The extras in this film that played the Zulu warriors were native South Africans who were descended from the same Zulu tribes that had attacked the 24th Company originally and most of them had no concept of what a film was. Stanley Baker, the lead actor (and consequently, the producer of the film), held a screening of a Gene Autry movie for the extras so that they could have some idea about what they would be doing.
Also, because of Apartheid in South Africa, the black extras could not be paid an equivalent rate as their white counterpart extras. I think that these are especially interesting when we're thinking about the film in the context of the question I posed to you all yesterday:
-If we take this film as a microcosm of the world, where the British 24th Company represents Great Britain and the Zulu tribes represent any and every foreign country that the UK had occupied during their Imperialistic expansion, what implications do we see about Colonialism? Citing specific examples from the film, explain how "Zulu" portrays the "us vs. them" between the UK & other nations? What are the implications of Imperialism? The good & the bad?
So even outside of the narrative of the film, the production of "Zulu" showcases some of the overreaching effects of foreign influence. What do you guys think?
From what I feel it as, is that the foreigners coming to colonized could be anyone really (Brits, Dutch, Swiss) had to fight to concur that land, and you know what? Thats been happening long before Royal Imperialism has been around. So its only natural that concurring land will happen again even with our ability to talk to the world at our fingertips. What I'm basically trying to say is that people fought for land before then, during which, and will continue to happen in the future. Off-topic*
ReplyDeleteThe good thing with Imperialism that gives you more land and people to follow under you if you succeed in concurring their land. The bad is that if you treat those people wrong they will despise their higher up political system, and also cause an uprising. You also lose people during the battle of gaining that land, and also have to make sure that nobody else tries to take it over.
Overall we were taught in the US that doing anything what the United Kingdom did was wrong. But we have done just as much at least when it came to colonizing US land. It took us time but we continued to take over land from the west all the way up to the 20th century. One side will always lose and one will always win that is one of the only universal rules we have when it comes to war, growth of population, business and even business wise.
I'm basically rambling in this.
DeleteWell when thinking about this i can see that the Zulu's represented other nations. Why i think so is because this film portrayed them as this big unstoppable force that they might not defeat and overpower. Which represents all the other nations in the world since the whole world is so big. It also made the UK look like they were determined and fight no matter what the circumstances might be. However, this film didn't make colonialism look like this all mighty and powerful, some parts had some people where they were going against this system and weren't happy at all. While others just do what they were told and enforced it the system. For example this one scene where these people were being held inside this building as if they were a prison and eventually let them go and left that small outpost. Also some of the soldiers were being skeptical and scared, not wanting to be involved in the fight.
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