sillymajor

Dr Sheldon Hall
Celebrity Speaker Ticket
Saturday 17 November
Film Viewing 11.00
Lecture 14.30 - 16.00

‘A delight of a book: rich, exhaustive and entertaining’ Ian Knight

One of the best-loved and most enduringly popular British films ever made, Zulu tells the epic story of the 1879 Battle of Rorke’s Drift, where just over a hundred British soldiers held out against a 4,000-strong army of highly trained Zulu warriors. Zulu gave the young Michael Caine his first major film role and the battle its near-legendary status in the British popular imagination.

Film historian and critic Sheldon Hall exposes the full story of the making of Zulu, interviewing cast and crew members and drawing on four years of exhaustive original research. A loving tribute to one of the greatest historical action films ever produced.

christoph404

I bought Sheldon Hall's book when it came out, its very informative and well researched and a must for "Zulu" fans. I have just booked my tickets for the event, any opportunity to see "Zulu" on a cinema screen is rare one not to be missed as far as I am concerned and it will be interesting to hear Mr Sheldon Hall speak. See you down there and thanks for sharing the info

Steve Crook

Will it only be about the story according to the film or will it reference the true story at all? The true story is significantly different in quite a few places - but it's still a damned good film

Steve

sillymajor

Steve

Not sure, will probably just be about the film. There is a lot of interest in the historical inaccuracies, the use of WWI guns, wrong Lee Enfields etc so will probably cover that but will be generally about the making of.... Also hoping if well enough that Joe Powell who play Sgt Windridge as well as carrying out stunts on classics such as Heroes of Telemark, Where Eagles Dare and Who Dares Wins...! will come along, he was also a commando during WW2 serving on D Day so ties in with the museum.

Jon

sillymajor

Sorry meant Martini-Henry....that will teach me to concentrate on one thing!

J

Steve Crook

What about the terrible slandering of Henry Hook? Far from being a drunken malingerer, the real Henry Hook was a married, professional soldier who had served with distinction in many other campaigns - and was teetotal!

That's certainly one of the worst in my opinion. Although there are plenty of others, like changing the words of Men of Harlech (it doesn't really contain a line about "Can you see their spear points glistening") or even thinking that they had time to do any singing at all

Steve

NappieB

I thought they DID use Martini-Henry rifles (or maybe carbines) as standard issue in the various regiments in 1879.

"The future is yet to come" - George W. Bush

christoph404

What is so good about Sheldon Hall's book is that he addresses many of the issues regarding historical innacuracies but at the end of the day the film never makes any claims to be anything other than a rip roaring action film "based on an article by John Prebble" which in turn was based on a real life event. Zulu is a large scale colourful ( the uniforms would have been dark blue not red) epic film that was made for entertaining the cinema going public and like so many other epic "historical" films of the day does so very succesfully.If you felt like it you could probably go through many other films of this type that are based on real events in history and and pick holes in the type of weapons or uniforms and so on, but they are movies not "history documentaries" and their dramatic force and impact is not diminished by the artistic licence taken in depicting those events, if you are an expert on period weapons and uniforms then you may notice that type of thing but most of us are not and simply enjoy the films for what they are. The depiction of Hook I guess is unfortunate as his living relatives were understandably not too happy with it, so I guess when real life names and characters are involved then care should be taken to honour their memory appropriatley. Thankfully Hook comes good in the end and is a very likable character but in retrospect perhaps not a great idea to portray a flawless hero in such way. Perhaps a fictional name for the Hook character, otherwise the other characters fair very well indeed,....

Rennie

Can never understand the English law which allows libel and slander after the subject is dead. I think descendants should have the right to sue.

christoph404

Hook has always been one of the best remembered characters in the film after the two leads, he is shown at the beginning in a fairly poor light that true but he does act heroically when it comes to the crunch and is shown to be awarded the VC. I do agree that his depiction is not accurate and generally unflattering but he does at least come good in the end and James Booth's performance shows him as a lovable rogue rather than a completely negative character. It is probably the only criticism of the film that I would uphold though, for the sake of Hooks memory it would have been prudent not to have the James Booth character with his name, but I don't really see the depiction of Hook as being slanderous, innacurate and unflattering yes but on the other hand possibly the most realistic and likable character in the film. IMHO

Steve Crook

But he doesn't really "come good in the end".
He does the one set of heroic deeds in the hospital but then in the final parade he's trying to skive off and get back on the sick list.

A sad way to remember a brave and honourable man.

Steve

christoph404

Yes thats true, but at least it is mentioned that he recieves the VC, during the shot of him carving his name in the wooden pillar in the chapel I do agree that he is not portrayed in a very flattering light and as I said, its the one criticism of the film I would uphold, I think Hook as played by Booth is a great characterisation and its a good performance , just unfortunate that the real character was nothing like that at all and I think Booths character should have been given a fictional name to preserve the memory and reputation of Hook, so yes I agree with your comments but on the other hand I do think Booths portrayal is one of the most memorable in the film even though it is a completley innacurate depiction of the real character.

Steve Crook

Oh I agree, it's a good performance. But they definitely should have changed the name or had him portray someone else like that

Steve

image45

Yearhh thats a deep one to be reading at 2:30am in the morning

"Seya next time!"

Cheeky Bob

Richard Strauss's descendants did a pretty good job of keeping Ken Russell's Dance of the Seven Veils out of circulation (it remains banned to this day) - though in this case they relied on copyright laws.

But on balance, I think it's a thoroughly good thing that libel laws stop at the death of the person allegedly being libelled. In the case of Robert Maxwell, who spent his life misusing the libel laws to suppress the truth about him, his death finally allowed the full extent of his fraud to be revealed. Can you imagine how much worse off the Mirror pensioners he robbed would have been if Maxwell's descendants had been allowed to sue for defamation after his death?

(Maxwell's technique was brutally simple and very effective - even if an article about him was 99% correct, he'd take legal action over any factual errors. He'd inevitably win, and the entire article would be damned by association. And that's how he managed to suppress most criticism of him right up to the day he died.)