In the 13th century, Scottish warrior William Wallace leads a revolt against English oppression and gives up everything for his nation's freedom. It's a sweeping historical epic. Its emotional power comes from the landscape, from sacrifice and from the fact that surrender is impossible.
Braveheart is a 1995 history, war and drama film directed by Mel Gibson. This breakdown covers 8 techniques (4 cinematography, 1 sound and 3 narrative), each with the scene where you can see it. If you like how it is made, The Shawshank Redemption uses several of the same techniques.
Photographing real landscapes like mountains, plains and rivers so they feel mythic and full of meaning. The land becomes a spiritual and moral test the characters have to cross.
How this film uses it
The Scottish Highlands carry the film's argument. Gibson shoots the mist-covered hills and open glens as a homeland worth dying for. The camera's reverence for the land makes the emotional case for rebellion as much as any dialogue does.
Where to see it
The opening and closing Highland sequences. The land itself is the cause Wallace can't put into words and can't give up.
Building the film around its music, with recurring themes for characters, relationships and moral states. The score swells and returns to shape your emotions as deliberately as the editing.
How this film uses it
James Horner's score of Celtic pipes and orchestra works like a second narrator. The main theme carries grief, defiance and longing at the same time. Each time it returns over the runtime, it marks a step up in emotion and does more than underline what the image already shows.
Where to see it
The battle charges. The score turns physical action into a statement of the spirit.
Staging large-scale destruction for real with actual structures, explosions and extras, and using no digital simulation. The chaos on screen has real weight and scale.
How this film uses it
Gibson staged the Battle of Stirling Bridge and the Battle of Falkirk with about 1,600 Irish Army Reserve members as extras and real horses. You get a physical weight that digital effects can't copy: the mud, the mass of people and the confusion of real bodies really colliding.
Where to see it
The Battle of Stirling. Schiltrons, tight walls of spears, meet cavalry at full real-life scale. The chaos of the charge is filmed from ground level.
Opening and closing the film with the same device, often an older character returning to an important place. The frame asks a moral question about what you just watched.
How this film uses it
Robert the Bruce narrates the film from its first moments and returns at the end to hand Wallace's story over to history. Because his voice opens and closes the film, Wallace's death is placed as the seed of Scotland's eventual freedom. The frame turns his martyrdom into a legacy.
Where to see it
Robert's final charge at Bannockburn. The bookend closes as Bruce becomes the leader that Wallace's sacrifice demanded.
Building up to a big emotional release slowly, by investing in the characters and giving small bits of hope. When the release comes, it feels deserved after all the suffering.
How this film uses it
Wallace's execution is designed to be unbearable. The film has spent 2 hours making his freedom and his love for Scotland impossible to replace. No rescue comes. The release comes through his refusal, and his defiance in the face of death is the emotional payoff.
Where to see it
Wallace's final word, 'Freedom'. It comes as a last breath after everything has been taken from him. Nothing about it sounds like a triumphant speech.
Keeping an unsteadied handheld camera in constant motion during action, panning, circling and rushing in. You feel like you are inside the event with no safe distance.
How this film uses it
Gibson and cinematographer John Toll shoot handheld throughout the battle sequences and put the camera at ground level among the charging soldiers. That gives the Scottish charges their chaotic, terrifying momentum. The camera can't hold still because nothing around it can.
Where to see it
The Battle of Stirling Bridge charge. The camera runs with the Scots, and the frame lurches with the physical impact of the charge.
Changing the camera's shutter setting to control motion blur. A narrower, faster shutter makes movement look choppy and hyper-real, which suits the chaos of combat.
How this film uses it
The battle sequences use a shorter shutter angle, which cuts down the motion blur in each frame. Sword strikes and arrow hits get a sharp, stuttering quality. Movement becomes a series of frozen impressions and loses its smoothness. As a result, the violence feels immediate and physical.
Where to see it
The close-quarters fighting at Falkirk. The shutter trick makes each impact land with a sharp, almost painterly intensity.
Having a narrator tell the story from some point after it happened. The events feel like memory, and you sense early on that something will be lost.
How this film uses it
Robert the Bruce's narration frames the film as Scottish history looking back at its defining moment. Because he is looking back, you know from the opening that Wallace became a legend. Whether he wins is already settled. The film is about what his defeat costs and what it creates.
Where to see it
The opening narration. Robert the Bruce sets up the historical frame, and his backward-looking voice makes Wallace's story a legend before it begins.
Questions
Braveheart: quick answers
What filmmaking techniques does Braveheart use?
CineCode breaks down 8 techniques in Braveheart (1995): Landscape as Sacred Geography, Operatic Score Integration, Practical Destruction, Bookend Moral Frame, Earned Catharsis, Handheld Kinetic Cinematography, Shutter Angle Manipulation and Retrospective Voiceover.
Who directed Braveheart?
Mel Gibson directed Braveheart, released in 1995. CineCode also covers Hacksaw Ridge (2016).
What films are similar to Braveheart?
Films that share techniques with Braveheart include The Shawshank Redemption (1994), Saving Private Ryan (1998), The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (1948), Slumdog Millionaire (2008).
