Gallipoli The Movie – A Viewing Guide and Prompt

1.  How are music and sound used in the scene where the soldiers land at Gallipoli?

What effect/mood does it create?

How are music and sound used throughout the rest of the film?

2.  What is meant to stop the hospital ships being shelled?

3.  Does the beach appear organized? Is there a sense of control or chaos? Explain why?

4.  Why is the soldier on the cliff waving coloured hand flags?

5.  How does the diggers’ “insurance” work?

6.  Why have this group of Anzac soldiers supposedly been brought to Gallipoli?

7.  Why is the ‘shortest’ way to the beach not the ‘best’ way?

8.  What are the soldiers making with jam tins and pieces of metal?

9.  What was the Anzacs role to be at Lone Pine?

10.  How were the wounded transported from the battlefield?

11.  What happened to Frank’s three friends :

- Barney

- Bill

- Snowy

12.  As the push gets closer, how do Frank’s reactions to the sound of shelling change?

13.  Why does the shelling of the Turkish lines stop before the attack? What effect does this have?

14.  Archie writes home that the soldiers are “giving a good account of ourselves … terribly excited … an adventure somehow larger than life”. Why does he believe this or is it a lie. Explain your answer.

15.  How does the film portray the British officers compared to the Australian officers?

16.  Why are the soldiers instructed to go over the top without any bullets in the guns, only bayonets?

17.  Describe your response to the soldiers’ dash across no-man’s land towards the Turkish trenches? What words spring to mind?

18.  What problems did the method of communications used in those days create in these circumstances?

19.  How do the Light Horsemen prepare for battle?

20.  Have the soldiers changed since they arrived on the beach earlier? If so, how?

21.  What do you think might have happened to Frank next? Use your imagination and knowledge. Write about ⅓ of a page for this question.

22.  In the movie ‘Gallipoli’, the characters of Archie and Frank are ‘fictional’, however the events and recreation of Gallipoli itself are based on fact.

How well do you think does the movie portray the period, the battles, the life and character of the Anzacs. Give examples of which parts of the movie worked well, in your view, and what aspects you thought were unsatisfactory.

Write about ⅓ of a page as a response.