The Patriot

Harrison Ford turned down the lead in Roland Emmerich’s film, saying it boiled the American Revolution down to one guy wanting revenge. It was shot in that shape anyway. Benjamin Martin is invented but not empty. Screenwriter Robert Rodat says he assembled the character from Thomas Sumter, Daniel Morgan, Andrew Pickens and Francis Marion, and the producers chose not to call him Marion. Whether Martin should own slaves was argued in pre production and decided against; his farm hands are paid free labourers, an arrangement The Journal of American History called probably the only one of its kind in colonial South Carolina. In 2006 Mel Gibson agreed he should have made him a slave holder, calling the choice not to a cop out. The same journal counts the other side: Loyalist provincial and militia units were half the British army in the South, yet the film shows one Loyalist soldier. Tavington carries an entire army by himself. The shoot was entirely in South Carolina. The film took three Academy Award nominations and lost all three: Cinematography, Sound, and Music (Original Score). A good fit if you can take the whole opposing side concentrated into one officer as villain economy, not a hole in the history. Not for anyone unwilling to wave through farm hands who are paid rather than owned.