Course Readings: Movies

Breaker Morant (Wednesday, March 24 at 8:00 PM)

In 1901 South Africa, three Australian soldiers are court-martialed by the British army for shooting Boer prisoners during a vicious guerrilla war. Inspired by a true story that formed the basis of a play, this riveting, popular, courtroom drama heralded Australia's film renaissance. Released in 1980.

Battle of Algiers (Monday, April 26 at 8:00 PM)

Famous, powerful, award-winning film depicting the uprisings against French colonial rule in 1954 Algiers. A seminal documentary-style film that makes most political films seem ineffectual by comparison in its use of non-professional actors, gritty photography, realistic violence, and a boldly propagandistic sense of social outrage. Released in 1966.

Black Hawk Down (Monday, May 3 at 8:00 PM)

A quickly forgotten chapter in United States military history is relived in this harrowing war drama from director Ridley Scott, based on a series of Philadelphia Inquirer articles and subsequent book by reporter Mark Bowden. On October 3, 1993, an elite team of more than 100 Delta Force soldiers and Army Rangers, part of a larger United Nations peacekeeping force, are dropped into civil war-torn Mogadishu, Somalia, in an effort to kidnap two of local crime lord Mohamed Farah Aidid's top lieutenants. When two of the mission's Black Hawk helicopters are shot down by enemy forces, the Americans—committed to recovering every man, dead or alive—stay in the area too long and are quickly surrounded. The ensuing firefight is a merciless 15-hour ordeal and the longest ground battle involving American soldiers since the Vietnam War. In the end, 70 soldiers are injured and 18 are dead, along with hundreds of Somalians. Released in 2001.