It’s Mel Gibson and I’m surprised he hasn’t won awards for it.  So why do I say this?  “The Patriot”, “Braveheart” and “Apocalypto”, that’s why.  It’s hard to imagine three films that play so fast and loose with historical accuracy that Joseph Goebbels himself would have been proud of them.

Take “The Patriot” – a full-bodied partisanerama of American and British characterisation.  No mention of the fact that the War of Independence was in large part a civil war between rebels and Crown loyalists.  (Whisper it softly in New York which was one of the bastions of Loyalism).  No mention that “No taxation without representation” had been abandoned by Britain on all goods except tea.

And then there’s simply make-up stuff like the burning of a church full of villagers by the dastardly Redcoats, all part of the process of canonising and demonising the character of the parties.  Did it happen?  Hugely unlikely.  If the Boston Massacre (five dead) is scorched into the psyche of American heritage how plausible is it that the burning of a church full of Christian worshippers isn’t?

But to move on.

It isn’t the little anomalies that so piss me off about Braveheart – William Wallace having an affair with Princess Isabella (she was actually ten years old when he was executed) and the film opening with a sub-title telling us it is 1280, the year of King Alexander of Scotland’s death (No it wasn’t.  He died in 1286).  “So what?” you might say “It’s just a story, a film”.  And that’s most certainly true.  In fact it’s the same story as “The Patriot” – they’ve just done a costume change.  Gibson – reluctant, peacekeeping farmer, family butchered and hey ho Gibson reluctant avenging champion of “Freedom!”.

No, my objection is more pervading than that.  It’s that millions get their “history” spoon-fed this way.  And I don’t want to come across an anti-American but they do seem prone to this sort of historical self-aggrandisement.  (Of course it was they who cracked the Enigma Code).  And embracing attitudes based on minimal understanding of facts.  “Plus ca Change” there then.  ( I recall the views of one movie-goer on leaving the cinema after watching Braveheart – “Gee, those Brits really gave the Irish a hard time”).

Then there’s “Apocalypto”.  I’m sad to say this as it’s one of my favourite films, not least because it brings to a wide audience a niche and unexplored aspect of history – the end of Mayan civilisation.  But, dear oh dear, can the Gods of Cinema have been so dozy as to overlook Gibson’s conflation of its demise around 900AD with the Spanish Conquest of the Americas?  The gap between the two periods is around 600 years.

Argumentative types might maintain that post-classical Mayan civilisation existed on the Yucatan until the sixteenth century.  But the film is clearly set in the rain forest heartland of Central America with jaguars and stuff like that.  So there!

So picture, if you will, Thomas a Becket praying in Canterbury Cathedral and then being blasted from the sky by Tom Cruise from Top Gun.  You couldn’t read about it, could you?  But if Mel Gibson was directing you could certainly watch it.