Script To Screen: “Braveheart”

A scene from the 1995 movie Braveheart, written by Randall Wallace.

IMDb plot summary: When his secret bride is executed for assaulting an English soldier who tried to rape her, William Wallace begins a revolt and leads Scottish warriors against the cruel English tyrant who rules Scotland with an iron fist.

In this scene, young William mourns the murders of his father and uncle. Even though the video cuts in midway through, I’ve started the scene at the beginning to provide context.

EXT. GRAVESIDE - DAYCLOSE on a grave, with a headstone marked ANNE WALLACE. We
INCLUDE the two new graves freshly dug beside it, and see
the mourners gathered before them. The sight of the boy,
standing alone in front of the graves of his dead mother, as
the bodies of his father and brother are lowered with ropes
into the ground beside her, has all of the neighbors shaken.The local parish PRIEST drones mechanically in Latin.The farmers who were secretly gathered in Malcolm Wallace's
kitchen the previous night are now glancing at William; but
no one is anxious to adopt a grieving, a rebellious boy.Behind MacClannough are his wife and two daughters; his
youngest is barely four, not half William's age; she's a
beautiful girl with long auburn hair, and she clings to her
own mother's hand, as if the open graves are the mouths of
death and might suck her parents in too. PRIEST
...Restare in pacem eternis, Amen.With the final Amen, the neighbors drift from the graveside,
pulling their Children along, to give William a last moment
of private grief before the grave diggers cover the bodies.The boy stands alone over the open graves, his heart so
shattered that he can scarcely cry; a single tear makes its
way down his face. And the tiny girl feels for William in a
way that the adults cannot. From the ground she pulls a
Scottish thistle, moves to the softly weeping William and
places the beautiful wild blossom in his hand.William looks up and their young eyes meet; her sad blue
eyes hold William's as the grave diggers cover the bodies.Then a lone, mounted figure appears at the crest of the hill
above them. Tall, thin and angular, in black clerical garb,
he looks like the grim reaper.The girl hurries back to her mother's side.

Here is the movie version of the scene:

Two things. A screenwriter can suggest action, but in scenes such as this, even more important to convey atmosphere, the psychological mood of the moment. Then let the director direct… and the actors act… and the editor edit. Compare the results in the movie to the few lines in the script. You’ll see what I mean.

Second, the single best thing about this exchange between William and the young girl is what isn’t there: Dialogue. It reminds us yet again that movies are primarily a visual medium. The image of the flower handed from the girl to a grieving William says it all.

One of the single best things you can do to learn the craft of screenwriting is to read the script while watching the movie. After all a screenplay is a blueprint to make a movie and it’s that magic of what happens between printed page and final print that can inform how you approach writing scenes. That is the purpose of Script to Screen, a series on GITS where we analyze a memorable movie scene and the script pages that inspired it.

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