Review: One Night Only
Zulu | Cy Endfield | UK | 1964 | 138 min
UW Cinematheque, 4070 Vilas Hall, Friday, October 16, 7:00pm»
The UW Cinematheque’s continues its series focusing on British director Cy Endfield with his 1964 war drama, Zulu, starring a young Michael Caine. New Madison Film Forum contributor Susan Rathke recalls her many viewings of the film and suggests that it is far from a jingoistic, flag-waving propaganda piece.
On the morning of January 22,1879, a force of 20,000 Zulu warriors attacked and overwhelmed over 1,300 British troops in the Battle of Isandlwana, the first major encounter between the British Empire and the Zulu kingdom in what is now South Africa.
Fresh from that victory, the Zulus descended that afternoon upon Rorke’s Drift, a military supply station and mission. Thousands of Zulus attacked the outpost that day, and battled a small group of soldiers largely comprised of engineers and hospital patients, all of whom were led by Royal Engineers Lieutenant John Chard (played by Stanley Baker) and Lieutenant Gonville Bromhead (Michael Caine, in his first major cinematic role). Neither had seen battle before. With physical fortifications comprised of mealie bags and overturned oxcarts, a garrison of about 140 British soldiers defended against 4500 Zulus that day, and it worked. By the morning of January 23, the Zulus withdrew, and the British had won the day.
Such an event needs no cinematic embellishment in order for its story to be a compelling one, and it doesn’t receive much in Cy Endfield’s 1964 dramatization, Zulu. In fact, people might make the mistake of avoiding this picture thinking it to be a historically twisted piece of propaganda. The subject itself could easily lead a director down that path, and many would have been tempted to portray the English army as a stalwart, superhuman force fighting a villainous army of savages. That is definitely not the path Endfield chose, and I’m going to (perhaps naively) say that this is as fair of a cinematic treatment as this story could get for its time.
This is not a story of the good guys beating the bad guys. Instead, we see a force of men who hardly know how to affix their bayonets, who need to quickly put aside their colonial hubris. Lieutenant Adendorff (Gert Van den Bergh), a Boer survivor from Isandhlwana, and Corporal Scheiss (Dickie Owen), a Swiss hospitalized member of the Natal Mounted Police, chastise the British officers for their stupidity in thinking they were fighting an undisciplined foe incapable of superior strategy. The Zulus are a better army, and despite their defeat the end they remain the better army. They are in no way a villainous evil force that must be conquered to save humanity.
It’s refreshing to see a battle film in which we don’t need to favor one side—in fact, when I religiously watched this as a child on late night television, I always rooted for the Zulus. Even though we see the battle through the eyes of the British army, we see the soldiers, warts and all, as frightened men who need to quickly become as good as their foe to stay alive.
Fear is the greatest emotion throughout Zulu, and Endfield makes sure you feel it down in your bowels. I defy anyone not have their stomachs drop in that moment when Bromhead first hears the sound of thousands Zulus approaching, beating their assegais on their hide shields, and mistakes it for a train. The soldiers’ preparations for the attack in no way involve any patriotic fervor, there are no “let’s go get them, lads” cries to battle. Rather, we see slow pans across men standing completely still, surrounded by a quiet that is only broken by the chanting of 4,000 Zulu voices. In those moments, we feel the barely contained panic of each man present as he realizes he will most likely not be alive at the end of the day, much less in the next hour.
Endfield allows for many slow, silent moments like these, filled only with the sound of the wind in the valley, as the dread palpably builds. And the battle is not won because every man magically throws aside fear for love of Queen and Country; rather we see each man stave off terror, fight through it, and then at the end look around in bafflement, wondering why he is still alive. There are no celebrations with this victory. In fact, Bromhead admits that all he can feel after winning his first battle is “sick…and ashamed.”
I’m sure there are those out there trumpeting the historical liberties taken with this story as a reason to forgo Zulu. Of course there are inaccuracies, it’s a movie. Some liberties are taken for the sake of character development: Private Alfred Hook’s real life character is apparently completely trashed so that we may see James Booth portray a bad soldier turned hero in the film’s resolution. Some moving flourishes are tossed in for impact: Did the Zulus salute the British as fellow braves as they withdrew? Did the Welsh soldiers belt out “Men of Harlech” to combat the thousands of Zulus singing a battle cry prior to attack? Probably not, but these sequences provide thrilling moments on screen.
The most forgivable tweak in my opinion was the casting of barrel chested Nigel Greene to play Colour-Sergeant Bourne, who in reality was a short, skinny youth in his 20s known as “The Kid.” Greene’s performance is one of the high points in an already strong cast. His stiff upper lip and “There’s a good fellow” treatment of his men remains unflappable until we finally see the slightest cracks in his restraint as he calls roll, and as he receives no response to some names. His grief is almost imperceptible except through a faint twitch in his cheek. Subtle emotional moments such as these throughout the film give each man a little more depth without sinking into the sentimentality of movie heroism and bravado.
Don’t let John Barry’s booming epic score fool you: Zulu has the restraint echoing its Victorian characters. You’re not coming out of this one waving any flags. Alternatively, no one sobs and cries out that war is hell, or unjust. Instead, we see what is probably the truer, more grim story: that war is fear and fatigue, and the best army ends it with respect for the enemy.
Note: Friday’s screening will be followed by a discussion with Brian Neve, author of The Many Lives of Cy Endfield, published by the University of Wisconsin Press.
Edit: Thanks to @uwcinemathque for catching our error naming John Williams as the composer. John Barry wrote the score for Zulu.