The
Patriot: Movie Review
From the Journal
of American History
vol. 87, no. 3, on-line version: http://www.historycooperative.org/journals/jah/87.3/mr_2.html
The Patriot. Dir. by Roland Emmerich. Centropolis Entertainment, Columbia
Pictures, and sony Pictures Entertainment, 2000. 160 mins.
The Patriot, directed by Roland Emmerich for Centropolis Entertainment,
Columbia Pictures, and SONY Pictures Entertainment, is a stirring account
of a little-known campaign of a war that has been largely ignored by Hollywood.
It tells the story of Benjamin Martin (Mel Gibson), a South Carolina planter
and widower with seven children. His horrific experiences in the French
and Indian War make him unwilling to take up arms against the British
when South Carolina votes for independence in 1776, though his eldest
son, Gabriel (Heath Ledger), joins the Continental army. Martin is forced
to take sides when the war literally comes into his front yard and British
troops harm his family and burn his home. He assumes command of the local
militia and becomes the scourge of the British, cutting their supply lines
and attacking their outposts. Martin and his men pay a heavy personal
price for their patriotism, but they persevere and play a key role in
defeating the British army in South Carolina. After Gen. Charles Cornwallis
surrenders, Martin and his men return to South Carolina to rebuild in
their independent country.
This film is a well-told, well-acted, and handsomely photographed historical
epic, and accolades must go to Emmerich and Gibson for tackling a subject
that is certainly less than familiar to the average summer movie patron.
Adding more credibility to the historical accuracy of this film was the
participation of historians from the Smithsonian's National Museum of
American History as consultants. The sets and scenery show much attention
to historical detail. Colonial Charleston, the plantations, villages,
and tavernsall convey an atmosphere of period authenticity. The
Fort Carolina set is especially well done; the British built a number
of such forts by constructing earthwork and palisade fortifications around
plantation houses.
However, much of The Patriot is not historically accurate in the interpretation
of broad themes or in specific details of the campaign in the South and
of warfare in the American Revolution. Gibson acknowledged, "If one
were to adhere to historical accuracy all the way, you'd probably have
the most boring two hours on earth, but firstly it's entertainment and
we've taken license with history to make it more compelling."
Mel Gibson's character is a composite of several partisan leaders, most
notably Francis Marion, Thomas Sumter, and Andrew Pickens. Like Marion,
Martin makes his headquarters on an island in the middle of a swamp. Both
Sumter and Pickens took up arms after their plantations were burned by
the British. Aside from those facts, Benjamin Martin has little in common
with his real-life counterparts.
The most serious deficiency of The Patriot is its almost complete omission
of the Loyalists. A significant segment of the population of the Carolinas
and Georgia remained loyal, and much of the fighting there was a civil
war between Tories and Whigs. Though Loyalist provincial and militia units
constituted one-half of the British army in the South, the film portrays
only one Loyalist soldier, Captain Wilkins (Adam Baldwin) in Colonel Tavington's
(Jason Isaacs) dragoons. Tavington is based on Banastre Tarleton, who
commanded the British Legion, a Loyalist provincial regiment. The film
gives the impression that Tavington's regiment is British and that Captain
Wilkins is the only Loyalist in its ranks. No other Loyalist soldiers
appear in The Patriot.
The atrocities committed by Colonel Tavington and his troops are highly
exaggerated. Benjamin Martin first encounters this bloodthirsty officer
after he has opened up his home to treat the wounded of both sides. Tavington
has the British wounded removed, then orders the execution of the wounded
Continentals and the burning of Martin's plantation. When one of Martin's
sons tries to intervene, Tavington fatally shoots him in the back. Tavington
and his men subsequently murder slaves who refuse to cooperate with them
and go on a farm-burning spree in which they kill the wife and child of
one of Martin's men. The culminating atrocity occurs when Tavington descends
on the village of Wakefield, which is home to a number of Martin's guerrillas,
and has the entire population locked inside the church, which he then
sets ablaze.
Though the real-life Banastre Tarleton was a ruthless and brutal officer,
he never committed atrocities of the sort depicted in The Patriot. The
most notorious episode associated with Tarleton was the Waxhaws Massacre
on May 29, 1780. In that engagement Tarleton and his legion attacked a
regiment of Virginia Continentals. The Virginians fired only one volley
before the Tory horsemen broke their line. They then tried to surrender,
but a killing frenzy took hold of the Loyalists and most of the helpless
Continentals were mercilessly cut down. Three-quarters of the Virginians
were killed or so badly wounded that Tarleton left them on the field.
An American officer who saw the wounded after the battle estimated that
the average number of wounds per man was sixteen.
Tarleton enthusiastically burned the farms of suspected Patriots and summarily
executed suspected guerrillason several occasions in front of their
families. Dastardly as Tarleton's actual behavior was, it pales in comparison
to that of The Patriot's Colonel Tavington. There is no evidence that
Tarleton executed wounded Continentals, nor that he killed women and children.
The British had a very practical motivation for not killing their Continental
captives, as it would invite retaliation against British prisoners. The
Waxhaws Massacre occurred in the heat of battle and was exacerbated by
the intense animosity between Tories and Whigs. In an interview, Gibson
acknowledged, "Some of the worst crimes were committed between the
Loyalists and the Rebels, the colonists themselves." However, when
Tavington is preparing to incinerate the church with the villagers inside,
Captain Wilkins, a Tory, is the only one of his men to express any reservations.
The portrayal of African Americans and slavery in the movie has also been
a subject of much controversy. Benjamin Martin is a prominent planter
in South Carolina and thus would have owned slaves. In order not to stigmatize
the film's hero, Martin does not own slaves but employs free black workers,
probably the only such labor arrangement in colonial South Carolina. Later,
Martin takes his family to a "maroon" community of fugitive
slaves on the coast to hide them from the British. In reality, those slaves
were hiding from the Patriots. Thomas Sumter often used slaves seized
from Tory owners to pay his militiamen.
The
military details of uniforms, equipment, and tactics also reveal inaccuracies
too numerous to list here. All British soldiers did not wear red uniforms,
and very few Continental soldiers had blue coats and white trousers. This
latter fact was more accurately depicted in A&E's The Crossing, in
which audiences see little uniformity in the attire of the Continentals.
In the southern campaign most of the American army was militia, and the
Continental contingent had no tents and had trouble acquiring clothing
or provisions of any kind. The Patriot misses an excellent opportunity
to show the true depth of suffering and deprivation that the Continental
regulars endured for independence. The climactic battle in the film also
bears little resemblance to the actual Battle of Cowpens, upon which it
is based. Finally, the field artillery available to both sides could not
fire exploding shells.
In conclusion, The Patriot is a very entertaining film that uses the American
Revolution in South Carolina as a backdrop to tell a story about the way
the war affected a fictional family. "This is not historically accurate,"
said Mel Gibson. "In the broad strokes, yeson other levels,
it is sheer fantasy. It's a good thing that historians are going to harangue
this and say, 'It's not accurate.' Good. It'll make somebody pick up a
book."
William Ross
St. George Jr.
Wilmington, North Carolina
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