Zulu
This week's HATM watch party film of the week
Hi everyone and good morning. Just a quick post to start your day.
This week’s Historians At The Movies watch party film is Zulu, released in 1964 starring Michael Caine and is available on Amazon Prime Video. If you’ve never seen it, the movie centers on the 1879 Battle of Rorke's Drift between a detachment of the British Army and the Zulu, in the Anglo-Zulu War. I chose this film at the request of HATM reader Scott MacKenzie, who suggested it a few months ago and I had been trying to find the right time for it. The movie itself allows to us to talk about African history, British imperialism, and the rare chance to look at a film from the 1960s to see attitudes towards those histories have evolved over the following decades. Here’s the original trailer below.
How to play along:
We’ve had a lot of new followers here on the Substack and on Blue Sky lately, so perhaps an introduction is in order. Historians At The Movies began as a watch party way back in 2018 and has been watching films together every weekend since then. The idea is that movie and film lovers get together on one giant global couch. Sometimes the movies are serious, other times they’re funny. We try to mix things up around here.
To play along, just follow me on Blue Sky- I’m at herberthistory over there. Or follow the hashtag #HATM. I’ll usually start a thread around 7:45pm eastern for people to follow along. At exactly 8pm eastern, you’ll press play on the movie and then just post on Blue Sky, but tag your posts with #HATM so that everyone can follow along. If you’re new, say so so I can say hi and follow you back. And that’s about it.
Here’s an important thing: you do not have to be a “historian” to be part of Historians At The Movies. I literally coined the phrase in about 30 seconds six and a half years ago and it stuck. We want everyone. So come watch a movie with us. It’s fun.
HATM Podcast
Also, we’ll be releasing our podcast episode on Loving this Thursday, which chronicles the fight to end antimiscegenation laws in the United States. It’s a powerful and beautiful film, and an episode I am excited to share with you. Here’s the links to the podcast below.
Alright, that’s your quick news today. Hope you are having a terrific Tuesday.
Jason
Thank you for showing Zulu, Jason. My late father introduced this movie to me as a kid. This movie is perfect for #hatm. It has what we historians like to see in movies: a mix of the past and present that we can endlessly critique. This movie depicts the famed Battle of Rorke’s Drift in January 1879, but it was made in 1964 in Apartheid South Africa. Moreover, some very left-wing people made the movie. So it’s a comment on colonialism and 1960s race relations rolled into one. Zulu is also a very well made movie with a superb cast, endlessly quotable dialogue, excellent location shooting, lovely costumes and cinematography, and cut to perfection. It’s a treat. I hope everyone can enjoy it even as we criticize the heck out of it.