Shooting 007: And Other Celluloid Adventures (36 page)

Following my meeting in Johannesburg with Bill Faure, our talented young director, I flew on to Durban; from there it was a dusty three-hour trip by truck, sitting next to a nervous Zulu driver as suspicious of me as I was of him as we drove deep into the heart of Zululand. By now I had reached the lowest point of my depression. Finally we arrived at our destination of Eshowe, where the British had been besieged for two months during the Zulu War in 1879. Now it was too late to change my mind.

Here I finally came face to face with the Zulus
en masse
, where I would learn more of their traditions and past violent history as portrayed in our thirteen scripts. Finally came my meeting with the towering muscular giant himself – Shaka Zulu, who appeared in the guise of actor Henry Cele.

To be honest, I could easily believe this man to be the real Shaka. He carefully studied me with his piercing eyes with not the slightest glimmer of a smile or welcome towards me. Was this to be Henry’s portrayal of Shaka’s classic Zulu greeting? Whoever this Shaka was, he would obviously be in charge throughout our filming – with no arguments coming from me. Later I would read that this was Henry’s way of keeping in character both on and off the set until filming ended – a true method actor. No doubt this would have met with the approval of the ghost of Shaka himself, who was probably looking down on all this. Henry would keep that way throughout our filming, even though it would make my work difficult, particularly when in need of his cooperation with my lighting of him.

Eshowe was a township shared by the black and white communities, where the white population enjoyed a comfortable existence in their agreeable homes; Zulu accommodation appeared to be less so as they preferred to retain their inherited tribal traditions. For all that, rarely did I sense any hostility between the two communities, though when reading the faces one felt that a degree of resentment still lurked silently in the background. Even so, the problem of racial segregation appeared to be less evident in Eshowe, where everything remained relatively quiet – at least on the surface – though this could not be said of the other regions. It would not be easy for a wanderer passing that way to describe Eshowe; it would probably be called a ‘hick town’ – a short stop-over. It immediately brought back memories of my small guest room in that drab hotel somewhere in the outback of South Australia, but it was just about habitable enough and this nomad gratefully accepted it.

Shaka meeting the white men (the ‘swallows’) for the first time. Henry Cele wears his traditional Zulu crown; his prime minister is on his left.

Most of the South African crew shared rented houses in the surrounding area, which I would also have preferred but at least I had a room to myself at the hotel, which had been taken over by the production company as a base for the wardrobe, make-up, camera and sound departments. Everyone shared its basic facilities where every day hordes of Zulus would camp outside, waiting to be called to the set.

Already I was asking myself if I could survive six days, let alone six months! There was absolutely no chance that I would be interested in the second phase of the schedule, but then something strange happened which would make everything work out for me. Coincidence yet again?

Unknown to me, David Bracknell, our first assistant director, had phoned Suzy back in England asking her if she would be his second assistant. David was completely unaware that Suzy was my wife. Until she mentioned it, I had known nothing about it. The excitement of Suzy joining the production would take away all of the doubts that I had about working on the production. Added to that, Tony Busbridge, a British ex-pat living in Johannesburg, would join me as my camera operator; with Frank arriving shortly this would complete the professional crew forming around me and suddenly the situation was looking a lot healthier.

The first six months passed relatively trouble-free. Building relationships with our Zulu friends would take time but things gradually progressed with a daily improvement as the Zulu suspicions towards the whites slowly eased. One thing that helped to capture their interest was Frank’s ‘magical powers’: in reality party tricks he played on his children, though even Frank would need a willing hand for his ‘miracles’ to happen – me! With the Zulus suitably impressed with Frank’s magic they demanded to see more of his supernatural powers, which helped with the building of good relationships between the two cultures.

A nice crane shot of the Zulus carrying the newly built boat
Chaka
to the sea. This is the boat that will take the whites and the Zulu representatives back to Cape Town to meet the British governor.

Bill Faure’s filming education came from studying at the London Film School, where he had found it impossible to let go of Shaka’s life, passionate about the legend of the Zulu king which told the story of the warrior’s existence from his birth as the bastard child of Nandi, his mother, to Prince Senzangakona, the father whose treatment of Nandi would eventually turn Shaka to violence. Our ten episodes, after the original fifteen scripts had been reworked by the American partners, would cover Shaka’s entire life, from before he became king of the Zulus and his confrontation with the British Empire, finally ending in his murder and the dramatic burning of his corpse – my grand cinematic finale! The scripts were carefully researched and based on historical fact, setting the scene by starting the story in 1882 with Queen Victoria meeting Cetshwayo, then the leader of the Zulu Empire, and deciding to restore him to power with Britain not getting involved in Zulu politics. The story then goes back in time to tell of the many interesting accounts of Shaka’s early life and his struggle through his young years as a boy, ending in his tyrannical government over the whole Zulu nation, which came by fear or force – not unlike Hitler, in many ways.
Shaka Zulu
is the true story of the Zulus’ past violent history; like a Shakespearian drama it is full of intrigue – king against king, Zulu against Zulu, tribe against tribe, blacks against whites.

Mythology and witchcraft also played its part in our telling of Shaka’s incredible story – similar to Polanski’s
Tragedy of Macbeth
– but in Africa superstition and legend remain as important to this day as it was then. On one occasion a green mamba snake wriggled its way through the film unit and the Zulu camera-car driver was convinced it was the spirit of Shaka making his presence felt. Whether or not he was showing his pleasure or displeasure with our efforts was not recorded.

At another location somewhere in a remote corner of Zululand, an old lady emerged from her hut to watch the filming. Explaining that we were recording Shaka’s life history she pondered a moment before saying, ‘Had we a Shaka today our lot would be a happier one since only he could bring the Zulus together as a powerful nation.’ Of course that is what Shaka did in his lifetime. Today, Shaka is still the Zulus’ champion, comparable with other empire builders such as Napoleon, Alexander the Great and Julius Caesar. In terms of African history Shaka was all of these to his people.

Henry Cele, our all-powerful Zulu king would be a dangerous and intimidating Shaka to deal with. Should he look directly at you with his piercing eyes and threatening stare you would feel extremely uncomfortable. The truth is, I could never be sure exactly where I stood in our conversations, though in reality Henry was a quiet soul, a gentleman and a wonderful actor. The main problem I had with my lighting of Henry was his smooth matte-black skin, which needed grease applied to it to lift it to a more reflective texture. This worked well, but with a white face close to Henry’s very dark skin the balance was difficult to control when the actors moved around, which occasionally showed in the production’s final grading where it had not been possible for me to be present.

My only real frustration came with the lighting equipment used in the confines of the interior straw hut sequences, due to the ever-present danger of overheating in the small confines, which would cause a fire. I finally settled for the log-fire effect, which worked well in the smoky atmosphere; possibly a few extra tungsten lights in the hut sequences would have been useful, which I missed out on due to my lack of experience in matters of quantity, but even so I was pleased with the final outcome. For night exteriors with Zulu love in the air I used 3M material as the moon, which I had carried with me after reading the script, while a stormy night sequence required dramatic lightning flashes overlaid with the sound of thunder suggesting an evil presence.

Generally things worked out well, creating the right working atmosphere, though there were times when we found ourselves in hostile situations. This came as a result of violent intimidation directed towards our Zulu friends when we unintentionally strayed onto the so-called ‘white’ territory bordering the black region. Now for the first time we came face-to-face with the reality of racial segregation – apartheid.

A white camera crew working with black Zulus could not possibly be accepted by some of the white locals, whose pointed finger-wagging and threats warned us away from ‘their’ territory. A verbal confrontation escalated to the waving of sticks and stones being thrown in our direction as menaces directed at the crew now forced us ‘nigger lovers’ to move on. The situation eventually became far too dangerous to continue with our filming; with little chance of any further discussion, we were forced to take the obvious hint.

Living in a civilised country such as ours it is easy to forget that these situations do exist as we turn a blind eye to others’ internal problems. Now for the first time we would experience hate on both sides, which would inevitably affect our efforts in the filming, although Frank’s magic would help in no small way to heal the rift.

With the first six-month option completed without too many problems, it was time for our three-week break, with the Brits starting back to the UK to celebrate Christmas at home. My previous concerns about working on the second phase would not materialise, and by now I was totally committed to filming Shaka’s life. With Suzy on the production too it was not hard to make the decision to return to Zululand.

On our return to Eshowe it was clear that the earlier friendly atmosphere was now missing, and there was a far less welcoming mood compared to the earlier enthusiasm enjoyed by our overpowering Zulu army. I spoke with Bill Faure about this – he understood the Zulu mentality, their ever-changing moods. It would seem that they had become bored with the project. The director tried hard to recapture the Zulus’ earlier enthusiasm, helped in no small way with Frank’s ‘magic powers’, the atmosphere steadily improved by the day. However, one could never lose the feeling of resentment with apartheid lurking in the background.

Edward Fox and Robert Powell heading for their boat. By this time in the story the whites had gone native.

Although this black and white community coexisted well enough, sadly the simmering background to all this meant that we never really knew where it would all end. The thought of just ‘existing’ in the hotel for another six months did not help Suzy or me feel more comfortable, especially when it appeared to be overrun as a permanent Zulu encampment, having an unsettling effect on us both. Never knowing if things might take a turn for the worse, we finally decided to move into a small rented bungalow away from the madness of it all.