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Sexual reference in ZULU
leightarrant


Joined: 21 Feb 2006
Posts: 131
Location: East Sussex
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Has anyone noticed that there is a sexual reference to Margeretta Witt in the hospital sequence, just after she gets her blouse torn by a patient on a bed, she leaves the room, goes out into the corridor, and we hear the muted laughing of the soldiers in the hospital room, then we cut to Hook and Hughes, referring to Hook as being lucky if he plays his cards right, Hook then adds 'You know what she needs....' to raptuous laughter....I'm quite surprised that this at the time was left in, as the film was a 'U' certificate. For its time, quite a risque comment wouldn't you think.
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Sheldon Hall


Joined: 01 Sep 2005
Posts: 377
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As Hook doesn't actually SAY what Margareta "needs", and children at this time were presumed not to know about such things, I would guess that the BBFC thought it harmless. Other more blatant phrases - such as "mucking idiots", an obvious substitution - were deleted, though "Stuff me with green apples!" was allowed to remain intact. The latter caused one censor to ask if it meant "a conventional kind of stuffing, as in a roast?" (I assume the term "roast" did not have the same double meaning then as it does now!)
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Sawubona


Joined: 09 Nov 2005
Posts: 1179
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Maybe it's just me, but ... Notice in particular the action with the bayonet as Hook says "you know what she needs.". If that's coincidence, I'll eat my pith helmet.
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Sheldon Hall


Joined: 01 Sep 2005
Posts: 377
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Maybe, but as Freud almost said, sometimes a bayonet is just a bayonet!
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Peter Ewart


Joined: 31 Aug 2005
Posts: 1797
Location: Near Canterbury, Kent, England.
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Leigh

Diana Blackwell did, I believe, include this line in a few references that were discussed on the forum some years ago, including also some homo-erotic (I think that was the term) lines in the film.

I can confirm, Sheldon, that when I saw the film at the pictures for the first time, four months after its premiere (when I was not quite 14), such a remark went right over my head, as it did every single time I went to see it again during my teens! (A rather sheltered life? Or was I fairly typical? So much for the swinging sixties...)

To be honest, I missed quite a few of the comic or irreverant one-liners on the first occasion (understandable) but also on subsequent visits, even when I knew they were coming and was straining to catch them properly. As a result, I have always considered ZULU to be a film with particularly poor sound clarity as regards conversation. I'm not sure if this was improved on video (I don't remember finding it so when I eventually saw it by this method a few years ago) but I was astonished and relieved at the immeasurably better sound quality of the DVD version, where everything is absolutely crystal clear. I doubt if my hearing has improved over the years rather than deteroriated, so I am absolutely certain of this improvement in the film, whereas one usually reads on this forum of the improved visual results of modern technical advances. I don't know if the fact that all my original viewings were in small town cinemas would have made a difference?

Peter

P.S. Good job Hook was not sitting where Witt was at the beginning of the film. He'd still be trying to get his words out now!
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Sheldon Hall


Joined: 01 Sep 2005
Posts: 377
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Peter,
Probably you saw the film in mono prints in cinemas with poorly maintained sound equipment. (The DVD uses the stereo master.) A couple of years ago I saw it at a large multiplex in Cardiff where the sound was absolutely awful - I kept rushingo out of the auditorium to see what was wrong but i assume that the projectionists, being used to deigital stereo prints, either had the film on the wrong setting or didn't even have a setting for mono!
Interesting also to remember that while children were protected from phrases like "mucking idiot" we nonetheless allowed to see the bare-breasted Zulu maidens (different customs, natural habitat, and all that). My first time at the cinema, probably...
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leightarrant


Joined: 21 Feb 2006
Posts: 131
Location: East Sussex
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Peter - Thanks, I'll try and source what Diana had written a few years back, but I myself, and several of my other friends, always thought the line in question, 'very sexual' - we used to go to the movies in the 70's as teenagers and caught the line then! Often at school, we'd even use the term! Anyway, moving on, I've heard adults comment upon this line, and the 'Stuff me with green apples' line, but in context, as early as 1964, it still holds a strong sexual reference then as it still does today (all these years later! ) I've always found the sound from ZULU pretty good, and the psuedo stereo copies I've seen of the film quite exceptional, especially the newly released blu-ray. My main gripe with most movie houses, was, that they didn't play the sound loud enough. Nearly all cinemas play the overall volume to low. My only memory of a 'loud' soundtrack and therefore extremely impressive on the memory because of such a high volume playback in the cinema goes to ROLLERBALL at the Odeon Leicester Square in 1976, followed closely by EARTHQUAKE over the road in the Sensurround cinema of the Empire Leicester Square in 1974. Now that did make me nervous as a child! Zulu in retrospect has always been too quiet for my liking, and as it was in mono, dampened the sound rather, therefore making it a little hard to hear all the dialogue precisely.
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Sawubona


Joined: 09 Nov 2005
Posts: 1179
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I've a relative who hails from London and on a visit to our side of the pond he observed that Americans are, in fact, quite prudish and repressed by the standards of the rest of the "civilized" world. Monty Python's Flying Circus features partial nudity that wouldn't be acceptable even today over here, so you can imagine the embarrassment I experienced viewing the "wedding kraal" segment as a young teenager back in the Sixties. That sort of thing just wasn't seen in American films at the time!

That being said for perspective purposes, I have to say that ZULU has more than a little gratuitous "T and A" added for prurient appeal, probably for the American market. "Amid the battle's heat... the flash of passion"!
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Paul Bryant-Quinn


Joined: 14 Oct 2007
Posts: 551
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Peter Ewart wrote:
(A rather sheltered life? Or was I fairly typical? So much for the swinging sixties...)


... and if memory serves, Peter, didn't I at one stage have to tell you who Angelina Jolie was?

Wink

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rich


Joined: 01 May 2008
Posts: 897
Location: Long Island NY USA
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And talking about sexual references, as you all no doubt know there was nudity in the film. I guess it was OK then with the censors, eh? Frankly, I was surprised to see it in because of the mores of the time. Peter alludes to the "swingin' sixties" but I don't think it was that swingin!... Wink
In any case, we see what we see so the scenes did past muster. I don't know. Any outcry from the Anglicans????

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Sawubona


Joined: 09 Nov 2005
Posts: 1179
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Thank you, Rich. Another Yank heard from. It seems that much of ZULU's non-American audience didn't (and don't) consider the pervasive nudity in that scene particularly noteworthy. My guess is that it was accepted by the US censors because the dancers were non-white and ZULU was to all intents and purposes a foreign film.

Sheldon, when (and if) a foreign film is submitted for review to censors (who apparently are almost an extinct breed now) are different and more liberal guidelines applied? Would you say that that has changed over the past decades?
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Sheldon Hall


Joined: 01 Sep 2005
Posts: 377
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Not as far as I know. The reason why many foreign films were released uncut in the US prior to the introduction of the ratings system in 1968 is that they were shown in indie theatres which were not subject to the regulations of the Production Code. This did not apply to "Zulu", which was released in the US by Embassy and received a Code Seal of Approval without a problem. I looked at the Production Code Administration files on the film and the semi-nudity, because it was "natural" to the African tribal culture, was not an issue (nor was it in Britain).
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Sawubona


Joined: 09 Nov 2005
Posts: 1179
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Opps, double entry. I thought there was a delete-post button somewhere.


Last edited by Sawubona on Tue Mar 10, 2009 4:31 pm; edited 1 time in total
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Sawubona


Joined: 09 Nov 2005
Posts: 1179
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I've always been fond of the capricious nature of censorship. I was shocked and "somehow ashamed" when I learned more from your book about the source and age of some of those "natural" Zulu dancers. It goes without saying, that the kraal wedding scene would have hit the cutting room floor in a hurry if they had been exotic dancers from Birmingham.

"Why do they have those tiny spears, Father?"
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rich


Joined: 01 May 2008
Posts: 897
Location: Long Island NY USA
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Sheldon/Saw..

You know I could understand then why the film "passed" censorship based on the arguments given. But now I'm so interested to know what rating
the Catholic Church's movie censors said about 'Zulu'! They used to publish a list of "condemned" films each week which was posted in the vestibules of their parishes. Hmmm, I wonder what I'll see... Cool

One film now which comes to mind is "Mondo Cane". I think it came out in '62. (Sheldon correct if need be). That was a doozy at the time and found many theaters but I think that too got "passed" and there wasn't a problem in showing some of the scenes.

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Sexual reference in ZULU
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