patriot movie essay

The patriot

Part 1: Introduction
Because I know I’m not writing this essay for someone who hasn’t seen the movie, I’m not going to describe every single second in this summary, just the most important parts. The movie is about the historical event: the American Revolutionary War. The main character, Benjamin Martin, whom I like to call Martin rather than Benjamin and so I will, has fought in the French – Indian war, also known as the Seven Years’ war or the War of the Conquest. However, he regrets his brutal deeds, so during the revolutionary war he wants to take care of his family without being involved in it. His two oldest sons, Gabriel and Thomas don’t agree with his decisions: they want to fight. When Gabriel secretly signs himself up to fight the war, Martin is furious, although he can’t do anything about. Time passes, but when suddenly on a normal evening they hear a battlefield coming closer and closer, a wounded soldier enters their house: it’s Gabriel. The next morning, after the battle’s been fought, Martin and his family treat/help all the wounded soldiers, both British and American. But when British Colonel William Tavington comes by, he’s not so happy with this. To punish Martin and his family, he burns the house, and for being a betrayer, he wants to hang Gabriel. Thomas tries to stop him and gets shot. From this moment, Martin is wildly active. Gabriel gets back to rejoin his squad while Martin gets in charge of the South Carolina militia and travels from town to town to get men to fight with him. They win (almost) every battle by the use of the guerilla techniques: standing behind a tree/bush and from there attack the enemy (the British were used to formal fighting). When British general Lord Cornwallis hears about the attacs on this men, he orders Tavington to take Martin and his militia down. Tavington then does everything for information. When an old friend of Martin snitches to Tavington where Martin’s family is, Tavington burns their house. Luckily they escape. However, when Tavington and his army find the town where most of the men from Martin’s militia come from, he locks everyone in the church and demands information. When he has everything he wants, he burns down the church. Gabriel is furious when he sees the burned church, because he knows his wife was in there and thus died. He follows Tavington army and fight them with his small, leftover militia. Unfortunaly he gets killed by Tavington. When Martin sees this, he is hopeless. He wants to give up. But when picks up Gabriels bag, he sees a repaired American flag and it reminds him of his goal. He returns and in the last battle, he kills Tavington.

Part 2: Chapter 1
The patriot is based on the historical event: the Revolutionary war, which is part of the time of the Wigs and Revolutions. The Revolutionary war, also known as the American war for Independence, took place from 1775 till 1783. It started off when in 1775, the first battles were fought, although the 13 colonies hadn’t declared independence until 1776. In the colonies themselves, there were several groups of people: the Loyalists, who were on the side of Great Britain, the Patriots (a patriot is someone who fights for his fatherland) , who were against them and were also called the colonial rebels, and the Fence sitters: the majority of the people that lived in the colonies that hadn’t picked a side. The patriot focuses mainly on a family that was against Great Britain and their way to achieve independency. So, since the movie showed only the journey of the patriots, the way Great Britain is showed is not presented how it really was. The director has clearly exaggerated in their actions. I will come back to this point later in this essay. Another thing that I noticed was that Martin and his family treated their slaves as their workers. In the scene that Tavington burns down their house, he sees a slave and tells him that slaves are obligatory to join the army, in which he responds that he’s not a slave, but a worker. This confused me, because after my research I understood that the Southern colonies were the ones that were the most active with slaves. It turned out that Martin’s family was one of the minority that fought against slavery, or at least showed a clear sign that they were against it, in the Southern region (which is good). In the movie, Martin’s militia goes from town to town and everyone volunteers to join him. What I thought was weird about this, is that it happened in the Southern regions where most slavery took place, and there were zero loyalists. It’s not that I’m linking this to slavery, because that wouldn’t make any sense, but the fact that it was one of the colonies that was doing bad things, you would expect that there would be some loyalists out there as well. It would’ve made their journey much harder and the movie much more realistic if you ask me. Another small, but strange thing was when Martin killed the last soldier with his axe, his children are frightened by their father: they had never seen him like them before. However, the same evening, Martin is putting one of his sons in, but instead of being frightened (what I definitely would be), he tells him that he is glad that he killed them, and when you look close, you can tell by the look on his face that he’s proud of his actions. To me, NO CHILD, I repeat, NO CHILD WOULD DO THAT. It gives a clear sign of a mentally disordered child that has plans to kill in the future again and I don’t think this is proper. And even if he isn’t, the director should have shown a to death scared child that wouldn’t even come close to his father. NOT PRESENTED AS IT REALLY WAS I SAY. To round off: the amount of fiction takes over the amount of reality, so I say that it is a fictional story, based on a historical event. To continue with the characters, there were a couple that in fact actually existed, but most of them were made up. The one that lived in that time, was General Cornwallis. It makes sense, because the movie would look completely unrealistic if you gave someone who was the big deal back then, a fake name. It would look even dumber because he isn’t even a big part of the movie. Tavington is based on colonel Banastre Tarleton, who got famous by his cruel and heartless deeds. Even though I can imagine cruel, British Colonels, I think Tavington’s character is based on Tarleton’s actions times 10. As I said, they have really exaggerated on the Britains (but they’re Americans, so yeah..). Martin was based on: Andrew Pickens, who was the actual militia leader of South Carolina and as well a congressman, just like Francis Marion, who was famous for the use of the guerilla techniques, Daniel Morgan, who gave his army a break and became famous of that, which Martin did in the movie and Thomas Sumter, whose house was burned down. He as well served in the French – Indian army. All these men together make Martin. In the movie, to me only one message is given: if you really want something, let nothing or no one stop you! Gabriel is the one that brought the message to me the best. He kept on telling his father (mostly) and everyone who wanted to hear it, for what he was fighting: a free America. It especially became clear to me in the scene where he repaired the American flag. It was a nice scene.

Part 3: Chapter 2
The time of wigs and revolutions, a time in which a lot of changes took place. The period had the following characteristics that were presented in the movie as well: human rights, optimistically, believed in a better world, luck was for everyone, freedom, stories that would touch your heart, less religion and more scientifically proven facts. To start with, Martin’s family believed that everyone was equal, since they didn’t see slaves as slaves, but workers. According to it, there was actually very little till no slavery at all. This could be part of the time period: luck was for everyone, equality and human rights. But to the actual period where it happened, these views on slavery are nonsense. South Carolina was one of the states that was so attached to slaveholding that it was the first state to leave the union, after Lincoln’s elections. So, the characteristics match the period of time where they became new, but the actual happening is far from true when it comes to slavery. Gabriel was very optimistic: he believed in a better world and that luck was for everyone. He strongly believed in a free America and would do whatever he could to achieve his goal, no matter what it’d take: a real patriot. Gabriel is thus the character that to me is most based on the time period he lived in. Another characteristic is that people started to believe less in God and more in proven facts. Everything could be proven and God would not be part of the solution. This aspect is not shown in the movie at all. People still went to church on a daily basis and Martin even crossed his head, shoulders and mouth before he started a battle, which is a Catholic ritual. While this took place in the beginning of the 18th century, the movie is representing the end of it, so it wrongly shows the principle of looking for a resolution without God, mainly because the cross ritual is simply expressing that you belong to God and you have faith in Him. The patriot is a story that would actually touch your heart. Not because of the cruel deeds, but the little emotional scenes that take place during the movie and the movie as a whole. Because 90% of the movies are battles, the other scenes are more beautiful than they would if they were apart. In the movie, so many people gave their lives for their country, even though they were colonies. It is beautiful to see how they are determined to have a free America, even though if that includes them not being part of it. The special thing is that Martin is at first totally against his son being part of it, because he used to fight in an army as well and his past that he regrets keeps on coming back. However, Gabriel did what he wanted and at a certain point, Martin sees that Gabriel fights for something personally wants, while Martin was forced to do so. The bond they create during the movie shows almost every characteristic of the time: together they believe in a better world and have an optimistic view on life. If they finish their journey, they eventually will be free (and until then at least be free from Tavington): a better world would take place soon. The bond together with the message create a heart touching movie (without all the battles), although I don’t think it is proper to use in a history class. If you’d ask me, the movie was made up by a fat, burger eating American who just lost an online x-box game from a Brit. Sorry not sorry, but the movie is as I said before wrongly presented. I’ve mentioned the slavery part before, but the thing that especially shows that the director was American is the way he depicts Britain. I know I wasn’t there when it happened, nor am I a history teacher, but no one would believe that a Colonel (I mean, you don’t get that title because you bought a lottery ticket and the government ran out of money), would set a church on fire, not to mention putting citizens in it first. Why would an army leading man even does something like that? The one who has come up with the idea of that scene should really get himself checked, because he clearly has some issues. The patriot depicts that even though the rest of the world started to not think of God as a solution of everything, South Carolina still did. Their belief in God remained the same. And then… They set a church on fire??? With these people in it??? It doesn’t make sense to me and I don’t think it would make sense to anyone else. Then going back to Tavington: who would actually believe that he would do that? Yes, he might be cruel and heartless, as the person he was based on, but don’t you think that at least one person would protest against his actions? And I don’t even mean to speak out loud what kind of an ass he is, but at least look at him after he gives you a ridiculous order. It in fact happened before setting the church on fire, but it was by a citizen of the town, so that doesn’t count. I’m talking about all the British soldiers who take his orders and do what he tells them to do, without having any trouble with it. It shows to me that every Brit was heartless and cruel as Tavington. This is wrong and should never be exposed to a group of innocent students who had no idea of what the war was about. BUT, if you showed specific parts of the movies, all the beautiful scenes, for example when Gabriel drank thee with Anne (front page picture), however this is not relevant for a class to see, or when Gabriel is repairing the American flag and talks to Occam about his views on a better world. These characteristics, the ones I mentioned earlier and the movie message could perfectly be used to teach a class about their way of thinking back then. Just not the whole movie, since it depicts a false view on the Britains.

Part 4: Conclusion
Before I started with this project, I thought it would be easy: watching a movie, giving a summary and answering some questions. However, it was much harder and took more time than I thought. I was lucky that I started a week before the due date. What I’ve learned? About the revolution itself, I’ve learned a lot, because I’ve done a lot of research, leading to more questions (e.g. : when did the American Revolution start? But wait.. why did it begin?) . I didn’t mind that, because it’s an interesting topic and I’ve learned a lot about it. The movie itself was a good one to watch, nice scenes, bad scenes: a typical movie. I want to keep my conclusion short, because I will recall everything I’ve typed for the last four days and I don’t want that. So opinion: good movie, bad depicting of the Britains, main characteristics of the time period are shown proper, don’t use the movie to teach a class about the war. That was it, I hope you enjoyed reading it!