128 GALLIPOLI
headquarters to try and get the attack halted, but Col. Robinson insists that it
continue. Lt. Gray (Peter Ford) admits to his commander, Barton, that he claimed
to have sighted the marker flags, but can’t recall where the information originally
came from. Frank suggests going over the col o nel’s head and appealing to General
Gardner (Graham Dow) about stopping the offensive. Frank sprints to Gardner’s
headquarters, and the general tells him to that he is indeed “reconsidering the
whole situation.” Frank sprints back to share the news with Barton, but in the
interim, the phone lines have resumed functioning and Col. Robinson demands
that the attack move forward. Barton leads his men over the top, Archy among the
ranks. Arriving mere seconds too late to stop the attack, Frank screams in anguish.
As Archy’s comrades fall by the score, he drops his rifle and runs as fast toward the
enemy positions as he can. The final shot is a freeze frame at the moment of Archy’s
death, as he is hit and hurled backward by a fusillade of bullets to the chest (a
haunting image modeled after Robert Capa’s famous photo graph, “The Falling Sol-
dier,” taken in 1936 at the Battle of Cerro Muriano during the Spanish Civil War).Reception
Gallipoli proved to be a box office hit in Australia, grossing 11,740,000 AUD— four
times its 2.8 million AUD production bud get. Box office receipts for international
releases were more modest. For example, the movie earned only $5.7 million in
the United States where exhibition was limited to art house cinemas. Gallipoli was
nominated for the 1981 Australian Film Institute Awards in ten categories and won
in eight of them: Best Film, Best Director, Best Actor, Best Supporting Actor, Best
Screenplay, Best Cinematography, Best Sound, and Best Editing. Reviews were
mostly positive, with many critics citing the film’s deeply affecting lyricism aty pi -
cal of war films. Janet Maslin’s review nicely articulates the consensus opinion that
“the film approaches the subject of war so obliquely that it can’t properly be termed
a war movie... Mr. Weir’s work has a delicacy, gentleness, even wispiness that
would seem not well suited to the subject. And yet his film has an uncommon
beauty, warmth, and immediacy, and a touch of the mysterious, too.” Maslin con-
cludes by noting that there’s “nothing pointed in Mr. Weir’s decorous approach,
even when the material would seem to call for toughness. But if the lush mood
makes Gallipoli a less weighty war film than it might be, it also makes it a more
airborne adventure” (New York Times, 28 August 1981).Reel History Versus Real History
As the film’s opening disclaimer declares, “Although based on events which took
place on the Gallipoli Peninsula in 1915, the characters portrayed in this film are
entirely fictitious.” Mel Gibson’s character, Frank, was in ven ted from whole cloth,
but the Archy Hamilton character was inspired by Pvt. Wilfred Lukin Harper of
the 10th Light Horse, who died at the Battle of the Nek at the age of 25. He was
described in Bean’s Official History of Australia in the War of 1914–1918 as “last seen
running forward like a schoolboy in a foot- race, with all the speed he could com-
pass.” Col. Robinson’s character equates to the actual brigade major (chief of staff)
of the 3rd Brigade: Col. John Antill (1866–1937), an Australian Boer War veteran