Brigadoon, Braveheart and the Scots

This provocative book follows MGM’s Gene Kelly musical *Brigadoon* through the worlds of 1940s Broadway theatre and 1950s Hollywood and documents the contempt the film has elicited, particularly from the Scots intelligentsia. McArthur succumbs to *Brigadoon’s* charm, but finds no such mitigating features in Mel Gibson’s 1995 blockbuster *Braveheart*. Tracing *Braveheart* ‘s appropriation by political, touristic and sporting figures, he argues that, far from its being about Scottish history, it is primarily about Hollywood’s generic forms and cinematic traditions. He looks too at the way the film distorts history and examines *Braveheart* ‘s sinister appeal to the proto-fascist psyche. McArthur argues that both films have enormous resonance within Scottish culture and the Scots diaspora and, crucially, for a vast worldwide audience who may have no other knowledge of the Scots.