Movies
Related: About this forumBreaker Morant (1980)
Pretty good flick if you like military courtroom flicks, trues stories. Controversial because it rehabilitated the main character posthumously. Stars Edward Woodward in the title role.
7.8/10
11,943
Breaker Morant (1980)
'Breaker' Morant (original title)
PG | 1h 47min | Drama, History, War | 3 July 1980 (Australia)
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0080310/?ref_=nmbio_mbio
Breaker Morant is a 1980 Australian war drama film directed by Bruce Beresford, who co-wrote the screenplay based on Kenneth G. Ross's 1978 play of the same name.[3][4][5]
The film concerns the 1902 court martial of lieutenants Harry Morant, Peter Handcock and George Wittonone of the first war crime prosecutions in British military history. Australians serving in the British Army during the Second Anglo-Boer War, Morant, Handcock, and Witton stood accused of murdering captured enemy combatants and an unarmed civilian in the Northern Transvaal. The film is notable for its exploration of the Nuremberg Defense, the politics of the death penalty and the human cost of total war. As the trial unfolds, the events in question are shown in flashbacks.
In 1980, the film won ten Australian Film Institute Awards including: Best Film, Best Direction, Leading Actor, Supporting Actor, Screenplay, Art Direction, Cinematography, and Editing. It was also nominated for the 1980 Academy Award for the Best Writing (Screenplay Based on Material from Another Medium). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breaker_Morant_(film)
Xipe Totec
(44,063 posts)SharonClark
(10,325 posts)The golden age of Aust-NZ movies like Gallipoli and My Brilliant Career.
TomSlick
(11,923 posts)Depressing flick but the teaching point was that the accused Australians were war criminals - the attempt to present them sympathetically notwithstanding.
BootinUp
(49,070 posts)clearly the Aussies think there was a cover-up of important facts. But by the letter of the law and also morally, they were war crimes.
TomSlick
(11,923 posts)I have not done any independent study of the facts. I got the impression that the film makers were trying to make the Aussies sympathetic and assumed the facts were at least as bad as portrayed. There was no attempt made in the JAG School course to look behind the movie. The teaching point assumed the facts and asked whether war crimes were committed.