Breaker Morant (film)
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Breaker Morant (film)
''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. 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, 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 Defence, 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 Awa ...
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Bruce Beresford
Bruce Beresford (; born 16 August 1940) is an Australian film director who has made more than 30 feature films over a 50-year career, both locally and internationally in the United States. Beresford's notable films he has directed include ''Breaker Morant'' (1980), ''Tender Mercies'' (1983), ''Crimes of the Heart'' (1986) and the multiple Academy Award winning ''Driving Miss Daisy'' (1989). Biography Early life Beresford was born in Paddington, New South Wales, the son of Lona (née Warr) and Leslie Beresford, who sold electrical goods. He grew up in the then outer-western suburb of Toongabbie, and went to The King's School, Parramatta. He made several short films in his teens including ''The Hunter'' (1959).Stated in a 2007 interview on Radio National in Australia (oLate Night Live Sydney University He completed a Bachelor of Arts majoring in English at the University of Sydney, where he graduated in 1964. While at university he made the short film ''The Devil to Pay'' (196 ...
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William M
William is a male given name of Germanic origin.Hanks, Hardcastle and Hodges, ''Oxford Dictionary of First Names'', Oxford University Press, 2nd edition, , p. 276. It became very popular in the English language after the Norman conquest of England in 1066,All Things William"Meaning & Origin of the Name"/ref> and remained so throughout the Middle Ages and into the modern era. It is sometimes abbreviated "Wm." Shortened familiar versions in English include Will, Wills, Willy, Willie, Bill, and Billy. A common Irish form is Liam. Scottish diminutives include Wull, Willie or Wullie (as in Oor Wullie or the play ''Douglas''). Female forms are Willa, Willemina, Wilma and Wilhelmina. Etymology William is related to the given name ''Wilhelm'' (cf. Proto-Germanic ᚹᛁᛚᛃᚨᚺᛖᛚᛗᚨᛉ, ''*Wiljahelmaz'' > German ''Wilhelm'' and Old Norse ᚢᛁᛚᛋᛅᚼᛅᛚᛘᛅᛋ, ''Vilhjálmr''). By regular sound changes, the native, inherited English form of the name shoul ...
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George Witton
George Ramsdale Witton (28 June 1874 – 14 August 1942) was a lieutenant in the Bushveldt Carbineers in the Boer War in South Africa. He was sentenced to death for murder after the shooting of nine Boer prisoners. He was subsequently reprieved by Lieutenant-General Viscount Kitchener, although Lieutenants Peter Handcock and Harry "Breaker" Morant who had been court martialed with him, were executed by firing squad on 27 February 1902. Early life and involvement in the Boer War Witton was born into a farming family near Warrnambool, Victoria, Australia, with at least one brother. He served as a gunner in the Royal Australian Artillery, then enlisted in the Victorian Imperial Bushmen for the Boer War and was promoted from Corporal to Squadron Quartermaster-Sergeant. Major Robert Lenehan then enlisted him into the Bushveldt Carbineers with a commission as Lieutenant. After the killing of a number of Boer prisoners, Witton was one of four officers charged by the British Arm ...
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Peter Handcock
Peter Joseph Handcock (17 February 1868 – 27 February 1902) was an Australian-born Veterinary Lieutenant and convicted war criminal who served in the Bushveldt Carbineers during the Boer War in South Africa. After a court martial, Handcock (along with Harry "Breaker" Morant) was convicted and executed for the murders of nine Boer POWs and three other civilians. His execution, "which had been carried out without the knowledge and consent of the Australian government",Wallace (1983). was and remains a controversial issue in Australia. Life Peter Joseph Handcock was born at Peel, near Bathurst, New South Wales to William Handcock (1830–1874), and Bridget Handcock, née Martin (1830–1881) on 17 February 1868 Australian Boer War Memorial. He was apprenticed to a blacksmith at age 12, and later worked as a blacksmith with the Railways Department. He married his 17-year-old cousin Bridget Alice Mary Martin on 15 July 1888, and they had two sons and a daughter. Military se ...
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Breaker Morant
Harry "The Breaker" Harbord Morant (born Edwin Henry Murrant, 9 December 1864 – 27 February 1902), more popularly known as Breaker Morant, was an Anglo-Australian drover, horseman, bush poet, military officer, and war criminal who was convicted and executed for murdering six prisoners-of-war (POWs) and three captured civilians in two separate incidents during the Second Anglo-Boer War. While serving as a lieutenant with the Bushveldt Carbineers, Morant was arrested and court-martialled for committing murder on active serviceone of the first such prosecutions in British military history. According to military prosecutors, Morant retaliated for the death in combat of his commanding officer with a series of revenge killings against both Boer POWs and many civilian residents of the Northern Transvaal. Morant's defence attorney, Major James Francis Thomas, demanded the acquittal of his clients under what is now called the Nuremberg Defence, alleging that his clients could ...
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Court Martial Of Breaker Morant
The 1902 court-martial of Breaker Morant was a war crimes prosecution that brought to trial six officersLieutenants Harry "Breaker" Morant, Peter Handcock, George Witton, Henry Picton, Captain Alfred Taylor and Major Robert Lenehanof the Bushveldt Carbineers (BVC), an irregular regiment of mounted rifles during the Second Boer War. The charges, which were in part prompted by a "letter of complaint" which was written by BVC Trooper Robert Mitchell Cochrane and signed by James Christie and 14 other members of the BVC, were that Lieutenant Morant had incited the co-accused to murder some 20 people, including the wounded prisoner of war (POW) Floris Visser, a group of four Boer prisoners of war (POWs) and four Dutch schoolteachers, Boer civilian adults and children, and a Lutheran missionary named Rev. Daniel Heese. Morant and Handcock were acquitted of killing Heese, but were sentenced to death on the other two charges and executed within 18 hours of sentencing. Their death ...
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Kit Denton
Arnold Christopher "Kit" Denton (5 May 1928 – 14 April 1997), originally Arnold Ditkofsky,Matthew Ricketson, 2004, ''The Best Australian Profiles'', Melbourne, Black Inc., p. 248.General Register Office (UK), n.d. ''Births, Marriages & Deaths 1837–1983, Births registered in April, May and June 1928'', p. 285
(viewed 14 February 2013).
was a prominent Australian writer and broadcaster. Denton was born in England and was of ish descent. He is the father of comedian and television presenter
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The Day Of The Jackal (film)
''The Day of the Jackal'' is a 1973 political thriller film directed by Fred Zinnemann and starring Edward Fox (actor), Edward Fox and Michael Lonsdale. Based on the 1971 The Day of the Jackal, novel of the same name by Frederick Forsyth, the film is about a professional assassin known only as the Jackal (The Day of the Jackal), "Jackal" who is hired to assassinate French president Charles de Gaulle in the summer of 1962. ''The Day of the Jackal'' received positive reviews and went on to win the BAFTA Award for Best Editing (Ralph Kemplen), five additional BAFTA Award nominations, two Golden Globe Award nominations, and one Academy Awards, Oscar nomination. The film grossed U.S. Dollars, $16,056,255 at the box office, and earned an additional $8,525,000 in North American rentals. The British Film Institute ranked it the BFI Top 100 British films, 74th greatest British film of the 20th century. Plot On 22 August 1962, the militant underground organisation Organisation armée se ...
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Drama (film And Television)
In film and television, drama is a category or genre of narrative fiction (or semi-fiction) intended to be more serious than humorous in tone. Drama of this kind is usually qualified with additional terms that specify its particular super-genre, macro-genre, or micro-genre, such as soap opera, police crime drama, political drama, legal drama, historical drama, domestic drama, teen drama, and comedy-drama (dramedy). These terms tend to indicate a particular setting or subject-matter, or else they qualify the otherwise serious tone of a drama with elements that encourage a broader range of moods. To these ends, a primary element in a drama is the occurrence of conflict—emotional, social, or otherwise—and its resolution in the course of the storyline. All forms of cinema or television that involve fictional stories are forms of drama in the broader sense if their storytelling is achieved by means of actors who represent ( mimesis) characters. In this broader sense, dra ...
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War Film
War film is a film genre concerned with warfare, typically about naval, air, or land battles, with combat scenes central to the drama. It has been strongly associated with the 20th century. The fateful nature of battle scenes means that war films often end with them. Themes explored include combat, survival and escape, camaraderie between soldiers, sacrifice, the futility and inhumanity of battle, the effects of war on society, and the moral and human issues raised by war. War films are often categorized by their milieu, such as the Korean War; the most popular subject is the Second World War. The stories told may be fiction, historical drama, or biographical. Critics have noted similarities between the Western and the war film. Nations such as China, Indonesia, Japan, and Russia have their own traditions of war film, centred on their own revolutionary wars but taking varied forms, from action and historical drama to wartime romance. Subgenres, not necessarily distinct, includ ...
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Roger Corman
Roger William Corman (born April 5, 1926) is an American film director, producer, and actor. He has been called "The Pope of Pop Cinema" and is known as a trailblazer in the world of independent film. Many of Corman's films are based on works that have an already-established critical reputation, such as his cycle of low-budget cult films adapted from the tales of Edgar Allan Poe. In 1964, Corman—admired by members of the French New Wave and '' Cahiers du Cinéma''—became the youngest filmmaker to have a retrospective at the Cinémathèque Française, as well as in the British Film Institute and the Museum of Modern Art. He was the co-founder of New World Pictures, the founder of New Concorde and is a longtime member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. In 2009, he was awarded an Honorary Academy Award "for his rich engendering of films and filmmakers". Corman is also famous for distributing in the U.S. many foreign directors, such as Federico Fellini (Ital ...
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Village Roadshow
Village Roadshow Limited is an Australian company which operates cinemas and theme parks, and produces and distributes films. Before being acquired by private equity company BGH Capital, the company was listed on the Australian Securities Exchange and majority owned by Village Roadshow Corporation, with members of founder Roc Kirby's family in the top roles. History Village Roadshow originally started operations as Village Drive-Ins (later known as "Village Drive-ins and Cinemas" before becoming today's "Village Cinemas" brand), in 1954, when founder Roc Kirby began running one of Australia's first drive-in cinemas in the Melbourne suburb of Croydon. The drive-in was adjacent to a shopping strip called "Croydon Village"; hence the company adopted the "Village" name. The company later expanded into traditional cinemas in major areas, though it still operates the ''Coburg Drive-In'' in Coburg, Melbourne. In the 1960s, the company expanded to start its film distribution bus ...
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