War is ugly. There is not one way to get around that fact. Fighting and war has been around since the beginning of time. Through films, we can recreate famous battles, wars, and famous historical events. This was the case in the films of “Braveheart”, and also “Saving Private Ryan”. Although the time period of these two films are far from similar, there are ideological connections that can be seen between the two films.
“Braveheart”, the 1995 film takes place around the year of 1300. The film’s protagonist, a Scottish knight named William Wallace fights for his right, and for his homeland during the Wars of Scottish independence. The ideology that the film depicts is fighting for his homeland, and independence. However, freedom comes at a cost of blood shed. During the film the audience is shown brutal death by the Scottish. All of this goes back to the ideology of pride and love the their home country. The people would do anything for freedom. Through triumph and motivation Wallace, would die for the love of his country. Eventually the Scottish would push the English back and regain their independence, and ultimately regain their country.
“Saving Private Ryan” has a plot that as American’s we can relate to more. Taking place during World War II, the audience knows that is toward the end of the war in 1945, because the film starts with the invasion of Omaha beach, or the D-Day invasion. Within the first five minutes of the film, you see American soldiers get absolutely ripped apart by German machine guns. As the viewer you see limbs blown off, human internals exposed, explosions, and most importantly, the will to never give up and keep pushing forward. This powerful scene shows off will and the fight of the American soldiers to keep pushing toward up the beach, because they knew if they did not accomplish this mission, the Axis would win the war. The amount of bloodshed the soldiers poured on that day was enough to turn the ocean a dark red.
I find it interesting that even though these two films take place in two completely different time periods, that they both share the same ideological messages. Although, the films revolve around two completely different countries (Braveheart being Scotland, and Saving Private Ryan being the United States), from the ideology standpoint the films share the same meaning. Each film shows the pride for their country. Countless times the audience see’s brutal deaths and fight to never give up. In “Braveheart” the Scottish fought for freedom, and the regain their country as their own, while in “Saving Private Ryan” the fight was the freedom of the world. If the United States were unsuccessful during World War II, who knows what the world would look like today. The same goes for “Braveheart”. If William Wallace was not successful in leading a rebellion, Scotland might not be a country today. The ideology in these films carry a powerful message of loving your homeland so much that you would die for it.
africk001 