Gallipoli - Benjamin Hilton

Title/Year: Gallipoli, 1981

Director/Birth Country/Year Born: Peter Weir, Australia, 1944

Budget:  AUD 2,600,000 (estimated) 

Gross: $5,732,587 (USA)

Synopsis: Two young Australians realize the true horror of war after signing up to fight in World War I.

Political/ Social Commentary: Film about the loss of innocence when the characters realize the inhumanity of war.

Narrative and Visual Keywords: World War I, war, Australia, Turkey, runners, race, loss of innocence, Light Horse, Eygpt, death, friendship, messenger, ineffective military leadership, inhumanity, glorified war

Main Character/Arc: Archy grows from being a young man with a glorified view of war to realizing the true horror of war.

Notable Collaboration: Mel Gibson co-stared in this movie with Mark Lee. This movie helped launch Gibson’s career, even though he had stared in 2 Mad Max movies prior to this one.

Historical relevance/recognition: This film is a fictional retelling of an actual battle that took place in WWI. The actual battle of Gallipoli was as devastating as it was portrayed in the movie, with Australia loosing thousands of men.

Etc.: The writer, David Williamson, stared as the tall dark haired football player from the football scene in Eygpt.

Lord Slim, a veteran of the Gallipoli campaign, stated that those who had been in charge of the campaign were the worst in the British Army.

1.  The movie shows military incompetence towards the end of the film. The first sign of this is when the watches of the bombers and the Major leading the attack are unsynchronized. This causes the Light Horse soldiers to be easily killed by the Turkish army. Then Colonel is inconvincible of how badly the Australian Light Horse regiment is being defeated, and tells them to continue fighting, despite the pleas from the Major.

2.  The film shows the soldiers as victims of war. The film portrays this by showing the injured and dead in a realistic manner. The soldiers don’t seem to be scared of war or death until they actually enter battle.

3.  The film achieves melodrama through its dramatic shifts in tone. From the light heartedness of the training camps where the men all fall down and play dead, or when they go swimming at the beach and cheer a man who got hit by shrapnel, to the gritty, bloody results of them attempting to storm the trenches of the Turks.

4.  The enemy is portrayed as being evil. The audience never sees the enemy, and when they do, they are violent and ruthless in their attack. Shooting men who are crawling back to their side, and using automatic weapons like machine guns.

(historical facts)           http://www.historylearningsite.co.uk/gallipoli.htm

(movie facts)    http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0082432/