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Ralph

Midnight Caller I think it was called.

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Sawubona


Joined: 09 Nov 2005
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I never read "Thirteen Days to Glory", but it was a mini-series here. Is that possibly the same mini-series of which you speak, with Brian Keith as Crockett? "Son of the Morning Star" was an excellent book, yet I never saw the movie! Are you familiar with "The Dust Rose Like Smoke", which although a bit tedious in its scholarship is still a thought provoking presentation of the similarities between the demises of the Sioux and the Zulu nations? I found it a very interesting book and very original!
The new improved Alamo (the re-remake) is worth purchasing on DVD just to view it with the commentary. And one more point in its favor as a realistic presentation of events-- I've never seen another movie that portrays what I imagine was the true horror of cannon fire! The scenes in the climax assault where the attackers are swept away by canister (or whatever the French word was for loading a cannon with bags of iron scrap) are terrifying. And the Alamo had more cannon and firepower than any fort west of the Mississippi River! A tough nut to crack and Santa Anna knew that, although he could have (and should have) just bypassed it and let it "wither on the vine".
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Sawubona

The tv movie about the Alamo with Peter Coyote, I'm sure was about 2 drifters and followed the story of their meeting with Bowie at the Alamo, then arriving back after the battle to find the bodies of the dead being cremated on a fire, the film then moving on to the defeat of Santa Anna.
Kris Kristofferson was possibly in it as well, as one of the drifters.

Not sure if it is the same one as the mini-series you mention, but I seem to recall reading about a movie on the Alamo called 'Thirteen Days to Glory' which had Lorne Green (Bonanza) in it.

The fascination about the Alamo was you wondered what the men would have been thinking about, after so many days under siege, knowing the next day it was definitely going to finish and the Alamo couldn't hold.

The scene in the 1960s Alamo, when Crockett is asked what he is thinking. John Wayne replied "Not thinking...Remembering". Excellent.

'Son of the Morning Star' by Evan S. Connell, is that the book you mean ?

Apparently, there is a movie being considered about Custer 'Marching to Valhalla', but whether it will be put into development I know not. It was mentioned in the off-topic forum. I read it concentrates more on Custer's life rather than military career, but you can't really have a film about Custer without the battle at the Little Bighorn, surely.

I understand the use of more realism and attention to detail in films, but it is quite difficult I imagine to appeal to wider audiences. Where Isandlwana is concerned, I feel to film it this way, would really allow the audiences to experience the battle as it was, including Fugitives' Trail, frightening, exhausting and showing the true scale of the Zulu army against so few men defending the camp.

There are so many books on the Alamo and the Little Bighorn, but with the AZW being my main interest, I can only choose a select few. (1 or 2)

I don't think there was ever a book about the making of 'Custer of the West', or indeed 'They Died With Their Boots On'. These may be covered in books which detail several westerns, rather than focussing on the one film. I don't know for sure.

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Fellows ..just an observation about Isandhlwana (Zulu) and the Alamo (Wayne's version and the new one recently with Billy Bob).
The recent Alamo film is supposed to have been more of a "definitive" version of what went over at the mission. Some have called it "revisionist". Now if we take a look at Isandhlwana, for me I just don't think there would any problem in telling the story the way it was told before. I really don't know how far they could go with a "revionist" one if say Isandhlwana was re-made or can they? (er..maybe Chelmsford was on some medications or something when he made his decisions????) I think the facts of the battle are pretty much solid. Some historians today are looking at the Alamo differently than how Wayne portrayed it and there's still controversy over the Crockett dying business. That's what we get with time passing!
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Sawubona

I used to have a book on the Alamo called 'A Time to Stand' by Walter Lord, have you read it ?

Inside the front cover there is a fold-out detailed drawing of the whole Alamo mission, which I, at the time, removed and framed on my wall.

Looked great. Not sure how accurate it was though.

Regarding Isandlwana. I can imagine 'Zulu Dawn' if it had been made back-to-back with 'Zulu' using the same filming techniques, including immaculate uniforms, rifles instead of carbines, clear blue sky over a fantastic landscape, and a well-choreographed Zulu attack.

Visually, 'Zulu Dawn' would have been amazing.

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Sawubona


Joined: 09 Nov 2005
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C. Heston was quoted as saying about a decade or two ago that "Ben Hur" could never be made "today" since the cost of the necessary "extras" would be prohibitive. Little did he realize that CGI would allow nine actors to be morphed into a huge crowd in one scene in "Forrest Gump". That's what I'd like to see happen with an Isandlwana remake. Sheldon writes about the shields on sticks that were used to suggest the size of an impi (pretty convincingly) in "Zulu", but can you imagine what CGI could do? Five, ten or more thousand warriors is nothing! You want fifty thousand? Let me punch it into the keyboard. Look at "The Lord of the Rings" for huge scale battle scenes on a modern budget. Omdurman? Sixty thousand? No problem. The Somme Offensive? Let me get back to you on that one (LOL).

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My votes for Alamo books are:In the catagory of Fiction (the envelope, please): The winner is "The Gates of the Alamo" (credited as a major source of the newest movie) . And in the catagory of Non-Fiction the winner is "Three Roads to the Alamo"! The latter is an eye-opener! Were they heros? Sure! Why? Read the book if you haven't already, and you'll maybe rethink what makes a "hero". Is it a man who "rises to the moment" or a man who has time (thirteen days in this case) to make a heroic choice. Would I jump on a grenade? I don't know, as I've never been there and that sort of heroism doesn't give time for thought? Would I jump on a grenade if I had time to weigh the alternatives? I doubt it! The defenders of the Alamo had the time to weigh their alternatives and they made their choice. The rest is history!
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Sawubona

Thanks for the book suggestion which covers the Alamo more in-depth, and if I understand your post right, also the types of individuals that were there, including, maybe, what could have been their thoughts during the siege.

Thirteen days is certainly a lot of thinking time, seeing the amassing of thousands of enemy soldiers all around the Alamo, would be a constant reminder of the inevitable conclusion.

CGI on a possible new film about Isandlwana or Rorke's Drift, does appear to have caused quite a few debates on previous topics. Many, like myself, would like to see 20,000 warriors, even if mostly CGI, also the camp of the size and similar in appearance to the actual camp on the day of the battle, including the wagon park. Additionally, Mt. Isandlwana, rather than a real 'stand-in', such as used in 'Zulu Dawn', because this was a significant and recognisable feature of the battle, nothing else would truly compensate, as Isandlwana had a 'look' of its very own and was not 'any old mountain'.

There is another side to the argument, being that it is better to have real people, buildings, etc., rather than images added later onto a blue screen.

Understandable, but I truly feel that if a modern interpretation captures the dramatic appearance of the battlefield and the scale of the Zulu army, as well as other visual aspects, it will show it as it really looked in 1879.

However, that is only my opinion, which is, if CGI visually enhances a new film about such a famous historical event, the mountain, the camp, the wagon park, the surrounding areas of the battlefield, as well as the true numbers of men involved on both sides, well, it can only be a good thing.

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Sheldon Hall


Joined: 01 Sep 2005
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The Joseph Cotten Custer movie you recall is THE GREAT SIOUX MASSACRE (1965). It was on Channel 4 last year, so may well turn up again in the near future.

Re. CGI: this may affect a minority of filmgoers, but the prevalence of CGI can make mass crowd/battle scenes LESS convincing, not more. When you see, say, 100,000 (or whatever) Greeks attacking Troy in TROY, it's perfectly obvious that the production could not have hired that many extras, and that psychological factor alone (coupled with the artificial, 'cartoony' effect that much CGI still has) helps to undermine the illusion and the suspension of disbelief. (For me, anyway.) With ZULU, it was at least just possible to believe that the few thousand warriors conjured up by sleight of hand were actually there. Nowadays, do we invest much credibility in anything that we see on screen?
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Tom516


Joined: 08 Feb 2006
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Sawubona wrote:
C. Heston was quoted as saying about a decade or two ago that "Ben Hur" could never be made "today" since the cost of the necessary "extras" would be prohibitive. Little did he realize that CGI would allow nine actors to be morphed into a huge crowd in one scene in "Forrest Gump". That's what I'd like to see happen with an Isandlwana remake. Sheldon writes about the shields on sticks that were used to suggest the size of an impi (pretty convincingly) in "Zulu", but can you imagine what CGI could do? Five, ten or more thousand warriors is nothing! You want fifty thousand? Let me punch it into the keyboard. Look at "The Lord of the Rings" for huge scale battle scenes on a modern budget. Omdurman? Sixty thousand? No problem. The Somme Offensive? Let me get back to you on that one (LOL).


With the spate of WW1 movies coming out recently, from Ed Zwick's "Legends Of The Fall" (still one of the best trench assaults I've seen in a movie), "A Very Long Engagement" and the recent "Joyeux Noel" we may see a better incarnation of The Somme than the valiant but low-budget made for TV flick with Leftenant Tom Pullings as the 'conscientious objector type' and the 'blonde Bond' as the stereotypical tough sergeant, "The Trench". That's the one they should have - if they could - used more CGI on - too much grass on the battlefield, too little artillery - too few men.

Really ironic too is the death of the great Kubrick. His dream project was an extremely ambitious movie on the life of Napoleon but he could never do it because of the prohibitive cost of hiring, costuming and equipping a literal army of extras. He thought of all sorts of ingenious work-arounds including dressing up the distant formations in 'paper costumes' that would have the general details of the costume like crossbelts and facings and buttons PRINTED ON. Most of his research and the techniques and shots he planned would find their way into his other films - Barry Lyndon, Full Metal Jacket and Eyes Wide Shut. It's terribly ironic that when he died the very technology that would have allowed him to command massive computerized armies was just coming into wider use. Kubrick's Napoleon is another one of those 'greatest movies that never were'.

I have no doubt that with today's technology any epic movie is possible. It's now a matter of getting the story right - just special effects and epic scale do not a great movie make (Pearl Harbor anyone?)

Cheers,
Tom516

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quality control...
Tom516


Joined: 08 Feb 2006
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As Sheldon pointed out there's also the question of the quality of the CGI. That too involves a hefty heap of dough and then there still are limitations. It's best to use them in fleeting shots and get as many real people as you can possibly hire and equip. And unless you've got the resources of ILM or WETA...

Still it would be quite a thing to have a fast paced edited sequence of Charlie Raw's ride and having him rein up cut to a close up of his face then a POV as he gazes down into the mass of the Zulu Army sitting quietly beneath him...

Tom516

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Sawubona


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Re: CGI, We've all got computers now, don't we? I think back to the computer I had a decade ago (not too long in biological time) and I see the slowest CPU and the worst conceivable memory limitations imaginable. But we all know that if today's computers aren't "up to snuff", we just have to wait until next year! The improvement will be quantum! One of my favorite movies is SHREK (sorry, it's true), but by watching it with the commentary "on" I learned that one of the biggest problems was that the images of the Princess kept coming across as too human when (after all) the rest of the characters were meant to be animations. "Cartoons"? Not!
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Sheldon..Boy I have to agree with you on CGI and Troy. I was expecting alot there in that film but I was very disappointed in how Wolfie handled some of those scenes. Give me '62''s "300 Spartans" with Geoffrey Unsworth!!!! Now I have to say I liked the way Stone did the first battle scene in his "Alexander" which had some CGI in there. At least that was believable though I did wonder if the Gaugemela battlefield as large as it came across to me when I watched it. You know computer stuff is OK but
really filmmakers have to keep a rein on how they use it. You know I look back on 2001 A Space Odyssey by Kubrick. I guess it's ancient history but he was incredible in what he got out of his collaborators and the technology at the time. That a film is one of the greatest and operates on the unconscious that's all I can say!
Sheldon Hall


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The main reason why Kubrick didn't get to make his NAPOLEON back in 1971 (when MGM first okayed then cancelled it) was that it was preceded by WATERLOO, which did use many thousands of real extras and which flopped badly at the box office. At a cost of $28 million it was the third most expensive movie ever at the time, but earned less than $2 million in the US. The same director, Sergei Bondarchuk, had also made the four-part Russian WAR AND PEACE (1965-7) at a combined cost of $100 million, thus making it the most expensive fim EVER (still, in real terms, taking inflation into account). So it was possible at the time to use genuine soldiers - as long as they were Russian ones supplied by the Soviet army!
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Films to be seen in WIDESCREEN before you die!!!!
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