How would you compare the movies The Patriot and Shenandoah?

Answer 1

Shenandoah is the story of a widower patriarch Charlie Anderson living with his children in Virginia during the Civil War. Anderson takes neither side of the Confederacy nor the Union, wanting to simply farm and develop in peace. It is not until the war begins to claim members of his family that it becomes personal, and Anderson is forced involve himself in the war and fight in order to keep his family and his livelihood together.

The Patriot is essentially the exact same story, except we replace the honorable Jimmy Stewart with the cheeky Mel Gibson, and we send the time period 90 years back to the American Revolution. The Patriot does not possess quite the same sincerity or depth of Shenandoah, and is much more of a piece of history falsifying, Anti-British Propaganda than anything else. Instead of highlighting the horrors of war as Shenandoah does, The Patriot glorifies it. Shenandoah's accomplishment is that neither side of the Civil War was perfect, so we sympathize with Anderson's struggle.

In short, an easier explanation is to say that Shenandoah is to The Patriot what Stanley Kubrick's 'Spartacus' is to Braveheart, another movie starring Mel Gibson - a man who likes his historical films about fighting for freedom, even if you have to alter history and imitate other films in the process!