Memories
Stepping back in time:
When Mel Gibson introduced his movie on opening night at the Seattle Film Festival, few at the screening would predict its eventual impact.
After saying a few words, the Hollywood star stepped aside and the credits rolled on his second directorial effort, Braveheart.
Nine months later, the Lethal Weapon star’s celluloid baby came of age when it won an unlikely five Oscars, including Best Picture and Best Director for Gibson himself.
In the interim period, audiences around the world fell in love with the Mad Max star’s dramatisation of William Wallace’s kilted warrior and his battle to gain Scottish independence.
However historically inaccurate it may all have been, cinemagoers lapped up the image of blue-faced Gibson on his horse, roaring in a dodgy accent about them taking our lives, but not our freedom.
It was September, 1995, before the film opened in the UK, with Gibson, bedecked in kilt, arriving in Stirling for the Scottish premiere.
By that point, American audiences had already begun booking flights to Scotland for personal pilgrimages to Braveheart country.
In the year after the film’s release, visitor numbers to the Wallace Monument doubled. The film created a similar boost in tourism elsewhere in Scotland and, even today, the effects of the movie’s profile boost for the country can still be felt.
Indeed, the recent TV hit Outlander can trace its lineage straight back to the kilt-wearing epic.
This wasn’t the only impact from the Braveheart effect. Comedian Stanley Baxter, speaking out against Scottish independence in the run-up to the referendum in 2014, blamed the “dreadful” films that had been made, “anti-English films and that wretched Australian (Gibson)” as the cause.
As for the film itself, its three-hour runtime zipped by thanks to its incredible battle scenes.
The huge cast included Brian Cox, Angus Macfadyen, Patrick McGoohan, Sophie Marceau, Brendan Gleeson and Peter Mullan.
Screenwriter Randall Wallace defended the historical inaccuracies and audiences didn’t seem to mind, with the film making more than $200 million.
Considering the film-makers had struggled to raise its $60-70 million budget, that box office total was a major success.
Gibson first came across the script a couple of years earlier and passed, but kept being drawn back. He agreed to direct, but originally preferred Brad Pitt for the title role, before eventually agreeing to dual duties.
Film fans can be fickle, and despite winning Empire magazine’s Best Film of 1995 award, as voted for by readers, opinions had changed among the publication’s clientele by 2005.
An Empire poll voting the top 10 worst pictures to win the best picture Oscar placed Braveheart at number one.