Tuesday, July 3, 2012

Freedooooooom!

William: Sons of Scotland! I am William Wallace.
Soldier 2: William Wallace is seven feet tall!
William: Yes, I've heard. Kills men by the hundreds. And if HE were here, he'd consume the English with fireballs from his eyes, and bolts of lightning from his arse.
[Scottish army laughs]
William: I AM William Wallace! And I see a whole army of my country men, here, in defiance of tyranny. You've come to fight as free men, and free men you are. What will you do with that FREEDOM? Will you fight?
Soldier 1: Against that? No, we will run, and we will live.
William: Aye, fight and you may die, run, and you'll live... at least a while. And dying in your beds, many years from now, would you be willing to trade ALL the days, from this day to that, for one chance, just one chance, to come back here and tell our enemies that they may take our lives, but they'll never take... OUR FREEDOM!'

Yes, I have finally watched Mel Gibson's film Braveheart, the tale of Scottish freedom fighter William Wallace. I haven't really been into Scottish-ness before, unless you count Amy Pond from Doctor Who.
(Side note: The Doctor keeps telling Amy that she's "so Scottish," which led to the following exchange between me and my brother:
Brother: So, does Scottish mean stupid?
Me: No, just stubborn.
Brother: Oh, so Braveheart is about a lot of stubborn people?
Anyway, I have to admit it was more graphic than I'm used to, but I really liked how the director used a lot of wordless scenes to communicate emotion and events without getting sappy or expository. And I wish we had a William Wallace to lecture Congress on its responsibility to Americans.

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