Breaker Morant Edward Woodward, Bryan Brown, Lewis Fitz-Gerald, Jack Thompson Director: Bruce Beresford
The death last week of British actor Edward Woodward has given many pause for thought.
Woodward was one of the few actors - in the days long before The Wire and its ilk turned television drama consistently serious - who was able and was given the freedom to fully develop a character on the small screen, which he did in the title role of the espionage serial Callan in the 1960s. Such was the measure of the man's talent that he expanded the possibilities of a medium.
And so it was always surprising that Woodward's cinematic career - though consistent and spanning more than 50 years - boasted relatively few highlights. But when he did find the right role, you couldn't take your eyes off him.
Such is the case with Australian director Bruce Beresford's Breaker Morant, among the first of the country's 'New Wave' movement that would launch the likes of Peter Weir and George Miller onto the world stage in the late 1970s and early 80s.
Woodward (third from left) plays the title character, a soldier facing a court martial for the murder of prisoners during the Boer war in South Africa at the turn of the last century. The film is fact-based.