10 Things You Didn’t Know About Braveheart
Mel Gibson and company took home 5 Oscars during 1996 including Best Picture, Best Director, Best Cinematography, Best Effects, and Best Makeup. It’s hard to believe while watching it now with all of the fame and knockoffs that this film was a massive hit with both fans and critics alike. It’s a fantastic film, no doubt, but I do have a tough time watching it knowing how historically inaccurate MOST of it is. Still, like all movies, there’s some shit about it that you aren’t aware of so let’s get started. This is 10 Things You Didn’t Know About Braveheart.
1. When they were filming the line “Your heart is free. Have the courage to follow.” from William’s dead dad in the dream, there were no lines written prior to the day’s shooting. They came up with that line and filmed it on the same day.
2. Mel admits to many things on screen being used for cinematic purposes. The Irish backpipes, the Primae Noctis, Robert Bruce’s fathers leprocy, Battle of Stirling Bridge’s lack of bridge, the blue facepaint worn by Wallace and his men, the age of the Princess (she was a baby in real life), and Wallace’s age amongst other things.
3. The sequence of William and Murron trying to escape from the English soldiers was originally much longer but they were shooting during the day and only had time enough in the daylight to do so much.
4. Mel says that if they had a set that they could burn down they would do it whether it was in the script or not. If you re-watch it you’ll notice that there were many structures burned down.
5. 6 weeks to shoot, 9 cameras, and 2000 extras for the Sterling battle sequence. It was the longest shoot of the film.
6. The scene with the battering ram at York broke the Guiness Book of World Records for most men on fire in a single scene. They would break the record again during the siege at York.
7. Filming the battle of Falkirk only took about a third of the time since they had experience with organization from the earlier battle. They had also made a great number of time-mistakes and were able to save themselves this second time around.
8. PETA stopped by the offices to complain about the scene where Wallace’s horse is taken out from below him. What he didn’t know is that it was an effect using a mechanical horse.
9. Mel was so busy acting and directing the film that he didn’t have the time or energy to do many takes. He would usually do no more than than three takes of any scene and he felt it removed a lot of the anxiety over the scenes.
10. They used the Reserve Irish Army as extras for the Scots. They had upwards of 2000 of them. They would go through a tent wearing their fatigues and walk through an assembly line of sorts to get into costume as Wallace’s Scottish brethren.
