54 the spectator | 29 february 2020 | http://www.spectator.co.ukLIFEthe day had wiped out an invading British
army column. It was a unique triumph of
the short stabbing spear over the Martini-
Henry carbine with an effective range of
400 yards. The final scene shows four rows
of red-coated infantry in a redoubt shooting
down hundreds of semi-naked Zulu war-
riors at point-blank range. The film could
easily be dismissed as mad jingoistic non-
sense, perhaps even a foundational myth of
the moronic, white-supremacist generation
who tipped the vote in favour of exiting the
European Union. As a seven-year-old, I’d
never dreamed of such violence.
But notice this: Baker was a lifelong
socialist; Prebble was a communist party
member and Endfield a Young Communist
League worker at Yale. In 1951 Endfield
was blacklisted by Hollywood and came to
England to continue making his politically
charged films. Prebble wrote revisionist his-
tory. And the more I watch Zulu, the more
convinced I am that it is essentially a film
about the rigidities, complexities and fluidi-
ties of the British class system. I also think
this is why the film is still popular. Watch-
ing Zulu, we lower-middle-class, old, white
people recognise and laugh at the sameinterclass antagonisms mitigated by mutu-
al grudging respect that we recognise and
laugh at in Dad’s Army, and hardly see any-
where else. All gone now of course.
At seven years of age I failed to notice
this class business. The aplomb and inde-
pendence, for example, with which Colour
Sergeant Bourne handled his own class
predicament as the medium of communi-
cation between ‘the lads’ on the barricade
and the gentleman officers. (‘Nobody told
you to stop working!’) And certainly not the
nature of the tension between the nihilism
of Private Hook and the false consciousness
of his working-class fellows. Nor the histor-
ic challenge to the Victorian landed gentry,
exemplified by the lisping Lieutenant Bro-
mhead (for whom the situation is desperate
but never serious), by the rising technocrat
class in the shape of (big girl’s blouse) Lieu-
tenant Chard. Nevertheless I think a large
part of my imagination was moulded in that
one film by the impression made by John
Prebble’s dialogue and Cy Endfield’s class-
conscious vision.
Rather thin stuff on which to base an
imaginative understanding of the world,
you twit, you might say. Well, it’s a step up,
let me tell you, from the pop song lyrics and
advertising jingles that occupy the rest of the
space. And even as the most feeble caricature
of reality, I would argue that Zulu is a more
subtle interpretation of British class rela-
tions and imperialism than the paradigmsand simplicities of, say, something bleak-
ly didactic written by some middle-class
leftist luvvie and shoved out by the BBC.
The thing that entranced my child’s
eyes, apart from the cook getting a spear
in his back and haemorrhaging blood from
his mouth, which overflowed down his chin,
was the scenery. And above everything else
it was the revelation of the ways and man-
ners of an unsurmised and different civi-
lisation — the Zulus. Their bravery, their
nakedness, their blackness — their harmo-
nised singing, especially — thrilled me. ‘They
are a great, great people,’ says missionary
and religious maniac Reverend Witt, played
by Jack Hawkins, of his parishioners. I would
claim that it was there, at the Ritz cinemaBliss
Ignorance is bliss, bliss ignorance – that is all
Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.
Ignorant in childhood and
ignorant still in age: our only hope
to know we are. I don’t mean
rude or coarse but not-knowing
and knowing we don’t know
the half of it simply because
you can’t halve something
that has no terminus.
Now talk to me about bliss.
Whatever you do: know
what you know’s of limited use,
however encyclopaedic it is –
however unique your synapses,
however quantum your leap.
Advise the Member for Hubris
to read Ecclesiastes
as he tumbles into the abyss.
And talk to me about bliss.
Diagnose the pain, the fault in the machine.
Cure the incurable diseases.
Put an end to the Crisis.
Turn the mirror to the wall.
Have God save the Queen if He pleases.
Rescue Adam and Eve from the Fall.
Make hindsight foresight.
Please everyone all of the time.
But talk to me... about bliss.
—Andrew McNeillieIt was in the Ritz cinema
overlooking Southend pier, aged
seven, that I fell in love with Africaoverlooking Southend pier, that I fell in love
with Africa.
It was a dramatised, cinematic, fictional
image I had fallen in love with, I knew that.
(Later I read that the singers and dancers
at the unforgettable mass wedding ceremo-
ny at the beginning of the film, for exam-
ple, were professional performers bussed
in from the night clubs of Johannesburg.)
But the shock and thrill sustained by the
seven-year-old boy in a dusty velveteen cin-
ema seat has reverberated undiminished
through a lifetime of reading about sub-
Saharan Africa and going there as often as
possible. I’m now up to 18 countries out of- Such indeed, dear Joyce Marriott, is the
power of movies.
Visit The Spectator’s lifestyle website for the best restaurants, the
best bars and the best places to travel. Plus expert health advice,
financial news and.... a new recipe every week life.spectator.co.ukLife_29 Feb 2020_The Spectator 54 26/02/2020 10:53 FP Life recipe ad.indd 1ADVERT - Life_29-Feb-2020_The Spectator 49 18/02/2020 17:2526/02/2020 10:32