Movie madness

Published on Thursday 19 November 2009 21:30

ONE wonders to what "Scottish film industry" Sophie Anderson is referring when she writes of the "cringe factor" (Letters, 19 November) affecting it. Is she seriously classing Braveheart – an American movie with an Australian-American leading actor in which most of the location filming was in Ireland – as Scottish? It was also historically absurd (but enjoyable) Hollywood hokum. When people start believing this kind of thing to be real, we really are in serious bo

Her other example, Stone of Destiny, was panned by critics everywhere, not just in Scotland, because of its many and glaring faults, not because the whole world is ganging up on anything "Scottish".

ALEXANDER McKAY

New Cut Rigg

Edinburgh

The film Braveheart wasn't slated because it was "too Scottish" or "an expression of national identity" or because "we're all getting a little above ourselves". It was rightly condemned because it was historically false to a ridiculous degree. Do we really think all Robin Hood movies were historically correct?

If any country has to rely on fiction to feel secure and confident, then its inhabitants need an urgent course of therapy.

And why would a film about the theft of a lump of sandstone from Westminster Abbey be regarded as a boost to a country being "depicted on the big screen in a confident way"?

COLIN WILSON

Maggie Woods Loan

Falkirk