Anyone - which is almost everyone who is reading this - should be able to understand that this film was made in a biased way in which it persaudes the viewers to sympathise with the characters such as Morant, Witton, Major Thomas and Handcock (to some extent).
Of course it is pal; it was trying to make a point. That being war breeds political compromises and even the bad guys get shot sometimes for the wrong reasons; do you think left wing film makers are lining up to make Green Berets II? It should be patemtly obvious it is not a gung-ho war film and therefore plays on emotions to be blatantly anti-war.
Bruce Beresford says on the version with the director narrative that he based the movie format on a play that centered more around the trial than anything else. Beresford said that he didn't attempt to portray them as guilty or innocent of the murdersbecause the fact is they did do those things--even Witton wrote it in his book they did because they were under orders to. The crux of the movie and even of their trials wasn't that they didn't do it, but that they were under orders to do it. Thomas maintained that they were under orders. Lord Kitchener said those orders never existed.
The sympathy Beresford evokes is you have a group of men who say they were under orders to do X, Y, Z, but they cannot produce proof of those orders. It's almost like if you play the lottery and win, but lose your ticket. You can swear up and down to the Lotto board that you had the winning ticket, you can produce witnesses who said you had the ticket, but if you can't show them the ticket, you won't collect your money. It's an exercise in futility that most people have experienced at some degree or the other--and that's where the sympathy is generated.
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I don't know if it's biased. I think that it just shows how the war caused ordinary men to commit acts that they most likely would never think possible.
Before the war, Morant was an accomplished and respected man. Handcock was less admirable, but not a murderer. And Witton was young and innocent.
The war made them into men that had to perform certain despicable acts, acts that were at least condoned if not ordered, in order to protect themselves and survive. And when the political tide changed, and these acts were not desired, these men were then held accountable.
Panties on the head and a dog leash = being shot? Ok, buddy. By the way, read the Geneva conventions (all of them) - certain people are not covered. The main impetus of the relevant convention was to protect hapless conscriptees from being punished for the country's policies. Not to protect terrorists, saboteurs, spies, etc.
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Who decides who's a hapless conscriptee and who's a terrorist/saboteur/spy? In a stoush, one country's media and policies normally, for political reasons only, besmirch the 'bad bastards' of the other country; the 'bad bastards' of the other country are usually just conscriptees or grunts. Therefore, whether certain people are covered or not under the Geneva Convention (I'm no expert) seems a moot point. The purpose of it should be to protect everyone until such time as legal trials and court time can ascertain if they are a terrorist, saboteur or spy. The arbitrary decision by a tired home-sick semi-literate 20 year old private as to who is a terrorist or not undermines democracy; anyone who can't see that doesn't know what democracy is. The private making that decision is not the problem. The problem is the people upstairs who, through whatever means and for whatever nefarious reason, allowed the private to make it. tcrizzo-1, I suspect, is one of those firm respecters of free speech who will defend it right up until the point someone disagrees with him. Pinko bastards!
shareOh please, cry me a river..it is your ilk, the left, that is trying to muzzle free speech in America today, by any means necessary. And it is not the Americans who behead innocent people, let alone soldiers, videotape it, and put it out on the Middle East Blockbuster Top Ten list! May we please call them terrorists? Up yours, it is the islamic fundies like Al Qaida who commit the greatest acts of terror all over the world, would you like a list? Beslan, anyone? And you show your bigotry and ignorance about the military--the majority of the armed forces are not illiterate, have you actually ever met someone who has served in ANY branch of the armed forces? Put on a pink hat and go out and protest somewhere--its Memorial Day tomorrow, I'm sure you can find someone's loved one to insult.
shareYou really have no idea what you're talking about. You are using political rhetoric instead of any recognised facts or argument.
Having been in the British armed forces and met many American soldiers there are a significant number that enlist because they lack the education to get a job in the civilian world. Thats no fault of their own - it merely means that the system has failed them in some capacity. Although you admit (by default) that there are people in the armed forces that are illiterate. So that rather shoots a hole in your own argument doesnt it?
And without having to consult the internet in anyway I wonder if you could actually tell me (and other readers) what actually happened at Beslan and (more importantly) why it happened? If you did know then im sure you wouldnt use it as an argument. So you've matched your response in 'ignorance' if not in 'bigotry'...
.... Although I did notice that you seem to have an issue with people in 'pink hats'.
"...met many American soldiers there are a significant number that enlist because they lack the education to get a job in the civilian world. Thats no fault of their own - it merely means that the system has failed them in some capacity."
How do you know that it's not their fault?
People lacking an education doesn't necessarily make it the fault of the system.
No one thinks that their own failings are their own fault.
I'd have to say that sometimes it's the system's fault, and sometimes it's the person or person's family's fault.
Some people join the military because they know that they f-cked off in school, and it's the only way that they can learn a skill or trade.
You're drawing a conclusion from your own anecdotal experience that may not be accurate.
This in response to most posters along this thread: Whether or not intentional, it appears that, clearly the primary point being made is that when expedient to do so, politicians (here Lord K) will lie. Period. ALL politicians.
Don't believe this? Just read history, my mates! Just read history.
TjB
There are criteria in place under the GC and other treaties. For instance, you are a 19 year old who gets a draft notice, is put in uniform by your country and are directed by higher authorities. You are a hapless conscriptee and were the focus of the original GC, protection for your actions as a soldier. Not for murdering civilians, not for looting, etc. On the other hand if you are dressed in local garb and are about the business of gathering information on the enemy - you are a spy. If you blow up a dam or powerplant - you are a saboteur. If you kill, assault, abuse civilians for political gain - you are a terrorist. Notice that acquistion of enemy information while on patrol, attacking a dam or killing civilians that engage in offensive acts or act as agents of the enemy is not illegal. Neither is killing civilians in the course of an attack on a military target, although the U.S. goes to the extent of endangering its own troops to avoid such killing.
You do not give trials to enemy soldiers unless they are accused of acts outside the scope a soldier's duties. Nor is a trial required (during war) to determine if someone is a spy, saboteur or terrorist. The attempt to project the rules and institutions of civil society onto the military is essentially an attempt to cripple the military (by those who oppose the policy) under the guise of being "fair." Wenn wir diese Haltung im Zweiten Weltkrieg hatten, würden wir (wenn es überhaupt erlaubt wurde) auf Deutsch schreiben.
The canard about poor, semi-illiterate, hopeless kids becoming soldiers has been disproven many times. No private has the been given the authority to engage in criminal acts. It is the duty of every member of the military to refuse to carry out unlawful orders. The U.S., U.K., etc. punish their own soldiers who violate the law. Our enemy praises theirs.
The point is that the Australian boys who pulled triggers got executed but the English officers who gave the order got away with a reprimand. The ordinary Australian soldiers were scapegoats and were under the command of the English who set them up and made them the scapegoats...sound familiar ...David Hicks....
The injustice lies in the different treatment afforded to the men involved in the war. It was the same in ww1. The higher ranks came out unscathed but the lower ranks got killed and maimed and suffered the worst of the war. It is about class as much as anything else because to be an officer you had to come from the upper classes.
Similar points can be made about the gas chambers of WW 2. Were the those that pulled the switch in the gas chamber as guilty/more guilty than the ones that gave the order? Remember that if a soldier or subordinate refused to carry out an order they were shot! Breaker Morant is a great film. It is about authority and the class system as it existed up until after WW1. An English class system imported to the colonies of Australia and into the ranks of the military.
The play was very succesfull.
You should realize every film, especially one based upon real people, will have an inherent bias. Without such, it would be hard to present a cogent story. The point of the story isn't whether the Carbineers killed the prisoners, the focus was the legality of it. Having served in the military, I can attest that every action has a thousand different possible interpretations in combat. The crux of the case was whether or not Kitchener ever issued the order to shoot Boer prisoners. The film shows that whether or not these were his original intentions, the men believed them to be as such. I consider the film to be the best military courtroom drama, perhaps the best military film, ever lensed, far and away better than a Few Good Men, which was obviously influenced by the story of HH Morant.
shareGood comparison, bafflewit.
I enjoyed A Few Good Men, but Breaker Morant has always been one of my favorites.
And I think that any sympathy for Morant and Handcock, in the movie, mostly disappears when you find out that Handcock actually killed the missionary. The killing of the prisoners can be explained, if you believe the claim of working under orders. But the missionary killing was outside of any orders that may or may not have existed. And ironically, they were acquitted of that charge.
Then the missionary should not have been a Boer agent. That's war bud.
shareThis film is an acting achievement. Heavy-Dialogue movies require adept direction, and this film certainly demonstrates this. It is, however, an interpetation of events, and applies pathos for the sake of the story, not historical accuracy. Keep that in mind when you watch something like this (especially films without a narrator telling you what to think).
With all of this in mind, comparing any of this film to Iraq is, of course, your own ridiculous emotional pathos applied for the sake of your antipathy toward a war you disagree with, but your emotion doesn't weight the truth of circumstance (reality) in the present day in the same way that a director gets to shape a "film".
My guess is you're very unsuccessful at completing jigsaw puzzles without pounding some pieces in with your clenched fist.
A Few Good Man barely rates compared to Breaker Morant.
I tell prospective viewers it's "Like A Few Good Men, without the bad acting."
There isn't even a good scene in it until the final courtroom scene. Which, admittedly, is pretty good, but it's sure not because of Sci-fi boy or Demi Kutchner.
Oh, definitely. The proof that they committed crimes was actually much greater than shown in the movie. In fact, their fellow officers (not shown in the movie) within their unit were complaining about how the actions of those three were putting a very bad light on the entire unit. This movie does not accurately portray the reality of the situation, but then, what movie does?
It is somewhat amazing that only two of the three were executed.
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"That said, I personally found it a good film with lots to say about the nature of scapegoats and the general attitude my own country or the powers that be had at the time"...."it was a grubby war that had many arguments concerning morality and this reflects that". Well put. I think the problem that a lot of the posters here have is that they have seen American movies that tend to portray war as a "holy cause", not necessarily war being fought on religious reasons but rather war being quite important and worthwhile. We fight on the side of God and country and all that. In reality, in most of history, wars are usually fought for reasons of a selfish nature...in the Boer War the central point was land for the British Empire-land that the Boers were not so happy to cede control of.
It is a sad fact that we have had too many wars. By "we" I mean the Western
Powers; the countries that claim to be peace loving but whose actions cast some doubt on that claim. I personally did not want to see the U.S. go into Iraq in 2003 (yes, I am an American); of course, now that it has been done...I have no idea what we should do next. At least I will not get into legal trouble such as what happened to the unfortunate RAF officer.
I see..so the non-Western countries have wars that you do approve of? How easily you leftists give yourself away! What should we do in Iraq? There is no choice, we are there and we won the war to remove Saddam, now we must subdue the terrorists who have swarmed there like flies to a carcass.
shareThere have been wars conducted by "Western" nations that have had questionable causes - often to take control over land and the resources on that land. It's not limited to the west, though, many "Eastern" nations have done the same.
The Boer War, actually there were 2 separate wars, were waged between British troops and the people of Dutch ancestry who already lived there. This movie deals with events in the 2nd Boer War.
As far as the war in Iraq goes, the original stated reasons of removing weapons of mass destruction, which didn't exist, was changed repeatedly as time and circumstances went on. The Bush administration has used such specious reasoning for our presence in Iraq, including the Iraqi government invited us there. The current Iraqi government didn't exist when we invaded Iraq - that government was ran by Saddam Hussein, who obviously did not invite us to send troops to Iraq.
The reason "we must subdue the terrorists who have swarmed there like flies to a carcass" is because we created anarchy in Iraq by removing their military and government. We were told that Saddam and al Qaida worked hand-in-hand in acts of terrorism, even though Saddam hated Osama bin Laden and the feelings were mutual. Saddam was too secular for Osama and other Muslim extremists.
We weren't greeted as liberators and this war has gone on for much longer than Donald Rumsfield's predictions of maybe 6 months, and he doubted it would last that long.
What has happened because we invaded Iraq and lowered taxes - we have been selling treasury bonds and other government securities to Chinese investors. Because of this, several things have happened - the dollar has lost much of its value (part of the reason prices are going up on just about everything), oil has gone from about $27/barrel to about $127/barrel, etc.
This movie is about how high ranking individuals - either in the military or government - set the tone for events, but often take none of the responsibility for the outcomes. Like no one has taken responsibility for the murder of Pat Tillman in Afghanistan. No one has taken responsibility for the people who were killed by members of Blackwater, who, apparently, don't have to worry about Iraqi or American laws. No one in Blackwater has taken responsibility for raping co-workers.
1st casualty in wartime?= the 'truth'
history repeats
those who forget history are doomed to relive it
best line in the film? there are loads of excellent ones, but I like: (paraphrase)
'the Boers aren't altruistic like we are'
one for the ages..this film is timeless..how many wars since it was made in 1980? how many similar situations? history is written by the 'victors' it is said, but who really 'wins'?
wonderful antiwar film...none better IMHO
...in the Boer War the central point was land for the British Empire-land that the Boers were not so happy to cede control of.
history repeats
those who forget history are doomed to relive it
best line in the film? there are loads of excellent ones, but I like: (paraphrase)
'the Boers aren't altruistic like we are' .....but who really 'wins'?
Lord Kitchener, the head of the British forces of which Australia, then a colony, were part of, had issued a "no prisoners" order sub rosa, just as General Patton had done in 1944.
The point of the film is the hypocrisy of the British military establishment in trying these men for crimes that they had been encouraged to do. It is similar to the arrest of the Green Berets in 1969 (including the head Green Beret) on charges of murder, by Gen. Abrahams. In fact, the movie resonnated in 1980 as it was considered a commentary on Vietnam (Australian troops had participated in that war, too). These were men sent out to go native and tasked by the CIA, under whose aegis 250,000 Vietnamese were murdered under the Phoenix program with no recouse to international law, and then tried for summarily executing a spy -- that is, they were part of a massive extralegal killing machine and charged with the very crime that was being commited en mase, with the US government's approval. That is what Captain Willard means when he says charging a man with murder in Vietnam is like handing out speeding tickets at the Indianapolis 500. The 1969 Green Beret arrests were the genesis of the script APOCALYPSE 3 by John Millius that became APOCALYPSE NOW. Col. Robert Rheault, the head of the Green Berets in Vietnam, was arrested for murder, was the genesis of the character played by Brando, crossed with Kurtz of "Heat of Darkness."
Back to the Breaker:
Non-colonial British troops had commited murder, killing prisoners, under the no-prisoners doctrine, but none of them were tried. It was for the colonials to bite the bullet, for political expediency, as the British Empire wanted to conclude a peace treaty with the Boers, which happened shortly thereafter. breaker Morant and Handcock were political sacrifices to appease the Boers.
Kitchener claimed that the colonial troops, members of whom, including the Breaker, were organized into Special Forces-like irregular forces (irregulars typically being used as enforcers if not outright extermination outfits) were undiciplined and had taken the law into their own hands, and thus, by executiting a couple of them, he was instilling discipline in his troops while upholding the law.
What he was doing was covering up the fact that he had issued, unofficially, a "take no prisoners" order. Look at my trivia notes in the movie PATTON. When Eisenhower tried to get Patton to rescind his no prisoners policy, Patton responded he would do so if ordered but believed it was best. Ike said, OK -- but don't get caught. It was all politics.
Now, look at the war in Iraq. Bush and Cheny from the beginning said that they would treat the "terrorists" as scum of the earth with no rights, and that's exactly how they were treated. And then, when political considerations broke -- that is, the noble cause was revealed to have a thuggish, fascistic element, that is, extralegal murder, to it, and it looked bad on the cover of Newsweek and Time -- they wrung their hands.
What bull$#@%! They had ordered the harsh policies in the first place. Just as in Vietnam, the CIA had tasked the "softening up" of prisoners to military guards, or tasked Special Forces with murder.
Under Nuremburg, Bush and Cheney are guilty, but Nuremburg was a victor's justice.
Our troops being tried for these crimes against the extra-legal combatants or whatever they're termed, are scapegoats, just as Breaker Morant was a scapegoat, just as Col. Rheault and his Green Berets were scapegoats. Of course, the Breaker, the US guards in Afghanistan, and the Green Berets were guilty...but it is their officers who ordered this treatment (while carefully covering their asses, legally, by encouraging the behavior but not taking the respondiblity) who should have been tried as war criminals.
All I can say is read the book.
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Hey, Indigo_Perfect,
What crawled into your bathtub?
I find this an interesting discussion, to say the least. ANY FILM (since you seem to like CAPITAL LETTERS) that can provoke spirited and lively discussion should be applauded, regardless of which SIDE of the issue you find yourself on.
And WHO EXACTLY ARE YOU to feel you can ridicule and denigrate someone else's topic without BOTHERING to state an opinion regarding his remarks ON THIS FILM? I don't see one other post in this thread that insults or degrades someone else, except yours (AND NOW MINE!)
Go BLATANTLY EXHIBIT yourself in your own bathtub, and leave my tap water alone!
Breaker Morant is a story of the humble soldier doing a job he wasn't really trained for. Fighting an unseen enemy, in a foreign land. No more of men standing in a line firing at each other, but a dirty war, where the burning of villages and the imprisoning of families was common place. A war where the accepted tactics were years behind the way the Boar war was fought.
Whilst I don't condone the actions of messrs Hancock & Morant, you must understand they were men under pressure, who were ultimately used a scapegoats when peace was resolved. An early case of lions led by donkeys!!