South Africa :: History Essays

South AfricaSouth African adorns provide us with the lush greens of the jungle, the dry grass of the savanna, the majesty of the mountains, the eroded frame of the desert and the high-rise mortar of the city. A filmmaker can determine there any background desired as the scenery for his crusade picture, but variety is not the only true value of the African landscape. Here we find the lush, well tended greens that re symbolize the wealth and secure of the Europeans who have invaded the country the dry savannas where the animals roam freely, but the native peoples are restricted the eroded clay that somehow manages to sustain life and reminds us of the outlying township slums that somehow sustain oppressed lives and the stifling city where a restrictive government and looming skyscrapers bear down to oppress the valet de chambre spirit. According to Hugo Munsterberg, the photoplay tells us the human story by overcoming the forms of the outer world, namely, space, measure and ca usality, and by adjusting the events to the forms of the inner world, namely attention, memory, imagination, and emotion (104). The South African landscape reflects its countrys history and the struggle of its people, and when a director chooses it cautiously for background in his film, it can add emotional and symbolic judiciousness to his message. In 1652, the Dutch East India Company came from Europe to South African soil to set up a fort for the purpose of replenishing their ships with supplies. The Europeans, in their high and mighty way, saw South Africa as land for the taking complete with savages and rugged landscapes to be tamed and civilized, and so begin the village of the country. When Cy Enfields Zulu (1964) opens, Lieutenant John Chard is attempting to tame a fade of that landscape as he is trying to build a connect across the river at Rourkes Drift. Ironically, the mountains surrounding Rourkes Drift present an untamable foe to the one hundred forty British soldie rs camped there. The soldiers have been communicate that the Zulu are coming, and the audience is drawn into the soldiers world while together they turn back for the destined attack along the elevated landscape. The soldiers find themselves facing thousands of practiced and determined native warriors who seem to appear from nowhere with the help of the inbred mountain formations and the dry grass that hides them.