From 1915 Newsreels to Mel Gibson: The Evolution of Gallipoli Movies | WW1 Podcast Episode: 127

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[00:00:01]Welcome to Not So Quiet on the Western Front, the podcast where we lift the lid, bust the myths, and explore the incredible history of the First World War.

[00:00:12]I'm Dan Hill, a military historian and battlefield guide specializing in the history of the war on the Western Front.

[00:00:18]And I'm Dr. Spencer Jones, author and senior lecturer in war studies at the University of Wolverampton.

[00:00:25]Well, hello and welcome to another episode of Not So Quiet on the Western Front. And this week it's just myself as the host again. Dan's still on his travels, but I'm really excited and pleased to be joined by a very special guest for this episode, which is Professor Mark Connley. And Mark, why don't you introduce yourself to the listeners and tell them a little bit about your work, what your interests in, and how this relates to the subject of the episode today. We'll do. And it's great to see you, Spencer. Spencer and I are old buddies, but I suppose given the uh theme that you've got, I should probably say old cobbers, shouldn't I?

[00:00:58]for something like this. It's about Australian. Yeah. Um I for many years, 25 years, I was in the school of history at the University of Kent where um I really focused on not just military history but also the uh cultural history of the two world wars particularly the first world war and you know what they say once you uh go on and on in academia you become more and more of an expert on less and less. So what I you really really interested in uh particularly in the work of what was the imperial now the Commonwealth um war graves commission. So how the war was uh interpreted you know through the medium of its dead across the British Empire really fascinates me and that links to other interests as well you know how people understood the great war particularly in its immediate aftermath that I find that an absolutely fascinating subject. Um but then uh a few years back I left the uh University of Kent and now run my um own uh little business called Connelly Contours where I do London history walks, do lots of talks and also um battlefield tours in France and Belgium. So um yeah, I'm someone who keeps on doing the same thing. So that's me. That's on and I'm never tired of it. Um, and I I hope I don't bore others about it along the way.

[00:02:19]>> Well, absolutely not. And listeners, if you're interested in touring with Mark, we'll put the link to his company, Kindly Contours, in the show notes below. But you've left one part out, Mark, which is of course why you're on the show that this week, which is, of course, your interest in film and particularly war film. And something that we haven't tackled in over a hundred episodes in any kind of depth on this podcast so far is is the really the use of film. and I've been itching for this moment. Long-term listeners will know I often drop in references to fabulously obscure war films. And if you're a member of the the Dugout, our paid site the that supports the podcast, you'll know that I occasionally throw in very obscure YouTube links to films there. And so it's a place to actually be talking about film in depth because we're going to be talking about Gallipoli on film because this is an aspect of the war which we haven't dealt with yet in the podcast and dealing with it in terms of Gallipoli I think it's especially relevant not least because I imagine for a large portion of the population who are interested and perhaps for a large portion of you listeners your first really big exposure to Calipoli might well have been the 1981 movie Peter Wear movie with Mill Gibson. But the story of how Gallipoli came to be on film and why it came to be on film and indeed the the visual image that we have of Gallipoli and how much it owes to film, I think is a really fascinating story, Mark, because it it speaks a little bit about how um even the this relatively modern medium, this film medium can have such a huge influence so quickly after the war in creating an image of what the battlefield looks like and what the campaign looks like.

[00:03:55]>> Absolutely. Yeah, we are talking, aren't we? If we go right back to these early days um of film Spencer, we're talking and that society of 1914, we're talking about the first one that really is photographic literate, isn't it? You know, they are used to seeing photographs. So, some sense of, you know, a a new technology that captures um supposedly reality right in front of people's eyes is something that they're okay with. What perhaps some of them are less um uh aware of is the idea of the moving image. So because as as I'm sure a lot of people know, you know, in 1914 the cinema was popular but was often regarded as say something almost akin to like a circus entertainment, you know, and perhaps had class elements to it. It was something more that the working classes were interested in. And I think what the the Great War does is make cinema going respectable, you know, because of course you could say if you were someone who had been a little bit snooty about it before the war, oh, you know, I have to go to the cinema now because it's my patriotic duty to, you know, because I've got to see what's going on. I've got to understand what's going on. It's a bit like that Victoria Wood joke. You know the one where where that those people say, "Oh, we only have um a television so we can watch the David Atenburgh documentaries, but secretly they're obsessed with Coronation Street and East Enders and all the rest of it." You know, it kind of allows I think The First War allows a guilty secret out for a lot of people that going to the cinema isn't actually something that's sort of seedy almost.

[00:05:34]It's something that you can do um you know, from the highest possible motivations. Yeah. and the ability I think in a a war of mass mobilization of people of resources of actually their what we would now call their headsp space as well. A crucial technique for keeping that on track on focus is the cinema camera and its ability seemingly to deliver the reality of warfare to them. Yeah. And Gallipoli is in there from the start. But as you say, Spencer, perhaps for a lot of us, a lot of um it begins with Mel Gibson in 1981, but we we can take it all the way back to 1915.

[00:06:17]>> We can and we listen, we will get to Mel Gibson in 1981. I I promise you that.

[00:06:22]And but the point you've made, Mark, about how cinema becomes mainstream in a way that perhaps it wasn't. It cuts across class boundaries in a way that perhaps it was held back from prior to the First World War is really interesting. And it's particularly interesting, I think, in terms of of the context of when Gallipoli is happening because Galip is happening in 1915. The army at the the time, the British army at the time is very very uncertain about how it's going to handle journalists, how it's going to handle cameras on the Western Front. It's going to become a lot freer and easier in the years to come. But 1915 falls into this slightly awkward period for censorship effectively on the Western Front. And then on top of that, what makes Gipolian Gipolian film so fascinating is just how exotic Gallipoli is to an audience in Britain or indeed Australia and New Zealand. I imagine if you grabbed somebody off the street who wasn't interested in military history, even now the 21st century, and said, "Where's Gallipoli?" they wouldn't know. They might be able to hazard a guess, but they wouldn't know. But in 1915, Gallipoli might as well be on the dark side of the moon to most, particularly the British population. If you're in Australia, there's a high chance that you've either recently immigrated there or you have living memory of your parents or grandparents moving across there. But Gallipoli is just so exotic, so distant. The whole Middle East is such an exotic and in the terms they a romantic area for much of the the the population that right from the very start at Gipoli there is a a a unique perhaps hunger for imagery from Gallipoli and the um British Army's ability to provide that imagery is limited it has to be said. So in the initial wave you get lots of people filling in with illustrations lurid accounts that are appearing in things like the illustrated war news and so on.

[00:08:09]But one of the odd things actually about Gipley is it's relatively in compared to the western it's relatively poorly served with photography especially in the early part of the campaign compared to others. And so there's this tremendous appetite uh very very early on that people want to see want to see this. They want to see imagery coming out of Gallipoli. And inevitably demand starts to starts to match this because something that is is fascinating probably not known to you listeners and I'll be sharing the links to versions of these films actually or some of these films actually in the dugout if you're interested is as early as 1915 there are cinema productions about Gallipoli being produced. And I'm thinking particularly great title, very of its era, within our gates or deeds that won Gallipoli, the Dardinell's expedition, the heroes of Gallipoli, and the hero of the dardels as well. So there's a there's a range of films. Very very quickly, Mark, I wonder if you could tell us a little bit about what they what goes into these films and and what they show us about the campaign. Yeah. And I think one of the fascinating elements you if we if we're going to talk about either a lack of existing knowledge in 1915, you know, and perhaps where there's some in we have to come back to a class element, don't we, that there is a particular class in Britain and the higher end of Australia where they're going to schools that ape British public schools that are up to their eyeballs in the classics. So of course they're often thinking about it's the Hela's punt. They are going back to Troy. You know, they are deep.

[00:09:38]All of them have had probably ancient Greek whipped into them at school, you know, so they're going to have that resonance. So we might say that there is a kind of high poetry about the idea of of Gallipoli that's running it. And of course that's where it begins to overlay with the journalism because the journalism then informs the visual record. So someone, you know, like the the famous journalist um Ellis Ashme Bartlett, of course, is coming at it, I think, with a preconceived idea that he's stepping in the footsteps, you know, of of Hector and Achilles. And that's the way he's going to view this landscape and that's the way he's going to present it. But of course, back to your point, Spencer, that means that it is one of exoticism, of otherness, you know, of a deeply different kind of landscape um and and a sense of spiritual values, which might be, you know, the founding ones of of like Western civilization, but somehow the war or the the Gipoly expedition is almost acting like a giant act of archaeology as well. you know, by digging trenches there, you're unleashing all of these ghosts and it's all coming out all over again. Yeah. And then these films that get created, I think that is back to your point, Spencer, about this kind of chaos situation in 1915. You know, if the army can't organize, of the armed forces can't organize what we would now call publicity successfully, well, I think particularly in the chaos of the Gipoly campaign, then the private sector is going to step in as it were. So that's journalists, photo, what we now call photojournalists, those who have got a camera and as soon as they can get either onshore, you know, they are doing their shooting.

[00:11:21]But where it becomes an ironic loop is of course ironically a lot of the shoreline of Australia looks like bits of Gallipoli. You don't have you don't have to go to the peninsula as Peter Weir is going to find out, you know, in order to make things that look pretty authentic. So we get that mix in 1915, you know, of of um thing like the Heroes of the Dardels, which um is essentially a kind of news documentary almost in its own way a a precursor of the Battle of the Som film, you know, where you see lots of things like logistics, stuff being offloaded, how we're going to fight the battles. And as we know uh from something like the battle of the son from the one thing the film camera cannot do in 1915 1916 is follow men into action. It's all buildup and aftermath. There's the big gap in the middle. So it um so those early kind of news type things from the Cania are it strikes me very much that this is men going up to the line. These this is how we you know bring mules up to the line.

[00:12:31]This is the kind of stuff that they carry. So, it's very much like a a kind of encyclopedia entry. This is what it looks like, folks. This is how soldiers get on with with their everyday life.

[00:12:42]But then when they're shooting stuff back in Australia to meet a voracious demand, of course, they can also start to bring in the great ticket seller, which is melodrama. And you know, the enemy within has spy elements where within the gate, sorry, has spy elements. The Hero of the Dardels is about a young man patriotically enlists and interestingly has the name of Will.

[00:13:08]You know, when you think of the double meaning of that, you know, it he's a volunteer of his own free will. He gives himself to this great cause. Um, and these are really fascinating little melodramas. And I think perhaps for, you know, looking at them now or the stills that are around cuz a lot of them have have been lost. I think the interesting thing in the wake of what we might think of the modern uh message or or popular image of Gallipoli is how Anglo Australian they are. You know that these are imperial epics. This is Britain and Australia as best pals from underneath the umbrella, you know, of the Britannic world doing a good job together. It's not about one being innately more superior because the other one is an elite bunch of idiots from the damper side of the globe as it were, you know, um that bit is is not there in in 1915.

[00:14:02]That's a really important point and the films we're talking about listeners are um as we say produced around 1915 with the Dardell's expedition is essentially a newsreel film with explanatory panels in which has been very very uh nicely restored by wetter digital incidentally and we'll put those links into the dugout for you to check out listeners but it is it's a conventional news reel mainly filmed in July and August no we cannot verify any combat footage there's some shots of shells bursting on the on the hillsides. That looks fairly real, but obviously it's distant. There is a shot late on in this newsroom. It's only about 20 minutes long late on of some um troops firing over the trenches, but this may have been staged. My favorite thing actually about the film is that it's such a hodgepodge of things happening, people are loading things.

[00:14:50]And one of my favorite little details is that looks like a platoon of soldiers walks past and you can see the the soldiers the whether they're Tommies or diggers gorping at the camera from the left. They're they're looking. You could almost hear them saying, "What's that doing there then? What why is this chap filming?" There's another shot of officers in an improvised mess, just a dug out with a table. And one of them's got a big black mustache, and he spends the entire sequence where he's being filmed chuckling to himself about something. A few of them are looking up and sort of engaging with the camera.

[00:15:20]He's just chuckling away and you think, what was he making of all this? But for an Australian audience that's eager for this, this is, you know, manner from heaven. And as you say, what what drives this is where the army can't fill in, people out to make money do. So you get these early films which I'm glad you mentioned particularly within our gates which has this sort of spice subplot and hero of the dardels which is that classic sort of um Edwwardian melodrama both those are largely lost just bits destroyed there are some fragments of them still survive and some of the the press reviews survive as well and are actually talked about you know they're wellreceived at the time but I think a point that that struck me as I was preparing all uh for this episode with you Mark is it means that the the record the visual record of Gallipoli perhaps more so than the Western Front given that the Western Front lasts for four years by the end there's lots masses of film footage available from all sides whereas Gippy doesn't have that and it means that the visual record of Gipley is almost a construct from the very beginning and that I think that's quite different to the western front yes yeah absolutely because it is so difficult to to shoot there because yeah and because of the nature of its topography to try and create something that's that's coherent is very difficult as well for the cinematographer and because of where it is you know the ability to get stuff to you to processing places everything about it yet gipol becomes imagined shall we say you know Gallipoli is an imagined space and I think what's really interesting about the the heroes in the garden the kind of usual type one is how often it's doing things to try and help the viewer um kind of orient themselves in other ways. So the inter titles are written by Bean, aren't they? Interestingly, you becomes the official Australian historian CW Bean and he does that thing of namechecking generals, doesn't he?

[00:17:20]Because people will have read about them. So you get something about like General Chauville, you get Monache mentioned, was it General Walker was wounded near this point or something where there's a um shots of of um a bombardment. Um, and we also get places constantly mentioned places like Plugs Plateau and that's because they'll have seen maps in their newspapers as well.

[00:17:43]So, it's kind of helping the viewer put together all the little threads of the information that they've got about Gallipoli and sort of triangulate themselves. Whereas as you say on the western front where there is literally the time, space and depth um to to create a a richer um both uh still visual image and a moving picture visual image. There is more done there. You know they can actually stitch together a narrative on the spot. Whereas it strikes me about Gallipoli, there is a rich visual one but so much of it is happening at a distance. It's happening a long way from where it's actually happening. It's being imagined in Australia essentially. M and and that's I think one of the reasons why the the footage that we do have the the and we're building up to the 1981 Gipoly film is is so influential that there is this desire to see and understand the battlefield and you you're given glimpses as if you are a contemporary with all this. One thing that does surprise me a little bit is given we've just laid out that there is newsreal films, there are uh within our gates and there's the hero of the darnells produced very quickly. There's then a little bit of a pause in the 1920s when of course there is a a lot of war films being made. There's some fantastic ones.

[00:18:59]Some of my personal favorites include Mons uh from 1926, often cited on this podcast. But it's actually not until, and correct me if I'm wrong, Mar, but I not until Tell England in 1931 that we first get a major dramatic film treatment of Galipoly. And this is based on Ernest Raymond's 1922 novel of the same name, which at the time when it was published is one of the bestselling British books of the interwar period. It is a smash hit in 1922. If listeners, if you're not familiar with with Tell England, the novel or the film, I will post a link for you. But the book, it's about two young English public school boys. And it's the theme of it is they're friends. They go to school together. They then enlist um volunteer.

[00:19:45]They go to Gallipoli together. And it's all about Christian martyrdom and Eduwardian sacrifice. And the novel, and I think the novel's fantastic from this era, it's a bit ambivalent. The ending is a little bit gray. Is this worth the is this worth the cost? And I don't want to spoil it, listeners, cuz it's a good novel. You'll enjoy it. But there there's certainly ambivalence in it. But the film in 1931 absolutely has no nothing like this. It's very much a a um emphasizing the power of noble youth sacrificing. There's also there is a sense of waste in this. But there's there's two things that s I'd like to just pitch to you Marco. One, the when this is made, this is made in 1931. So this is often held to be this is the post all quiet and the western front era. Audiences are not so interested in um films that are perhaps pro war and and so on. And it's been argued that Tell England is the last great noble hero film of the uh of this the period.

[00:20:47]But also one thing that strikes me and I rewatched it prior to this uh episode is how British it is. Um it's a overwhelmingly British approach. The soldiers are British. The the the campaign is British through and through.

[00:21:02]But my final point as well is it's actually it's a good film. It's well made and the battle sequences in particular >> fabulously shot. Wonderful use of silence as well in the preparation and then just the piercing whistles. It's very good. listeners if you've not seen it and you uh are interested in war films highly recommend but talk us through a little bit about you know the era it's made um this this idea of Brit a very British view of Gipoly and how it sits in our sort of understanding of Gipoli's films in general >> yeah well of course it's the last great film made by the British instructional film company you know the one that had made Mons had made these silent classics in in the mid20s which had done hugely well at the box office across the British Empire, particularly in the Dominions. You know, you'd mentioned Bonds of 1926. Their single biggest box office success is the year before with uh EPRA in 1925, which is just vast. And then what is probably in cinematic terms, you know, in in terms of cinematic artistry, the greatest of the ones is 1927, the battles of Coronelo and Falkland Islands, which has pure Eisenstein moments kind of going on in it in terms of, you know, the director's art of summers brings that. And I think that the success of those then embodies BIF that has been used to shall we say the these kind of boy own but nonetheless slightly encyclopedia entry like films to branch out and think well now is the time you where we're going to go um we're going to use the war but we're going to go fiction. You we're going to buy the the rights to a best seller. and and so it's quite a bold move, but just as they begin production with the upcoming new um director, young Anthony Aswith and and if you know he's he's obviously the prime minister's son and if if people want to get versed with these uh he his style have a look at his great film 1927 Underground. It's really brilliant about this kind of uh mystery set on the London Underground. It's a fantastic film. So they bring him in. Um they're going to chuck a huge budget at it. You know, they've got the Royal Navy on board again. They're going to film it in Malta. That's going to stand in the Mediterranean fleet. You know, the Queen Elizabeth puts the sea for them to do this. Um and then they use every naval rating they can get on Mortar to take part in the landings and everything else. The huge technological problem that they have which all cinema has is two about a third of the way through shooting sound comes in.

[00:23:40]You get Broadway melody and the jazz singing. And of course that does to this film what it does to every production.

[00:23:46]What the hell do we do? Is anybody going to watch a silent film ever again?

[00:23:51]So they halt production as they're desperately trying to get all the kit together as you all of the studios are.

[00:23:58]So there's a run on sound kit and everyone you know is queuing up and trying to chuck money at it. Can we queue jump? Can we get our stages you know wired for sound? Can we get there?

[00:24:09]And that means that by the time they're ready to shoot, you essentially have and you mentioned silence, you essentially have a hybrid script. And I think that's actually some of the strengths and the weaknesses of Tell England. There's a bit of me that thinks Tell England probably would be an even better film if it had been left entirely silent. You know, the silent uh aesthetic had been allowed just to dominate throughout. So, they're trying to bring in a sound script for it. That that's quite tricky.

[00:24:38]You know, how much are we going to do by sound? Because of this delay, it also means it comes out as you say just at that moment where you've had Wall Street crash where its effect is starting to wash up on Britain where you've had all quiet on the western front. It's never meant to compete, you know, with any of these. It's not a natural child. It's kind of a delayed thing that that that bursts onto the scene in the wake of all of these things. But as you say, because they are so so so dedicated to try to bring out their reading of the novel, it is very very British. And because of the early days of sound recording and the kinds of actors they've got, their cut glass British accents are are almost fendable, aren't they? I mean, there's a brilliant review. I think it's him variety, you know, because there's high hopes that it will do well in the stage.

[00:25:31]the British are sending over a sound film and I think Variety's review is something like tell England that's that's okay. I wish they could tell someone else because they can't understand it. You they literally cannot understand these English accents. They are too uplast for them. But I I I think um what's interesting that what we might say is happening that there is though in that film a little bit of a clawing back of Gallipoli for British forces because the Australian image through people like Bean the Anzac connection the Australian New Zealand connection has got so strong during the course of the 1920s that there is a sense of let's remind people that British troops were there and of course the part of Britain or the British Isles where it's also a an unexpected success is in the Free State because of things like the Royal Dublin fuselers being there. So it does well in Dublin. So um so you might have the IRA you know and people like that very upset that what they see is British propaganda amongst them but there are you know Irish veterans who remember their part very well and they want to see that this kind of British element back in the game. So yeah, it's an absolutely fascinating film that ends up, as you mentioned, Spencer, coming out at a moment where it was never planned to and I think therefore gets unfairly slapped on with this thing, you know, oh, it doesn't quite have the unambiguous politics of um all quiet on the Western Front. Well, it was never designed to do that, nor should it.

[00:27:04]Yeah, I I think it very much feels as as you've said to me, in the sense of the the sacrifice of noble youth. It's like watching at times what you expect to be an armistice day sermon in the chapel of a public school and that's what you get there and provided you're ready for that. It's a great film and those landing sequences are are absolutely fantastic. I don't think anything beats them until Saving Private Riot really.

[00:27:28]that that sequence where they're coming off the River Clyde and and you're seeing that it's cuts for the machine guns, you know, firing and they're they're falling on the lighters. That is just absolutely brilliant bit of cinema.

[00:27:40]>> Absolutely. I think you've really really given a good placing tell England in the context that it was a little bit of a victim of of timing and uh with the change over to talks from silent movies.

[00:27:52]And well, I think you made a great point that it's worth bringing out a bit more that even in the 20s, Gallipoli as an Australian New Zealand experience and having taking a huge point in print and beginning to take a point in ritual in Australia and New Zealand is significant. And to then have a film that is very the British at Gallipoli is is quite unusual within that context.

[00:28:17]And that it plays well in the free state is a great point as well. the complexities of Irish memory relating to not only uh the first world war but Gallipoli in particular you know we forget this Irish entire Irish division out there and there's there's the all these elements that add up to make tell England as a really interesting unique sort of take on it and listeners if you've never seen it it's a very very watchable film just go in as Mark says prepare that you're going to get a big slice of what you might call Edwardian um morals it's going to be very it's got an attitude that um almost to century on may look a little bit out of place, but at the time this this plays well. And the the accents are glad you mentioned the accents, Mark, because even to my my ears there are a bit, wow, that's that's so sharp. You could, you know, you could trim your beard with it. It's uh it's definitely definitely unique approach to that.

[00:29:08]>> They they don't know glottle stops back then. They really don't know.

[00:29:12]>> No, absolutely not. The annunciation is perfect on every syllable, but very fine film. Um, then of course as the 1930s go on, it's not the end of war films, but as as far as I can see, Gallipoli just becomes the domain of print really for decades to follow. Through the 30s, through the 40s, it's interesting that in the 40s, Gallipoli isn't exactly repurposed for Australia and New Zealand now fighting a brand new war, but it is used as an an exemplar of courage for Australian and New Zealand troops.

[00:29:47]reading about the Australian defense of Tbrook in 1941. There's a lot of comparison in the Australian press to these are the sons of Gallipoli and they have you know done their fathers proud and and so I mean clinging on to a coastal position and a huge pressure >> the whole idea of enclave yeah I think is really important that parallel now yeah >> you could really see that and it and it builds up and builds up but in terms of film of course it it it largely fades away as far as I can tell until and this is I suppose really where I'm film that I'm sure most listeners will have seen and if not do seek out. This is by 1981.

[00:30:23]So decades after this, you 50 years after Tell England, we get and I'm going to call it the definitive Gallipoli film purely because of its success and its influence. And this is the 1981 Gallipoli directed by Peter Weir starring Mel Gibson and Mark Lee. Mark, tell us a little bit about this, how it comes about, why it's so important.

[00:30:44]>> Yeah. Yeah. Well, I I first of all, it's a fabulous film is I is an absolutely brilliant film. It just pays watching again and again and again. And I was shown it, believe it or not, as a kind of Christmas treat by our history teacher. I was doing my Olevel history at uh I think it was Christmas 1985, just before. And um I just found it absolutely amazing. And then by coincidence, I think it was shown on TV for the first time that Christmas. I was ready for it. You know, there I was with my VHS, brand new cassette, ripped out of it, cellophane, ready to to take that. Yeah. And well, the way I I I think GI that film lends itself to all sorts of different readings really, you know, and context in some ways, you know, to to me, I think you can look at it as a parable about Vietnam as well, you know. So, yes, of course, it's about the historical events on the Gibli Peninsula in 1915. Absolutely.

[00:31:44]Particularly the run-up to the landings at Sundra Bay, you know, the kind of plot hinges on that, but the way it plays itself uh particularly in its politics, you about um there's a whole hint throughout that Australia somehow has been dragged into something that is a long long way from home. that someone has told them that it's of crucial importance for them that they play a role in it. Um, and it's turned out to be neither, you know, brief nor glorious. And I think yeah there is it could be read as as Australia not simply coming to terms or rethinking its first world war but actually the only way perhaps in which it could deal with the Vietnam war in the immediate aftermath of it. You know we're trying to perhaps deal with it directly is almost too painful is that you disguise it in costume drama. You know you you make a parable out of it. And therefore I also think you can see in it perhaps elements of things like Tony Richardson's charge of the light brigade. Yeah, in again in the same neck of the woods, of course, Crimea, but like the Eastern Mediterranean, but this idea of an imperial adventure for what has now become uh you know, something that is highly controversial, imperial and empire adventure, which seems a controversial term because I think I think a lot of people see that as a synonym for idiots wasting other people's lives, money, you know, um integrity and so I has got elements of of that.

[00:33:25]But you can clearly see on that point that this is a postimperial well. This is an Australia that might still be within the Commonwealth that has still got plenty of connections with Britain, but it sees itself as distinct and different and stands on its own two feet in the world differently and therefore can look back on its history in a new way. And part of that looking back is that perhaps we were too bloody naive and allowed the British to lead us with a ring through our nose a little bit too much. I think that that's a really interesting reading of the film and in preparation for this I came across an interview with Peter Weir uh that was given years later actually and he said openly that this is a film and his words inspired by Australia fighting other people's wars and so this definitely plugs into the Vietnam aftermath and made of course during the Australian new wave cinema period so boom era for Australian film huge amount of interest and it's it's also released on the same the year 1981 as Australia's first Anzac Day march to generate significant attendance. Previously, Anzac Day, and this is something that I think we're apt to forget and given how big it is now, what wasn't exactly completely norm, but it was it was fading away. It was increasingly old men and their immediate families who had less and less interest. Gallipoli, the the 1981 film, changes that forever in many respects. It it is a huge shot in the arm for the the memory of Gallipoli.

[00:35:04]It exemplifies a great deal about it.

[00:35:07]And I rewatched it in preparation for this episode as well. And one thing that actually struck me having watched Tell England a few nights earlier and then Gallipoli not long afterwards is in some ways in some ways and we might stretch this a bit too far. We could almost see them as curious mirrors of each other.

[00:35:24]They're about two friends. They're about two men who are drawn to this campaign.

[00:35:28]There's courage, there's there's there's sacrifice, but whereas the sacrifice in Tell England is noble and unlike the novel, which is ambiguous, it is it's worthwhile. It's it's something that is it's not only worthwhile on a personal level, you've lived up to the ideals, but it's it's implied this is valuable for the campaign in Gallipoli, of course, which has a similar structure to tell England. The sacrifice is not worthwhile. It's and it it plugs in and it's it's a compelling story. you can watch it and think this is a tragedy.

[00:35:59]The scene where there's running to try and cancel the attack of course is is powerful and and emotional and so on. Um and it it conveys a message that I think if you portrayed that message in 1931 I'm not sure it would have been a hit, but in 1981 it's exactly what audiences want.

[00:36:18]>> Yes. Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. Um and yeah, I I think we can all overdo cliches about the 1960s. as a period in which there's a collapse of of gems but but clearly there is something going on you know it's got deeper roots into the 50s as as we know but there something has happened um that that has drastically shifted social relationships in which there is a rebellion of youth against age and tied in with that is there also a kind of class rebellion as well that's going on so I think to see two very handsome young Australian men and I think That's also a big part of its cinematic success. You know, you are looking at matinea idols on the screen.

[00:37:02]Questioning uh or particularly in Mel Gibson, you go like questioning the wisdom of these elders. You know, why should I be doing this? But I'm going to go along because of course I fulfill one of those sacred duties of Anzac and Laracanism and Australian identity, which is mates. My mate needs me to go, so I go with him regardless. even if I'm not fully sold on the idea. So in his own way, you know, Mel Gibson encapsulates Australia, a mate of mine, a bigger, in this case, you might be Britain, you know, the bigger older mate said, "Come with me." And it's dragged me by the wrist and I end up, "All right, well, if I've got to go, I'll go.

[00:37:40]I'll be there because I'm your pal." And then you find, you know, in that instance, you know, the powers let you down. But yeah, I think it suits that that different world. Um, and it's also fascinating, isn't it, to think about it in its wider cinematic, Melia, particularly because that incredible ending where it is a race, you know, it's a race against death, but you know, he can't outra death. He's he's going to be killed and he's shot in the chest and it forms the the great film poster as well and he flings his arms backwards.

[00:38:08]So in exactly the pose that angels of victory have on war memorials but this time it's and also what athletes do you know when they break the tape but now he's kind of martyed he's crucified because of a lie the lie that war is is glorious and good um and the bullets rip into his chest but exactly the almost exactly the same time that this film is being released you're getting chariots of fire in Britain a stunning, you know, in which young men, particularly one who's an outsider because he's Jewish and feels that, you know, that British society won't let him in properly and is going to make his point about what it is to be his version of British. And so we get, you know, there's something strange about young men and running and and the past that was going on in that that early ' 80s thing. Um uh but it makes a fascinating and I think for for weir as a director who's clearly as he's later career in things like Truman Show and uh Witness show he's obviously very interested in enclosed communities. this outback boy from a tiny farm who joins another kind of enclosed community of the army and he then gets into the ultimate enclosed community because they're locked into a tiny spit of land on the edge of Turkey and he cinematically does it brilliantly does it because all the shots in Australia you can see I'm off on one now Spencer are all very much letter box aren't they australian landscape is big and wide and there are vast horizons and when you get to Gipoly It goes like that. It's the trench. It's the box periscope view.

[00:39:46]Everything is enclosed and narrow and tight. And so, yeah, Australians need elbow room. And the only way that they get it is when they become very classical and very beautiful again is when they're naked swimmers in the sea.

[00:40:00]And that's a remarkable scene, isn't it?

[00:40:02]When there's freedom again. And it all becomes very classical. They're in the the seas of the Mediterranean. Sorry, I've gone off way attention.

[00:40:10]I'll go back to the medication Spencer.

[00:40:14]>> But I think you're getting across what a one of the reasons it's a success and sometimes with both listeners to this podcast and also sometimes my students say, well, you know, it's so frustrating because this film had so much influence.

[00:40:27]Remember one of my MA students saying to me, there have been millions of words written about the First World War and just one great scene with some handsome men, Mel Gibson in particular, changes everything. And that's now all we ever think about. But I think a key thing about um Gipley 1981 is it's a good film. It's very good film. You can look at it and enjoy it even if you've got no interest in in war. You can enjoy it as a drama. It's beautifully shot. And that the claustrophobia of being in the trenches, the way it letter boxes once they're in Gipoly and you have this contrast of the wide open space and then suddenly your world condenses is really striking. And it's for um for a war film with that idea to be so claustrophobic is it's really striking. Really gets across that space. Um it helps that it's got an incredibly relatable story.

[00:41:17]You've made the great point about matesship and comradeship sacrifice and you know as a viewer this is going to end badly. It's it's going to end badly.

[00:41:24]What's interesting to me just to compare it to tell England is watching Tell England, you know, it's going to end badly and and the Edwardian a the 1920s audience knew it was going to end badly, but the the image is but this is part of, you know, masculine life. This is this sacrifice is worthwhile. Whereas in Gallipoli, it's not. It's tragic. It's it's a disaster in a personal disaster.

[00:41:46]And so this is changing attitudes, I think, perhaps to to the war and the campaign. But if we talk about some of its its history, how how this has shaped our views of Galipia, I've already mentioned it. It is a shot in the arm for Anzac Day parades. How do you think this has shaped our what we might call the general public's understanding of Gallipoli in the years that have followed?

[00:42:07]>> Yeah. Well, I I think it's really uh you can always then play Gallipoli, can't you? By what we might call the the Great War cliche bingo. Um, it reinforces I think uh it reinforces shall we say the ironies, the tossy turviness and and the political bite and satire of oh what a lovely war that the generals are donkeys and particularly if they are British.

[00:42:32]It's coming directly it strikes me out of that Allan Clark tradition which had then been um you know perhaps shipped a little bit into Australian you know popular histories um uh about the war. I think uh Peter Weir did did he I think it's Bill Gamage isn't it in the broken years you been re a really fabulous book but very powerful you really gets the emotions going a really wonderful read um and about that sense of of the distinctness of of you young Australian men being sacrificed uh in this war yeah so so I think we we get that that ticking off that it's it's dodgy generals and that's a message which a post that was the week that was generation you a post beyond the fringe generation finds extremely um understandable and relatable in a world in which there is a cold war that constantly seems by the late '7s early 80s to be getting close to running very very hot. I think the idea of detached old men sitting around in like club rooms or way away from where normal people have their lives making decisions that could be cataclysmic for the rest of us you know also rings a bell and that's why I think Galipelli works um as well you know appeals to that audience um and yeah that that sense in which there Oh, there could be a different way forward. But goodness me, um it means, you know, ordinary and particularly perhaps ordinary young people really have to grasp the world and change it themselves because they can't trust those above them to make the wise decision. So I think it all hits in yeah to that 60s7s 80s melia really that that that's not simply Australian but you you'll also see in Europe in uh in continents Europe in Britain um and and in North America >> and I'm glad you mentioned North America too because this is a film that has cut through uh into the North American market whereas um the a lot of first world war films certainly after the the first world war perhaps don't necessarily land in with an American audience. The place of the Second World War has a much bigger role in American cultural memory here. The Gallipoli is is marketed of course to an American audience and and it catches fire there as well. I remember once somebody saying to me after a talk that whenever I they hear the word Gallipoli, all they can think it was a lady for what it's worth.

[00:45:10]All they could think of was Mel Gibson's face. So clearly left a big big impression on her. And there's this post that in the the post that's advertised from somewhere you've never heard, a story you'll never forget. And you made the point in the show notes for this that how many Australians in 1981 hadn't heard of Gipolley, even if they weren't particularly interested?

[00:45:31]>> Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. So, I think well, as we know, if if you're going to make a film like that, you've got to recoup the dollars. Um, it's a all shot on location. They didn't really go to Ilipy. You know, South Australia is used back to that point about the resemblances to Anzac Cove, but it's it's a big uh you know production and obviously that the way to recoup it is to make sure that it goes down well in the North American particularly the US market. So, it's fascinating to see that cell, you know, that that um young uh particularly, you know, young cinema going Americans might just about have heard of World War I as they were, but they certainly probably won't have heard of Gallipoli. So, it's a very interesting pitch that idea. I It's a very clever one. You somewhere a place you've never heard of, a story that that you'll never forget. But, yeah, one um I've I've not quite done enough research yet. I'd love to know whether that was ever used even accidentally in Britain and uh Australia as a as a film basel that one's entirely confined to uh the US market. But yes, I think it certainly does have its impact and obviously really uh reinforces Peter We's um uh status as a director and it go on to make uh other you great films as well.

[00:46:54]But perhaps as well what's working for that American market is that sense of shall we say tongue and cheek at times anti-Britishness. I mean this is an America as well that's only recently come out of the bicesentinery of independence and of course although the USA and Great Britain you know arguably the you know the special relationship is at its strongest perhaps in in some ways in the 70s and 80s I was certainly once that you know comes in with that Reagan personal amity that that they have that they're very very solid um collaborators in in the cold war but obviously there is still a sense in which America's freed from the British yoke And I think with that idea of the bicentinery being 1976, you know, just a few years before this film is released, this idea that um the Brits are all right, but sometimes you're better off without them. Um yeah, or you're better off putting them in a special place and then leaving them there. Um that that might have helped it feed in to an American audience as well.

[00:47:58]I think that that's a a good point and I'd add to it as well that the the America is still dealing with its post Vietnam hangover in the the early 80s.

[00:48:06]It's a powerful era for Vietnam films.

[00:48:09]>> Absolutely. Yes.

[00:48:10]>> And and Gallipoli plugs into this uh hits those those notes. Um and and it's such an influential film. It's such a powerful film that in some ways it means that or perhaps has discouraged other other um cinematographers, filmmakers from actually approaching this again.

[00:48:27]Because although Gallipoli has been featured in television and so forth, if we look for um Anglophere films about Gallipoli and listeners, I know there's some real film buffs out in the amongst our listeners, so do correct me if I'm wrong, but I think that we actually have to skip forward decades to the water diver, Russell Crow's directoral debut for a mainstream English-speaking English language cinema release. And why do you think that is? Is it because that the film is just so powerful nobody wants to revisit it or there's no fresh stories to tell or any thoughts on that Mark?

[00:49:02]>> Yeah, I do think I mean I think it's a great tribute to to uh Peter We's film that that if you're going to make another film you how do you do it that pays kind of homage to that a kind of reverential homage but not try you you certainly don't want to do a remake.

[00:49:22]Where do you find the space to make one?

[00:49:26]And I I think that the water divinyl is a really interesting idea by setting, you know, you might say in its own way, it brings out also contemporary concerns about the environment. You drinking where where do you water is, you know, what is this all about? And and so I think it does take a long time and I think it's a very bold move um you know to for for it to be approached but because you are carrying aren't you with with the resurrection of Anzac Day the resurrection of this spirit in Australia and and New Zealand anyone that approaches this most sacred item has to be really really really sure of themselves and the way they're going to deal with it. You know, just what are we going to do? Because the chances of it going wrong and you're getting a a backlash are so strong because by the 2000, everyone is bringing into that cinema a an immense cultural baggage with them. you know, of perhaps boxes that they expect to see ticked or or or tropes that they expect to see explored.

[00:50:44]And if they're not quite done in a way that they find acceptable, then then you could be in um for a dodgy reaction. I think that's a really important point and one that perhaps we've been building to over the course of this episode about how so much of our understanding of Gipoli, our perception of Galipoly, what it means, what it meant at the time, it has been shaped by the 1981 movie and that this has changed. I hope this episode's demonstrated when we talk of compare it to Tell England 50 years earlier. um that that our image and particularly Australian image and um you know many Australian listeners but I've met lots of Australians in the course of my work who who talk about that their their interest their passion for the first rule was sparked by this film. So it's it's difficult to take away a foundational text and go well it's a little more complicated than this. And so I think the influence of this film as a historical document and of course it's it's now 45 years old. So it's um it's it's not a a modern film in that sense but it is still incredibly popular and I I um in preparation for this episode speaking to a listener corresponding to the listener it's a school teacher in Australia who says oh yeah I I always use clips from Gipolley to to teach Gallipoli. So the the power of the visual medium going right back to those early news reels and on and before we as we come to a conclusion of this there's one thing I did want to bring up and this is that we do have some listeners in Turkey too and this is that there is the Turkish film industry has been more active in tackling Gallipoli certainly in the 21st century than English-sp speakaking filmmakers and as the approach of the centenery began to arrive in the the late 90s into the early 2010s there was a number of uh Turkish um films produced which variety of them um covering different things including smaller stories couple of points that that really jumped out for me as I was watching these you can find them on Amazon Prime let's have a look >> is is repetition of this brotherly theme that we go back to tell England two best friends go to war gipoly two best friends go to war um there's a Turkish film called Gallipoli end of the road worth tracking down 2013. It's about two brothers from um rural Turk, the rural empire. They go and fight at Gallipoli.

[00:53:02]One's a sniper and the other's just an infantryman in the trenches and they're trying to help each other and protect each other. Uh there's a film Children of Galipoly, the English title, which is about um an Australian and Ottoman soldier who are brothers and find themselves opposed. It's a bit contrived, but it's actually a very bleakly anti-war film. And then there's simply Gipoly 1915, the English title, which is this epic scale war movie.

[00:53:27]Great action, 2008, lot bit of dodgy CGI, some dodgy graphics going on, but very action-packed. The story itself is is a bit blunt. This is a spectacle war movie. But one thing that interested me preparing this episode is none of this none of these movies have any kind of cutthrough in the angophone world.

[00:53:46]Whereas we have German films, Eastern European war films, even Russian war films, even some Japanese war films have had impact in the English speaking world, none of the Turkish movies have got anywhere. Uh they've had no success in Australia and New Zealand. And >> gosh, >> I just wondered whether any comment on why that might be. And is it is it because of the legacy of of how ingrained Gipoly is in the uh the English- speakaking world's memory?

[00:54:14]>> Yeah. Well, or or does it come down to the sheer nuts and bolts of the way the cinema and the distribution industry, you know, see a bums on seats seller, you know, is there just not enough people prepared to take a punt and think that this is worth distributing? Uh, but it's a really really interesting thought that uh something for me to to mull over you have uh brought up there, Spencer.

[00:54:39]Yet it's fascinating that we are so, of course, I'm going to use the CL entrenched in an anglophone vision or what you call an Australian sort of Britannic or Australians in Britannic vision. Yes. That we we've left very very little space for a a Turkish or you know a former Ottoman world's voice to to come into this. this I mean it strikes me of course in Gallipoli you do get that hint don't you um where they're almost playing the game with the Turkish soldiers about target practice whether they sort of hold up targets and they they kind of like clap whether where I think whether the the machine guners sort of hit the the target correctly so there is some sense of like banter and camaraderie between the trenches that there is something that's holding them together in some kind of mutual respect but yeah that that sense in which the the enemy who after all is fighting.

[00:55:37]They're fighting to protect their homeland from invasion. Um hasn't uh penetrated so much um the the kind of anglophone perhaps because that very idea is a little uncomfortable for us to take on invading somebody else's territory in a war that's presented as sort of or once upon a time was always presented, you know, as as a defensive one, a glorious one because of aggression that was unleashed against.

[00:56:04]Yeah, perhaps being the invader um uh creates difficulties when uh it comes back looking at the the flip side of the coin.

[00:56:12]>> A very good point I think Mark and I hope as we we come to the end of the episode listeners if nothing else we've wetted your appetite to revisit some of these films. Certainly the earlier films we discussed they're available online um you could easily track down Gipley 1981 the uh Turkish produced films a little harder to track down but you can find them on um specialist sites particularly Amazon Prime. So do do check some of these out and let us know in the comments if you've watched these films, what you think of them, anything that jumps out at you from this because film is is part of our language of memory of the first world war. Even the films that are like Gipoly 81 made decades after the conflict and and they'll continue to shape and influence how we perceive this I think for for decades to come. But Mark, it's been an absolute pleasure to have you on the show. So thank you very much and hope to have you back again soon. Thanks, Ben Sier. See you soon.

[00:57:05]>> You've been listening to Not So Quiet on the Western Front, a Battle Guide production. If you enjoyed this episode, head over to the Battle Guides YouTube channel for more military history. To support us and access bonus content, why not check out our supporter platform, The Dugout, link available in the show notes. That's all this time. We'll see you again soon.