''The Breaker'' is a 1974 documentary about

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 co ...

directed by

Frank Shields Francis Xavier Alexander Shields Sr. (November 18, 1909 – August 19, 1975) was an American amateur tennis player of the 1920s and 1930s, and an actor known for ''Hoosier Schoolboy'' (1937). Tennis career Between 1928 and 1945 he was ranked e ...

Production

It was the first film from Frank Shields. He says he was inspired to make it after visiting Breaker Morant's grave. He was unable to get finance from the funding bodies so made it himself for $7,000. He researched it in Australia, wrote and shot it in

Zimbabwe Zimbabwe (), officially the Republic of Zimbabwe, is a landlocked country located in Southeast Africa, between the Zambezi and Limpopo Rivers, bordered by South Africa to the south, Botswana to the south-west, Zambia to the north, and ...

, and did the post production in London. Shields later recalled:

I paid for the horses and cameramen with cases of beer. I didn’t know how to work a camera; they taught me how to make a film so it was like my film school... What holds the doco together is the story. It’s like a Greek tragedy – Morant was like the
Ned Kelly Edward Kelly (December 1854 – 11 November 1880) was an Australian bushranger, outlaw, gang leader and convicted police-murderer. One of the last bushrangers, he is known for wearing a suit of bulletproof armour during his final shootout wi ...
and the
Fletcher Christian Fletcher Christian (25 September 1764 – 20 September 1793) was master's mate on board HMS ''Bounty'' during Lieutenant William Bligh's voyage to Tahiti during 1787–1789 for breadfruit plants. In the mutiny on the ''Bounty'', Christian se ...
; at one point he crossed a line that he could never come back from. At the end of the day it all comes down to story.Charlotte Willis, "Breaker Morant doco sees light of day - again", ''If Magazine'' 11 Oct 2010
accessed 2015

Reception

The film won the Greater Union Awards for best documentary at the 1975 Sydney Film Festival. It aired on the ABC in 1975. Shields wrote a book based on the documentary, ''In Search of Breaker Morant: Balladist and Bushveldt Carbineer'', which was published in 1979.

References

External links

''The Breaker''
at Oz Movies *
''The Breaker''
at

Australian Screen Online The National Film and Sound Archive of Australia (NFSA), known as ScreenSound Australia from 1999 to 2004, is Australia's audiovisual archive, responsible for developing, preserving, maintaining, promoting and providing access to a national c ...

Documentary films about war Second Boer War films 1974 films 1974 documentary films Australian war films Australian documentary films 1974 war films 1974 directorial debut films 1970s English-language films Films directed by Frank Shields {{Australia-documentary-film-stub