Australian
Screen

an NFSA website

Breaker Morant (1979)

play
Email a link to this page
To:
CC:
Subject:
Body:
clip 'The penalty is death' education content clip 2, 3

This clip chosen to be PG

Clip description

Morant (Edward Woodward), Handcock (Bryan Brown) and Witton (Lewis Fitz-Gerald) meet their lawyer, Major J.F. Thomas (Jack Thompson), a country solicitor. It is one day before their trial is to start, and they are horrified to discover their lawyer has no trial experience.

Curator’s notes

The scene gives a good introduction of the chararacters, their social status, their youth or experience, their relationships with each other. Morant speaks with an educated English voice; Thomas has an Australian educated voice; Handcock is much more broadly working class Australian, but full of savvy; Witton’s social status is less clear, but not as important in the scene as his absolute youth. The glance between the two older men makes clear they have been shielding him from the full knowledge of the charges. Thomas has no such inhibitions. Much of the film is about questions of youth versus experience, honesty versus cynicism and political expediency – an interesting ethical domain to explore, given that it’s a film about war crimes, and 'military justice’. (See also The President Versus David Hicks).

Thanks to the generosity of the rights holders, we are able to offer 'The penalty is death' from the feature film Breaker Morant as a high quality video download.

To play the downloadable video, you need QuickTime 7.0, VLC, or similar.

You must read and agree to the following terms and conditions before downloading the clip:

australianscreen is produced by the National Film and Sound Archive. By using the website you agree to comply with the terms and conditions described elsewhere on this site. The NFSA may amend the 'Conditions of Use’ from time to time without notice.

All materials on the site, including but not limited to text, video clips, audio clips, designs, logos, illustrations and still images, are protected by the Copyright Laws of Australia and international conventions.

When you access australianscreen you agree that:

  • You may retrieve materials for information only.
  • You may download materials for your personal use or for non-commercial educational purposes, but you must not publish them elsewhere or redistribute clips in any way.
  • You may embed the clip for non-commercial educational purposes including for use on a school intranet site or a school resource catalogue.
  • The National Film and Sound Archive’s permission must be sought to amend any information in the materials, unless otherwise stated in notices throughout the Site.

All other rights reserved.

ANY UNAUTHORISED USE OF MATERIAL ON THIS SITE MAY RESULT IN CIVIL AND CRIMINAL LIABILITY.

This clip is available in the following configurations:

File nameSizeQualitySuitability
breakerm1_pr.mp4 Large: 13.7MB High Optimised for full-screen display on a fast computer.
breakerm1_bb.mp4 Medium: 6.4MB Medium Can be displayed full screen. Also suitable for video iPods.

Right-click on the links above to download video files to your computer.

Thanks to the generosity of the rights holders, we are able to offer this clip in an embeddable format for personal or non-commercial educational use in full form on your own website or your own blog.

You must read and agree to the following terms and conditions before embedding the clip:

australianscreen is produced by the National Film and Sound Archive. By using the website you agree to comply with the terms and conditions described elsewhere on this site. The NFSA may amend the 'Conditions of Use’ from time to time without notice.

All materials on the site, including but not limited to text, video clips, audio clips, designs, logos, illustrations and still images, are protected by the Copyright Laws of Australia and international conventions.

When you access australianscreen you agree that:

  • You may retrieve materials for information only.
  • You may download materials for your personal use or for non-commercial educational purposes, but you must not publish them elsewhere or redistribute clips in any way.
  • You may embed the clip for non-commercial educational purposes including for use on a school intranet site or a school resource catalogue.
  • The National Film and Sound Archive’s permission must be sought to amend any information in the materials, unless otherwise stated in notices throughout the Site.

All other rights reserved.

ANY UNAUTHORISED USE OF MATERIAL ON THIS SITE MAY RESULT IN CIVIL AND CRIMINAL LIABILITY.

Copy and paste the following code into your own web page to embed this clip: