Would be interested to see a remake from the Zulu point of view...might just get funding?
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A truly magnificent film, one of my all-time favourites. (Despite the errors - it wasn't a 'Welsh' regiment, although their depot was currently at Brecon and at least 26 of those at Rorke's Drift may have been Welsh. Their insignia said "2nd Warwickshire". They became the South Wales Borders in 1883.)Originally posted by Richard Tarleton View PostProduced and starred in one of the great films, Zulu.....now generally referred to as a Michael Caine film
(it was Caine's breakthrough role, "and introducing..." on the credits).
Baker died at the same age as his character in the film, Lt. John Chard, at 48, both of cancer.
The uniforms are wrong - white helmets? Pah! Actually, they should have had khaki uniforms already, but they hadn't yet arrived from Britain - the Zulu War was the last in red.
Chard and Bromhead were not great soldiers either, effectively being on non-combatant duties. The real credit for the organisation of the defence should go to Dalton of the Commissariat Corps - who was denied a VC for almost a year, till a public campaign was mounted.
How's that for being off-topic! (And for being anally-retentive.)Comment
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Originally posted by Pabmusic View Post
Don't worry you're not alone - both I and another Zulu-bore in our close family circle watch the films on the anniversaries every year albeit on different sides of the Atlantic 
Henry Hook was misrepresented in the film, though to great dramatic effect - portrayed as an insubordinate malingerer who came good in the battle, he was in reality a teetotal Methodist lay preacher......
Stanley Baker's drinking buddy Richard Burton reads the roll of honour at the end..... (there, that's almost back on topic)Comment
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It get's you, doesn't it? I saw it when it first came out (in Eastleigh) having seen a plug for it on Blue Peter.Originally posted by Richard Tarleton View Post Don't worry you're not alone - both I and another Zulu-bore in our close family circle watch the films on the anniversaries every year albeit on different sides of the Atlantic
Henry Hook was misrepresented in the film, though to great dramatic effect - portrayed as an insubordinate malingerer who came good in the battle, he was in reality a teetotal Methodist lay preacher......
Stanley Baker's drinking buddy Richard Burton reads the roll of honour at the end..... (there, that's almost back on topic)Comment
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Yes, I have that vivid Unicorn LP somewhere in my basement Reserve Collection, Bolik. I had forgotten the piece and most of Alan Hovhaness' music having my lost my earlier enthusiasm through over exposure. Your cogent remarks will stir me to check whether my dismissal of his music as 'naïve' was too simplistic.Originally posted by Boilk View PostComment
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Maybe, but call it something else. There is a long history in the film industry of remaking things which were a shoadow of the brilliant original. As an aside would you want to see a remake of Hernry V from the French viewpoint?Originally posted by greenilex View PostComment
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Not sure what this would mean exactly, as far as the period covered by the film is concerned - quite a lot of the action is from the Zulu point of view, including extended sequences from the royal kraal! Baker, to his credit, worked closely with the Zulu kingdom. The action sequences might end up looking very much the same.Originally posted by greenilex View Post
There may well be scope for an entirely different film, covering the Zulu perspective on the war as a whole - in isiZulu, with English subtitles? Here's a Wiki list of films all or partly in Zulu - you'll see Zulu there at the end. Difficult for a 2-hour film to do justice to such a huge topic.
This is an outstanding book on the subject.Comment
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Quite agree. Remember, too, that the attack on Rorke's Drift was 'unauthorised' by Cetawayo. There was a follow-up to Zulu, by the same producer/director (Cy Enfield) - Zulu Dawn, starring Peter O'Toole as the aristocratic incompetent, Lord Chelmsford, who managed to lose an army at Isandlwana in the hours before Rorke's Drift. It's OK, and quite accurate (and does a good job of demonstrating the "fuzzy-wuzzy" mentality of many British). But it doesn't have either the eclipse that occurred during the battle, nor the fact that the Zulu warriors were mostly high on cannabis - it might be difficult to get that across nowadays!Originally posted by Richard Tarleton View Post
There could be mileage in a film that revolves around the death of the Prince Imperial (another British blunder in the war). But most of the rest of the war was British massacring Zulus, and the destruction of Cetawayo's kraal. And Cetawayo then being taken off to Britain to meet Victoria.Comment
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Thanks edashtav. Well, back in the 60s and 70s it must have sounded unfashionably 'naïve' in style, but with the subsequent ascendance of Minimalism, "New Age Minimalsim" and what have you broad labels, it is probably judged more on its own terms now. Amongst his more mainstream US contemporaries, Hovhaness certainly seems to have a healthy share of recordings judging by what's on Amazon.Originally posted by edashtav View PostComment
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I’d want to be high on something before engagement...but thank you for the response.
I think what I meant was the more general suggestion, but to be truthful I have pretty hazy memories of the original film.
Lots of films are made in South Africa, but I think most of them are not actually about that area...Comment
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As for revisiting Shakespeare from the French viewpoint, I am not sure who could be persuaded to imitate the blank verse.Comment
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As noted above, Emma Kirkby was 70 on 26th Feb (... getting there a few months ahead of me). Her Birthday Concert was tonight at Wigmore. I'm sure a good time was had and would have loved to be there. She chats and reminisces with Jessica Duchen on the Wigmore website.Comment
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