Zulu plus 50

It has come to my attention that it is the 50^th anniversary of Zulu, the iconic film made about the battle of Rorke’s Drift in 1879. They are celebrating the event by issuing a digitally remastered, wide-screen version, which premiered Tuesday evening raising money for charities focused on helping wounded soldiers and African children.

Prince Harry, a career soldier, was there, along with several people connected with the original, including Chief Mangosuthu Buthelezi. Buthelezi, a colleague of Nelson Mandela in the fight against Apartheid, is the great-grandson of the Zulu leader Cetshwayo, whom he played in the movie.

(The film actually turned 50 in January, having premiered 85 years to the day after the actual battle.)

If you’ve not yet seen Zulu yet—step away from the blog now and stream it from somewhere. Seriously. Do not wait for the new version, just watch it.

It portrays the defense of a small outpost in South Africa by 140 British soldiers against a force of more than 4000 Zulu warriors, fresh from a major victory against a British army at Islandlhwana. Yes, the war was provoked by boneheaded, arrogant and imperialist British politicians, but the destruction of the 1300 well-armed troops at Islandlhwana was shocking to the British public and the repulse at Rorke’s Drift was a massive sop to national and imperial pride.

Plus—you know, a pretty amazing military feat.

As for the movie, Zulu has, without question, the single best battle scene ever filmed. It is all filth, blood, fury, fear, chaos, luck and some degree of strategy and tactics. The camera focuses in on the three lines of riflemen formed by the two commanders as they alternate firing—front rank, fire; second rank, fire; third rank, fire. Then fire, fire, fire, fire. Close-ups on the faces and the gunpowder smoke. When the shooting finally stops, the camera slowly pulls back to reveal the pile of twitching bodies mere steps from the firing lines.

During the aftermath, Colour-Sergeant Bourne whispers, “It’s a miracle!” To which one of the commanders replies, “If it's a miracle, Colour-Sergeant, it's a short-chamber Boxer Henry point 45 caliber miracle.”

(Something I discovered only recently was that Colour-Sergeant Frank Bourne, the actual Colour-Sergeant Bourne, was 25 at the time of the battle. Gesu.)

There are those who pooh-pooh the valor of Rorke’s Drift—because it was an imperialist action, and the British had no business being there. As I’ve said before, soldiers pretty much never vote on where they’re going to be deployed, so you only show your own pathetic pig-ignorance by declaring that Battalion X fighting to the last man was somehow less noble performing the same feats than Battalion Y because of the intentions of their political masters.