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Talk:Breaker Morant (film)

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Movie Facts vs In depth analysis

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I found the Plot summary section of this article to be a lengthy repetition of facts about the trial that are already fully detailed on the Breaker Morant or Court martial of Breaker Morant wiki pages already. Wouldn't it be better to trim the summary to the basic details of the story (say about 1/3 its current length) and refer the reader to the other sites for further details and analysis? (unsigned comment by User:Jabberjawjapan on 24 July 2009)

I was also the person to add the Excessively Detailed plot tag in July 2016. JabberJawJAPAN talk 13:34, 6 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Factual Errors in Article

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The article currently (as at 12 June 2006) states:

Beresford co-wrote the screenplay with Jonathan Hardy and David Stevens. Although the screen credit is given to Kenneth Ross for his 1978 play as the source material for the adaptation, the screen story also owes a great deal to the novel The Breaker by Kit Denton, first published in 1973, which was inspired by Denton's meeting and conversation with a Boer War veteran who had known Harry 'Breaker' Morant.

Firstly, it is inaccurate, most likely due to a mis-reading of the apparently equivocal English of the film credits.

Ken Ross certainly did write the play upon which the film was based; but, it is essential to understand that he also actually physically worked on the entire film script as one of the screenplay writers. Thus, it's entirely true that the script was written by Kenneth Ross (play); but that description in the film creditis was not meant to be read as if he had nothing to do with the script (but only wrote the original play from which the film was adapted).

The second and far more serious factual error is that the article perpetuates a very serious inaccuracy that was supposedly corrected by specific and successful legal action that was taken by Ken Ross against Angus & Robertson, the publisher of Denton's 1973 novel, The Breaker, in 1980.

Denton's 1973 book The Breaker: A Novel [ISBN 0207143447] had not been popular at the time it was first published.

In fact, Ross had no knowledge whatsoever of the existence of Denton's (by 1978 out of print for 4 years) book until long after the first stage perfomances of his play, Breaker Morant: A Play in Two Acts [ISBN 0726709972] had taken place in 1978.

Ross's play was a great commercial and artistic success, and almost immediately, work began to make a film based on the play. At this time, Denton's publisher Angus & Robertson suddenly re-issued Denton's 1973 novel, The Breaker with great gusto, with precisely the same front cover except that on one corner of the book's cover was the false and misleading nnouncement "Soon to be a Movie" [ISBN 0207140650].

Denton had no knowledge of, and had no input into this decision by the publisher.

This announcement, of course, was totally wrong for two reasons:

  • (a) it was not Denton's book, but Ross's play, that was being made into a movie, and
  • (b) Denton's book was never used in any fashion to create any part of the film script (as Ross was involved with the entire film script).

Ross took successful legal action against Angus & Robertson. Angus & Robertson withdrew the 1979 version of Denton's book (with the false and misleading announcement on the cover), from sale and trashed all the remaining copies; and another, "revised" version of Denton's book (minus the cover announcement) was issued by Angus & Robertson in 1980 [ISBN 0207142688].

Unfortunately, Ken Ross's emphatic legal victory did not receive a lot of publicity at the time; and many people today still labour under the misapprehension that Kit Denton's book was the source for the movie.

Given all of the above, all of which is well-established, but not widely known, I suggest three things:

(1) the text:

Beresford co-wrote the screenplay with Jonathan Hardy and David Stevens. Although the screen credit is given to Kenneth Ross for his 1978 play as the source material for the adaptation, the screen story also owes a great deal to the novel The Breaker by Kit Denton, first published in 1973, which was inspired by Denton's meeting and conversation with a Boer War veteran who had known Harry 'Breaker' Morant.

be altered to read:

Beresford co-wrote the screenplay with Jonathan Hardy, David Stevens, and Kenneth Ross. The 1978 play Breaker Morant: A Play in Two Acts [ISBN 0726709972], written by Ross, was the source material for the screen story.

(2) That the page be somehow "locked off" electronically, so that the original incorrect information (i.e., relating to Denton's book)can not be restored.

(3) A footnote should also be inserted to the effect that, in recent times, "Ken Ross", who styled himself "Kenneth Ross" in order to avoid confusion with others in Australia called "Ken Ross", is now compelled to style himself "Kenneth G. Ross" so that he is not confused with the other "Kenneth Ross" -- the one who wrote the film script/screenplay for The Day of the Jackal. Thank you for your attention Lindsay658 05:14, 11 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Paths of Glory influence?

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It seems to me that not only the general tone but also some very specific details in Breaker Morant were influenced by Kubrick's film, Paths of Glory. I know of no evidence to support this, but the parallelisms might be worth a mention in the main article. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 68.4.247.9 (talk) 02:39, 10 May 2007 (UTC).[reply]

Reception of Breaker Morant in the United States

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The popularity of this film in the US owes to more than interest in the history of the British Commonwealth. Its theme of moral ambiguities in fighting a guerilla war struck a chord in many Americans who had just finishing doing the same thing in Vietnam. It would be many years before US cinema dealt with this theme, and then only obliquely. Casualties of War (1989) depicts the environment of uncertainty and dread causing soldiers to become unhinged and commit atrocities, but even it does not consider that summary executions were committed by loyal, effective soldiers doing what they thought they were supposed to do, or that reprisals seemed to be a just response to guerilla tactics.

This is quite possibly worth a section on the popular reception of the film outside of Australia.

Perhaps we in the US will one day have a film that examines what was done in our name and the state of mind of the soldiers we put there to do it. Until then, Breaker Morant is it. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.8.232.161 (talk) 19:53, 24 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]


Australian Army?

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"Breaker Morant concerns the murder trial of three Australian Army officers of the Bushveldt Carbineers serving in South Africa during the Second Boer War"


No Australian army in the Boer War, Breaker Morant was a British officer, in the British army. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.159.114.202 (talk) 11:53, 24 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

In any case, Australia as legal name of a nation state (not the continent) was then very recent, the federated Dominion of Australia having only been formed in 1901, from its component colony states, while the Boer War was still on.Cloptonson (talk) 15:39, 4 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]
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Anachronism (Satire section)

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General Melchett is quoted saying, in the Captain Blackadder trial referred to: "I don't care if he's been rogering the Duke of York with a prize-winning leek. He shot my pigeon! Ahh! Ahh! Ahh!" An article link to George VI is made to the title. There was in fact no Duke of York in the First World War period in which the Blackadder series is set - the previous Duke was George V who relinquished the title in 1901 on becoming Prince of Wales and Duke of Cornwall when his own father became King as Edward VII, while George VI did not become the next Duke of York until 1920, after the end of the war. In any case, some of the detail with which the fictional trial is given may be criticised as not germane to the overall topic.Cloptonson (talk) 21:07, 4 June 2016 (UTC)[reply]

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Conflicting information about the source on which the film "Breaker Morant" was based.

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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:George_Witton

Clairbear62 (talk) 13:34, 31 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Charles Leach is not an acceptable source

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The over reliance on one self published partisan 'commentator' is extremely problematic and requires a complete rewrite of the sections he is cited as being the source of such information - which is a majority of this article. There are also multiple inaccuracies attributed to Leach. Nürö G'DÄŸ MÄTË 02:56, 7 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

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