the plantation’ is explored in Bruce Chadwick, The Reel Civil War: Mythmaking in American Film (New York, 2001). 27. Albert Auster, Saving Private Ryan and American triumphalism, Journal of Popular Film and Television, 2 (2002), 98–104. 28. David Thomson, The New Biographical Dictionary of Film (London, 2002), p. 334. 29. Marion had been portrayed by Leslie Nielsen in a 1959 television mini-series produced by Disney and entitled The Swamp Fox. The series also featured John Sutton as Colonel Tarleton. Mel Gibson knew the series well enough to sing the theme song to an interviewer. See Christine James, A True Patriot, Box-Office Online, www.boxoff.com/issues/apr00/coverstory.html 30. For an account of Marion's life, see Robert Burns, Swamp Fox: The Life and Campaigns of General Francis Marion (South Carolina, 1989). 31. A report in Variety on the film's international box-office performance indicates that The Patriot also met with resentment in France, Variety, 31 July 2000. 32. Michael Wilmington, Mel Gibson Leads the Epic and Exaggerated Patriot Into Battle, The Chicago Tribune, 28 June 2000, p. 1d. 33. Mike Clark, Splash of Bloody History Spattered With Brilliance, USA Today, 28 June 2000, p. 2d. 34. Philip Wuntch, A True Red-White-and-Blue Tale, The Dallas Morning News, 30 June 2000, p. 1j. 35. David Ansen, Red, White, Black and Blue, Newsweek, 26 June 2000, p. 58; Richard Schickel, Movie Review: The Patriot, Time, 26 June 2000, p. 62. 36. Elvis Mitchell, A Gentle Farmer Who's Good at Violence, The New York Times, 28 June 2000, p. 1e. 37. Desson Howe, Mel Gibson Gets His Braveheart on in Patriot, The Washington Post, 30 June 2000, p. 43n. 38. Wuntch, The Dallas Morning News, 30 June 2000, p. 1j. 39. Kenneth Turan, Give Him Liberty or Give Him Death: Lots of It, The Los Angeles Times, 28 June 2000, p. 1f. 40. Mitchell, The New York Times, 28 June 2000, p. 1e; Wilmington, The Chicago Tribune, 28 June 2000, p. 1d. 41. Brands discusses recent best-selling books on the founding fathers, including Joseph J. Ellis’ Thomas Jefferson: American Sphinx (1997) and Founding Brothers (2000), David McCullough's John Adams (2001) and Brands’ own biography of Benjamin Franklin, The First American (2000). See H.W. Brands, Founders Chic, The Atlantic Monthly, September 2003, pp. 101–103. 42. Ray Raphael, The American Revolution: A People's History (London, 2001) p. 6. 43. James Davison Hunter, Culture Wars: The Struggle to Define America (New York, 1991), pp. 50–51. 44. Jonah Goldberg, Gibson's Revolution, The National Review, 17 July 2000. 45. Stephen Hunter, Marching Under a False Flag, The Washington Post, 30 July 2000, p. 1g. 46. Richard Schickel, op. cit., pp. 492–494. 47. Michael Bellesiles, Arming America: The Origins of a National Gun Culture (New York, 2000). For an account of the book's reception and the questions raised about the author's research, see Robert F. Worth, Historian's Prize-winning Book on Guns is Embroiled in a Scandal, The New York Times, 8 December 2001, p. 13a. 48. The ‘restricted’ or ‘R’ rating prevents children under the age of 17 from seeing a film unless they are accompanied by an adult. 49. John R. Lott Jr, Gun Availability is Mistargeted as Root of Crime, The Boston Herald, 1 August 2000, p. 23. 50. Richard Poe, Leftists Hate and Fear The Patriot, 30 June 2000, www.FrontPageMagazine.com. 51. John Seiler, Gibson's Patriot is a Stirring Call to Liberty, Orange County Register, 1 July 2000, p. 17a. 52. See, for example, Cesar Soriano, Fact versus Fiction in The Patriot, USA Today, 11 July 2000, p. 1d. Lee's letter appeared in the 7 July 2000 issue of The Hollywood Reporter. 53. The Patriot was also perceived to be a box office disappointment because in the first week of release its earnings fell behind those of The Perfect Storm (2000). The latter earned $64 million in its first week, and its American earnings eventually reached $183 million. The figures are taken from the charts printed in the weekly international editions of The Hollywood Reporter. 54. George F. Will, Recalling the Revolution, The Washington Post, 2 July 2000, p. 7b. 55. Wilmington, The Chicago Tribune, 28 June 2000, p. 1d. 56. The New York Daily News, 20 June 2000, p. 3. 57. Andrew Pulver, Taking a Liberty, The Guardian, 14 July 2000, p. 5b; Andrew O’Hagan, The Daily Telegraph, p. 25. 58. Alexander Walker, Mel: A Dull Hero, The Evening Standard, 13 July 2000, pp. 29–30. 59. Sebastian Faulks, The Mail on Sunday, 16 July 2000, p. 17. 60. Christopher Tookey, Braveheart Goes West, The Daily Mail, 14 July 2000, p. 60. 61. Nick Fisher, Yankee Doodle is Dandy, The Sun, 15 July 2000, p. 40. 62. Nigel Andrews, Film Reviews, The Financial Times, 13 July 2000, p. 20. 63. Andrew Roberts, Hollywood's Racist Lies about Britain and the British, The Express, 14 June 2000, p. 18. 64. Peter Hitchens, We Should All Be Patriots and Shun This Pack of Hollywood Lies, The Express, 14 July 2000, p. 21. 65. In addition to the articles by Roberts and Hitchens, see David Aaronovitch, Cynical, Demeaning and Violent Rubbish, The Independent, 19 July 2000, p. 2b; Ben Fenton, Truth is the First Casualty in Hollywood's War, The Daily Telegraph, 19 July 2000, p. 3; and John Patterson, Vile Britannia, The Guardian, 7 August 2003. 66. Foreman is the British-born film critic for The New York Post. Jonathan Foreman, The Film That Says We’re Nazis, The Daily Telegraph, 6 July 2000, p. 16. 67. Peter Hitchens expressed his anger over the church scene most succinctly: ‘This is the sort of thing that British troops prevent, rather than the sort of thing they do’. Hitchens, op. cit. 68. Hugh Davies, US Envoy Wages War on Patriot, The Daily Telegraph, 15 July 2000, p. 9. 69. Mark Connelly, We Can Take It!: Britain and the Memory of the Second World War (London, 2004), pp. 294–297. See also Antoinette Burton, When was Britain? Nostalgia for the nation at the end of the “American Century”, The Journal of Modern History, 75 (2003), 359–374. 70. Gibson's Braveheart, for example, was a box-office hit in Britain. While Braveheart also takes considerable liberties with history, and portrays the English as villains, it was perhaps more palatable to British audiences because its heroes were the (ultimately defeated) Scots rather than Americans. 71. The Patriot Flops in Britain, The Sun, 19 July 2000, p. 21. 72. Patriot Mel Gets Bullet, The News of the World, 30 July 2000, p. 22. 73. Don Groves, Patriot Misses at O'seas B.O., Variety, 24 July 2000. 74. Mark Connelly indicates that The Great Escape became ‘embedded in British culture’ as a result of recurrent television screenings on bank holidays and at Christmas, as well as by means of the film's catchy theme tune. See Connelly, op. cit., p. 233.