Episode 1: Breaker Morant (Guest: Michel Paradis)

Episode 1: Breaker Morant (Guest: Michel Paradis)

Jonathan Hafetz

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Description

This episode examines Breaker Morant, the 1980 Australian New Wave film depicting the military trial of Harry ("Breaker") Morant and two other Australian soldiers for war crimes committed during the Second Boer War in South Africa. The film, directed by Bruce Beresford, offers a gripping account of the trial and raises a host of questions about law and justice during wartime--questions that are as relevant today as they were when the trial took place more than a century ago. I am joined on this episode by veteran attorney Michel Paradis, who has served as military defense counsel in landmark war crimes trials at Guantanamo Bay and who has written widely about issues of international law and military justice. Michel is a lecturer at Columbia Law School in New York and a partner at Curtis, Mallet-Prevost, Colt & Mosle LLP.

Timestamps:

0:00 Introduction

6:15 An age-old question: Can you deny justice to the guilty?

8:04 Breaker Morant as both courtroom drama and western

9:14 Who was Harry "Breaker" Morant?

9:54 A new kind of war?

12:08 People who commit atrocities don’t usually think they're the bad guys

15:10 The superior orders defense

20:22 The politics of war crimes trial

28:28 The defense lawyer as hero in legal dramas

37:36 Did the defendants get a fair trial?

40:00 The law of reprisals

46:20 Echoes of the My Lai massacre case

49:17 Defense counsel’s closing: War changes men’s nature

50:44 The Australian New Wave

51:49 The trial’s aftermath

57:24 Why should everyone see this film?


Further reading:

Boslaugh, Sarah, “'Breaker Morant' Is an Epic Tale, Set during the Boer War,” Pop Matters (Oct. 15, 2015), https://www.popmatters.com/breaker-morant-2495479235.html

Buckmaster, Luke, “'Breaker Morant': rewatching classic Australian films,” The Guardian (June 19, 2014), https://www.theguardian.com/film/australia-culture-blog/2014/jun/19/breaker-morant-rewatching-classic-australian-films

Davies, Glenn, “Criminal or hero: The life of ‘Breaker’ Morant,” Independent Australia (Mar. 4, 2022), https://independentaustralia.net/australia/australia-display/criminal-or-hero-the-life-of-breaker-morant,16113

Gardner, Susan, “Can you imagine anything more Australian?: Bruce Beresford’s 'Breaker Morant'” Kunapipi, vol. 3, issue 1 (1981), https://ro.uow.edu.au/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?referer=&httpsredir=1&article=1094&context=kunapipi

Sinyard, Neil, “'Breaker Morant': Scapegoats of Empire,” The Criterion Collection (Sept. 23, 2015), https://www.criterion.com/current/posts/3713-breaker-morant-scapegoats-of-empire

Publication Date

4-18-2023

Disciplines

Law

Episode 1: Breaker Morant (Guest: Michel Paradis)

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