1980 movie about the court martial of "Breaker" Morant and subordinates during the Second Boer War
Breaker Morant is a 1980 Australian war drama film directed by Bruce Beresford, who also co-wrote the screenplay which was based on Kenneth G. Ross' 1978 play of the same name. The film concerns the 1902 court martial of Lieutenants Harry Morant, Peter Handcock and George Witton—one of the first war crime prosecutions in British military history. Australians serving in the British Army during the Second Anglo-Boer War, Lts. 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.
Web Pages
Video Products
Breaker Morant (1980), 12 Nov 1997
Breaker Morant [Blu-ray] (1980), 5 Feb 2008
Breaker Morant (Masterworks Edition) (1980), 14 Dec 2004
Articles
More Anti-War Films, by Butler Shaffer, 21 May 2007
More short summaries of anti-war films with rankings (as a number of *'s [1-3]) in terms of importance, follow-up to "Memorial Day Alternative"
More short summaries of anti-war films with rankings (as a number of *'s [1-3]) in terms of importance, follow-up to "Memorial Day Alternative"
*** Breaker Morant. A couple readers couldn't understand why I didn't include this Australian film on my list. I must admit that I considered it but, perhaps because a similar theme ... I left it off the list. ... I think the readers had better judgment ... It is the story of Australian soldiers — during the Boer War — against whom phony murder charges are made in order to facilitate the political machinations of bringing the war to an end. It illustrates, quite well, how soldiers — treated by the state as nothing more than fungible resources for its exploitation — can be sacrificed both on and off the battlefield.
Reviews
Breaker Morant (1980), by Stephen W. Carson
In this movie, set in the Boer war of 1899-1902 in South Africa, the moral nightmare of the modern imperialist war is explored. ... what makes this movie about something a hundred years ago so terribly relevant is the accurate portrayal of the atrocities and confusion that follow from an invasion force that, rather than defending its own borders, is out among the farms and towns of foreigners who understandably resent their presence and in desperation fight not just as an army, but as a people.
Videos
Breaker Morant Film Trailer, 15 Mar 1980
The introductory paragraph uses material from the Wikipedia article "Breaker Morant (film)" as of 5 Oct 2018, which is released under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share-Alike License 3.0.