Cinema
Zulu
Cy Endfield · 1964
Synopsis
January 1879. A voice announces the annihilation of a British column at Isandlwana, while the camera moves across the battlefield strewn with dead soldiers; Zulu warriors strip the bodies. Further on, in a kraal, a Swedish missionary, Witt, and his daughter attend, before King Cetshwayo, a wedding of several hundred couples; a messenger arrives and announces the victory to the king. The two white people understand and leave.
Context
The film was shot at the foot of the Drakensberg, in the Royal Natal National Park, where the outpost was rebuilt, with several hundred Zulu extras, many of whom were descended from the fighters of 1879. Most had never seen a film: a western was screened for them to explain what was expected of them. A historian of the clan traced in the sand with sticks the movements of the army, the history of this people being oral. Mangosuthu Buthelezi, a Zulu chief and future politician, played his great-grandfather, the king. On the pay of the extras under apartheid, accounts differ: according to some, the law prevented them from being paid and they were left the livestock used in the shoot; according to others, they were paid, less than the white extras.
Who it is for
Two hours eighteen minutes, in English with subtitles or in a French-language version. After an opening at the king's kraal, the film stays at the post.
Prizes and reception
First major role of an actor of Cockney origin whom no English director, he said, would have taken for an officer, and who had to work on his accent.
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