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Sapper Mason
| Joined: 05 Sep 2005 |
| Posts: 333 |
| Location: ANGLESEY |
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 Posted: Tue Dec 11, 2007 3:19 pm |
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Dear forum , yes i put my hand up to being a fact fiend ! , the area i have some knowledge in is research and certainly not film making . Zulu was and still is my No 1 film closely followed by The Shawshank Redemption and the oddly enough The Alamo . As this film is mentioned do we look on the 1960 film or the remake as the better ? , both have pluses and negatives as i see it .
Just how was Davy Crockett dispatched ? , by a Mexican lancer OR did he survive till the next day and then dispatched by a number of bayonet thrusts ? . That`s where my " accuracy hat " is worn again . I do believe the main attack was at night and so in the remake this was shown , rockets i guess added to illuminate the scene ( ? ) .
With Zulu back in 1964 it was a great ( and still is ) film to watch , the point has been raised that some 40 years later we have a lot more knowledge of events of Jan 22 1879 and a whole bushels of learned folk who have interests in this campaign . I would not want the 1964 version altered in anyway , warts and all . If a film of that event was to take place today it is hoped a MORE ACCURATE version would hit the screen .
Change for change sake ? , i think not . You know the old saying , " Why spoil a good story with the facts ? " . A director and producer of a film must balance fact and fiction in a film of this sort. Could they recapture the feelings of the 1964 film i wonder ? .
Please don`t get me wrong about this , my " beef " is that when books and articles are printed and a quite obvious item is reported incorrectly then i hope anyone in the know will comment on this . I can`t go to the National Archives and get papers " near enough " , they have got to be 100 % correct ( if there of course ) , the same goes for census returns and certificates . I am greatful to those with greater knowlwedge to point out errors i make ( and i still do ) .
Let`s say they make a film called " Isandlwana " , I bet once it was screened there would be a flood of comment on the drama and accuracy of the film , again it`s this balance i hope they would get right . It is a moot point to say a remake of Zulu is in the wings , if it ever came to be with the 40 years or so since the 1964 version i hope that the new version would be both good and accurate , " Sapper "  |
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Last edited by Sapper Mason on Thu Dec 13, 2007 3:23 pm; edited 1 time in total
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Coll
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| Posted: Tue Dec 11, 2007 4:03 pm |
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I wasn't too sure of the new 'The Alamo', but I have been watching it again recently on dvd, and I'm now convinced it is the better, both as a film and the historical content.
Crockett and Bowie shown to be human more than legends, but in saying that, they try to live up to their reputations, while wanting to just be themselves.
Crockett - " People expect things. "
Bowie - " Ain't it so. "
I think the Alamo mission itself is a star, as well as ol' Jim's Bowie knife.
Fantastic !
Sheldon - Do you happen to know if there was ever a film made about the battle at Camerone, by anyone, any country ?
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mike snook 2
| Joined: 04 Jan 2006 |
| Posts: 920 |
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| Posted: Thu Dec 13, 2007 11:52 am |
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Sheldon
I'm sure that we could agree that Zulu is full of historical errors, which vary in importance from quite minor to really rather important. It is, I agree, hardly a news story. But I'm afraid you stretch credulity when you talk about 'minor inaccuracies'. Almost nothing in Zulu at any level (save perhaps the wholly superficial level) is accurate. The popular arts shape popular perception and even the national psyche. There is therefore, I would argue, a duty on the maker of the historical epic to make a substantive effort to get it right. This is subject always, and this is where I completely coincide with you, to the need to end up with something which serves its purpose well as a piece of popular drama - because if it doesn't work at that level, then there will be no money to make it in the first place. I contend that it should be possible to skin both cats to everybody's satisfaction. I sense that we understand this dual approach much more now than we did in 1964. That was the heyday of the historical epic (for historical epic read historical howler). (El Cid...The Alamo...Khartoum...Zulu... etc - all amongst my favourite films...but nonetheless an eyesore to me today, wearing my historian's hat.
Beauty they say is in the eye of the beholder. The perspective of the beholder can change over the years. To you Zulu represents an interesting and important piece of art; to the boyhood Snook it was brilliant and riveting entertainment; to the middle aged Snook the historian, it is substantially a misrepresentation of an intriguing and important real life event. If you wanted to know about the Battle of Agincourt, you would not make a bee-line for a theatre production of Henry V. And if you want to know about the Defence of Rorke's Drift you should not sit down and watch Zulu. Zulu doesn't matter (save as a piece of art). The history does. I think therefore you should go a bit easy on Sapper. Each time I write a book I can expect to get a letter from him, invariably polite and complimentary in tone, but saying I don't think you got that quite right, or I see it like this and so on. Sometimes he is right and I end up learning something - sometimes he is wrong. But he does have the right to say what he thinks - even if - as is the case with Chief Clerk Mabin he does get a bee in his bonnet which is something of a red herring.....eh, Sapper!! 
What I'm saying is that you're both right, and that the two perspectives can and should be accomodated in the same piece of entertainment. Zulu didn't do it. I believe a new Zulu could. Like a cover version of somebody else's song, can we not have a remake after 43 years? Go on, let's treat ourselves - we've earned it. Then perhaps we can put all the hoary old myths (which tens of thousands of people confuse with the facts) to bed.
Funny....like a train in the distance...
Regards
Mike
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Last edited by mike snook 2 on Fri Dec 14, 2007 12:04 pm; edited 1 time in total
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Sapper Mason
| Joined: 05 Sep 2005 |
| Posts: 333 |
| Location: ANGLESEY |
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| Posted: Thu Dec 13, 2007 3:50 pm |
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Dear Mike & Sheldon , it is difficult to be perfect but i do my best ! . I often wonder if i have the " bottle " to write my own book on a subject matter on the Zulu war , i think there is a book in everyone and before my last defaulters parade i may well have written a book , most likely on FRED HITCH VC , his life after Rorke's drift and that of his children ( remember he had 11 in total ) makes fascinating research . After all these years i personally think we are " due " a remake of Zulu and certainly Zulu Dawn ( minus rubber bayonets of course ) .
Getting the balance right between fact and fiction is the marriage of the historian , genealogist and film maker for a film of this nature , at least it would take us away from Harry Potter for awhile ! . I take what Mike Snook and Sheldon Hall say as in these two we have VERY knowledgeable folk on this subject . Perhaps they could get together and plant the idea of a film called " Isandlwana " to the Hollywood moguls ? .
Yes Mike i did have as bee in my pithe helmet re C / Sgt Mabin , more like the whole hive i think !!! , i hope i never get it right all the time and when in error be pulled up for . When i was a spotty youth Zulu entralled me , now a spotty middle aged man it still entralls me BUT ( there is always a but of course ) surely after 40 years or more we can hope for a more accurate version of Jan 22 1879 on film and the " minor fact ( ? ) of HITCH or anyone else being wounded in the right place ( on film ) is something to be hoped for i believe .
I have always thought Kevin Costner looks like Chard in certain pictures , i am sure there are plenty of actors who look like the men of that time who could fill the role . I don`t think it too much to ask that the rank insignia of C / Sgt Bourne be accurate , back in 1964 i am sure there were very few who knew or cared if he was sporting the chevrons of a Lance Sgt or C / Sgt , there are countless other examples i could quote but i won`t . This item started on C / Sgt Bourne and medals and has been answered, in closing i would like to see a more accurate remake of events that took place on Jan 22 nd 1879 and with those with knowledge today and what can be done in film i am sure that Sheldon , Mike and even myself ( after researching it ) can be placated , thanks , " Sapper "  |
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Sheldon Hall
| Joined: 01 Sep 2005 |
| Posts: 377 |
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| Posted: Thu Dec 13, 2007 4:04 pm |
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Mike,
I don't agree that "Almost nothing in Zulu at any level (save perhaps the wholly superficial level) is accurate." Perhaps we disagree on what the superficial level encompasses?! But I'd be interested to know which inaccuracies you consider "really rather important". It's because so many commentators don't distinguish between minor and major ones, lumping them all together as if there were no difference, that I get increasingly irritated and frustrated at the low level of debate. I certainly don't mean to be too hard on Sapper or to hold him wholly responsible - it's just that the criticisms he mentions are indicative of (as I would have it) nit-picking rather than serious analysis. Sorry, Graham, if I offended!
I'd welcome a remake if it added something significant to our understanding of RD or simply found something dramatically and cinematically interesting to say about it (a view from the Zulu perspective, for instance). But as I've said often enough before, I don't think significantly greater historical accuracy would be a likely outcome, for the various reasons already given.
I enjoy "ZULU" as entertainment just as much as you do/did, both as a child and as an adult. But it's comments like the following that I find troubling: "If you wanted to know about the Battle of Agincourt, you would not make a bee-line for a theatre production of Henry V. And if you want to know about the Defence of Rorke's Drift you should not sit down and watch Zulu. Zulu doesn't matter (save as a piece of art). The history does." You're quite right that people these days wouldn't or shouldn't go to Shakespeare (or Hollywood) for a history lesson. But what exactly do you mean by "Zulu doesn't matter (save as a piece of art)"? Don't you think that art matters as much as history - not matters AS history, but AS ART? If not, why not? Do you know why art matters at all?! Aside from anything else, art is one of our best sources of historical evidence - not as records of events but as expressions of cultural values and human thought and feeling. In a sense, art outlasts history. That is why people still go to see Henry V - and "ZULU", for that matter.
Incidentally, and as I'm sure you know (but aren't saying), our perspective on history changes just as much as our perspective on art: historical interpretations are not fixed for all time, as will be readily apparent, and not just because successive generations of historians have more 'facts' to work from. There are also differences of POLITICAL perspective - which no-one around here seems willing to mention, except perhaps when deploring modern political correctness. In the academic world, more people are concerned by the political implications of "ZULU"'s representation of history (and the cinema's generally) than by its factual accuracy, but it's an issue almost never raised in this forum. I wonder why?
Coll,
What is the Battle of Camerone?!
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Rich
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| Posted: Fri Dec 14, 2007 4:21 pm |
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Oh I love this forum sometimes because it can get down to some nice nitty gritty discussion on great topics like film and history, two of my favs. This is a great one!
I do have to say I find Sheldon's arguments very persuasive in this tension between film "accuracy" and its interpretations of the events that it may portray. What I think we got with the original "Zulu' is really good old Cy's vision of Rorke's Drift, the battle. His outlook, his interpretation you will. Really, he didn't set out to make a "Rorke's Drift documentary which I believe would need to have attended to the "facts" a bit more stringently and get more involved with other things like the politics that Sheldon alluded to. Cy was telling a "story" for pure entertainment. People were expected to stuff their mouths with popcorn while watching it not right dissertations on it. Frankly, if Mike Snook is going to do a "Zulu" remake what do we think we will get? Of course, a film based on the "Snook" view of RD. If Sheldon did it well then it's Sheldon's interpretation that we'll see from his expert cinema eyes. And if you ask me we'd certainly see two versions of it! Now if Sapper got hold of it. Oh, jaysus, I just don't know how long it would be in production because, according to his philosophy of movie-making, everything has to be right, everything down to the last significant detail. So if he didn't have the right shade of red on a British soldier he'd stall the whole thing up to get it right. That's great for accuracy but they'll fire him off the film for his obsessive obsession. he'll never get a film done. It's so impractical that it beggars belief. Mike, Sapper you are asking for a "perfect" film and that's impossible. I think you should just sit down, put on the dvd player and enjoy what the film industry tries to make you pay for....i.e. simply getting entertained and if you want to get into it deeper you have to do it on your own time. They won't pay the freight for you!.... 
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