Professor David Peimer
Khartoum the Film: Colonsiation and its Contradictions
Professor David Peimer - Khartoum the Film: Colonisation and its Contradictions
- Okay, we’re going to dive into a fascinating film made quite a while ago in 1996, about the really, the famous battle of Khartoum of the Mahdi versus General Gordon of the British Empire and I want to talk about it today, looking at the film and how it depicts some aspects of this idea of the contradictions of colonialism, the contradictions of the colonial empires, in this case, obviously the British, but it could be any empire as one studies them in history and how they are shown in fictionalised form in film and not only that fascinates me, the distinction between a historical event and its fictional portrayal in a movie or in a play, but also, you know, how we today receive it, how we understand it today, the film and the historical event and obviously what it can tell us for today about colonialism and its contradictions. I once had a lecturer when I was an undergrad and used to say to me, “The history of the world is a history of colonisation” with an ironic grin. Whether it’s true or not is up for debate, but certainly so much of history can be understood through looking at the history of colonisation and what it means to be colonised and what it means to be against the colonisation or ambivalent about it, caught up in it in some way. In this case, going to look specifically at the British Empire and the Battle of Khartoum which culminated in 1885 and of course the film, 1996.
You can see here the two fantastic actors who were in it, Laurence Olivier on the left, he plays the Mahdi or the expected one, or the exceptional expected one, if you like, in a loose translation from the Arabic and of course, Charlton Heston, who played General Gordon of the British Empire and the Army and Ralph Richardson plays William Gladstone, the prime minister of Israel, of Britain at the time. Okay, so what, in essence, and we are going to be involved in some talks about colonisation and what it actually means, what it is to be colonial, what it is to colonise, really, that’ll come later. In essence, we can talk about always, as we do in many other contexts, the idea of self and other. How does the colonising self see themselves as an empire, as a nation and ultimately as an identity? And how do the colonised see themselves in terms of identity and nation and religion? So it would be, and it can be brought down to two words, superior, inferior. The coloniser has to see themselves as superior and the colonised, whether conscious or not, they feel it as inferior. So, and that may take the form of those who feel they’re more civilised or more educated or more sophisticated, way ahead, not only technologically, but in terms of ideas of civilization. David Livingston’s great phrase for the explorer, David Livingston, for the British Empire we’re the three Cs. The aim of colonisation of Africa for him was the three Cs, colonise, civilised, Chris, sorry, commercialise, Christianize and civilise, the three great Cs, which I think sum up the British empire approach and the other may say, and in some way, superior, they’re bringing Christianity or they’re bringing certain set of beliefs about the superiority of their group versus the obvious, therefore implied, inferiority of the other.
It’s always a self and other, it’s never a mutual respect, it’s never an equality and then the other may see them, they may be portrayed or depicted as uncivilised or primitive or savage or dirty or filthy or stupid compared to clever, is always that binary that is set up and the binary has to be set up, so I would suggest that the majority can really get it, can understand it, back in the home country and then to inculcate it in the mind of the colonised. So the ultimate battle is not on the battlefield. The ultimate battle is the battle for the mind of the colonised. Who will control the mind of the colonised? And I don’t use the word necessarily oppressed or repressed, I don’t want to get into too much jargon, but who can get in enough to control a large portion of the mind of the colonised and then you have it. The British had about 55,000 soldiers when they colonised India, for example, which at the time was over 400 million people. So one tiny amount of soldiers with a huge number, they couldn’t have done it purely through a military means. Of course, the military was used, they the gun and they later the Gatling gun, the machine guns and so on, but they had to do it in other ways and so through huge parts of Africa, and in this case, Khartoum. A question that goes along with this and we’re going to look at it in terms of Christianity and Islam and going way back to ancient times, the crusader and the infidel, you know, and the conflict between the two religions of Christianity and Islam.
Another very important question, which this movie raises and Laurence Olivier, which I’ll look at next Saturday, is the idea of what fascinates or what fascinated some of these British colonial types about Arabia and then I think is a crucial question, and it does echo for us today, because it is a fascination about Arabia, there’s a fascination about parts of Africa and elsewhere coming from, let’s call it loosely, the Western mind. What is it that in particular, these times in the 1880s, 1890s, that fascinated people like Gordon? And fascinated Laurence, “Lawrence of Arabia” and others, that are two of the most, well-known, great examples, but there were many others. It fascinated them about the other, the colonised other that they had already conquered or were on their way to conquering. What fascinates them about Arabia and I want to suggest in the 1880s, 1890s and echoing through today, partly is the exotic difference of the other, is an exotica, it goes way back to “Antony and Cleopatra” of Shakespeare. You know, the Egyptians and Cleopatra is portrayed as the sensual, primitive, but not primitive savage and necessarily stupid or dirty, filthy, but, or even uncivilised, but the primitive as being sensual, being in touch with body and not as intellectual, not as having the most sophisticated set of understanding of human society. So there are subtle nuances with each type of colonisation that happens and the British colonising India is one thing. Arabia, another thing, Africa, another and we can go on and on, the Maoris and other, there’s an exotic context here, and I think that’s important, the exotic outsider, the exotic foreigner and it certainly comes across in the film and Olivier is, Laurence Olivier is trying to portray it, even if he hams it up us today, quite a lot.
There’s a physicality in this exotica and of course there’s a sense of Arabia, and I’m using the word Arabia intentionally, because David Lee calls the other film “Lawrence of Arabia”. This would’ve been seen as Arabia. These are not nation states, you know, as we know them today. These were all formed much later as a result of British Empire. You know, where Sudan was in Khartoum and others. There’s a sense of an ancient history, ancient culture, an ancient sexuality of this idea of the other as the oriental, primitive but mysterious, primitive, but sensual, primitive but intriguing, primitive, but not stupid or dirty, primitive, but going way back with something ancient, which there’s almost an unconscious or conscious yearning for, amongst these British colonial types and that’s what this film captures, I think in Khartoum. I think it does capture a lot of, aside from some of the hamming of the acting, some of the complexities of the British, of the colonial British individual, the officer, the leader There’s a history of a whole culture. There was a fascination with Muslim, there still is today in the West and I want to put aside at the moment, the obvious sense that we have today, especially as Jewish people and others, you know, of the terror of Muslim in a way, but there was a fascination with Islam.
The sense of algebra started, astronomy, certain approaches to medicine, philosophy even stained gloss, so much came from these ancient cultures. In Shakespeare, we have “Othello,” as I’ve talked before, Othello is the moor the Arab, but he’s a general, he’s primitive because he is naive and a little, not quite the sharpest tool in the shed, because he believes in Iago as against Desdemona, his white wife, but we are made to feel for Othello who regrets what he’s done at the end, he’s killed Desdemona, ‘cause Iago has convinced him that she’s been having an affair, of course she hasn’t, but Othello, we are meant to emotionally connect with, and it’s a very different stereotyping that Shakespeare’s dealing with there of the moor, of the Arab compared to Shylock, for example. You know, it’s where the word Jew is used 33 times, and often the dirty Jew, and go on and on and on with the adjectives before the noun Jew and there are others in Shakespeare, not only, you know, of course, how he talks about the Egyptians and, you know, “Antony and Cleopatra” and other plays. So there’s a different use of language, a different use of perception of the Arabia people. The very phrase, Arabian nights, it’s not the Sudanese nights, it’s not the Egyptian nights or Syrian or whatever, it’s the Arabian nights. It’s that word, even the sweet perms of Arabia. You know, the phrases from Shakespeare, give it a sensual, exotic, mysterious beauty and intrigue, to put it mildly. So we have this perception in the 1880s of the British Empire towards the other. This is how they will frame the narrative of the other and of course, they are superior, not only as the conquering group, because their military is so well organised, they have the better weapons and so on, but because they are sophisticated, they bring Christianity, they bring commercialisation, to Christianize, commercialise, and they bring with that civilization, they will civilise these exotic foreigner primitives.
There, I would suggest three kinds of, a five foundations really to the western sense of itself and these are obviously number one, ancient Greece, where it’s democracy, theatre, literature, philosophy, thinking, writing, science, mathematics, so much comes from ancient Greece, we know it. Then from ancient Rome. Not only the aqueducts and the engineering feats and marvels, but the sense of military of empire, how to rule others comes from, and laws, you know, the language of Latin, the written language, so much comes from those two, Greece and Rome and then we go into the three religions, Judaism, of course, the great religion coming out of that, Christianity, coming out of all of this, Islam. To have these three religions coming out, not just of the Middle East, but coming out to which, so absolutely form the ancient, middle and contemporary narratives of Western civilization and the western perception of itself, that’s the key for me and movies like this, try to capture it. The idea of the British colonial captures it. What is fascinating to these colonial types about Arabia, which I’m trying to deal with here today, different to other countries and how they see, so-called Red Indians, or Maoris or indigenous native first nation people of other countries, all varies in certain levels of subtlety. We have, I think also because to rule, you have to justify yourself, of course, that you are superior in somewhere and the other is inferior in somewhere and then got to deal with the details of how and what and what you’re going to do once you do civilise, you’d make them slaves?
Do you exterminate? Do you just take taxes and cheap labour? Do you conquer the land as well as the people? Yeah, all of these questions come up, but they come from the fundamental perception of self and other, in all this understanding of colonisation. Islam in Western film, how are they portrayed today? And going back to 1990s of this movie “Khartoum,” 'cause four years earlier, 1992 was David Lean’s Masterpiece, “Lawrence of Arabia”, as I said, look at next week. So how is, are the Islamists or Islam, let’s call it and Arabia portrayed in the films? I think there are three forms of Islam specifically, now the religion, the one is the exotic foreigner, there’s no question and this goes right back, you can see the image right here. You know, look at the image of Charlton Heston holding the gun. You know, he’s the one with a gun. He’s the one with physical, sweaty power. Ironically, the British general, Charlton Heston is the sweaty one holding the gun, you know, rolled up sleeves and so on, ready to get down to dirty work, to conquer, you know, he will be in the front of the lines and so on and look at the Mahdi, look at the portrayal of Olivier, you know, there’s that sense of this cunning intelligence in the eyes, the eyebrows accentuated with a lot of makeup and then of course, you know, the turban, you know, all of this, it’s shown as the cunning, calculating thinker and the religious fanatic, the religious fanatical leader of Islam, the Mahdi.
See, just in this image and then, you know, the world is burning behind them and on fire will come Christianity versus Islam in the picture of the poster. So the exotic foreigner, second, the militant threat, today, of course, it’s terrorism and extremes of Islam that we all understand only too well, but I think at the time it would’ve been seen not only as the crusader and the infidel, but the militant threat, real threat to British empire, to British rule on a tactical level and then of course, the pious believer in Islam and look at that picture of Olivier. There’s the archetype of the pious believer, the religious fanatic, yes and also underneath it is the so-called pious believer, who we know is a calculating political mastermind behind there. So all of this is suggested by these types in this portrayal of colonisation that I want to look at. Okay, if we go on to the next slide please. This is Rudolph Valentino, playing “The Sheikh .” This is all made around the time that Laurence Arabia was made and this is a bit earlier and also “Khartoum” but look at this, look at, you see what I mean? The exotic leader, the foreigner, he’s going to take on the great colonial empire, you know, but he is dynamic, he’s young, he’s physical, he’s beautiful, attractive in this way, you know, almost like a young Alexander and romantic heroism in taking on the empire, but we don’t see a gun. We barely see a sword. You know, we see a little bit of palm tree in the background stars linked with nature, linked with the natural sensuality of and the passion and essence of youth inside this. Look how all these portrayals in western film of the Islamic archetype, if you like, in our terms today, or the Arabian in those times.
Okay, the exotic foreigners coming, of course, therefore from exotic Arabia in the film. Just in essence, this movie, the story was the earlier 20th century, it was a fascination from this 1885 and before this into the early 20th century. There was a fascination in Britain certainly with many things eastern. As I’ve mentioned, the greatest examples is “Lawrence of Arabia,” mysterious, hidden, Richard Burton. Not the actor, but the great British explorer. You know, he wrote of his journeys as disguised as a Muslim in the late 1800s. He translated the fantasy of the Arabian nights in the early decades of film, Islam and Arabia on exotic novelty as well, spice markets, unethical merchants cunning, tribes or bandits racing through the desert, you know, kicking up desert storm on camels with nothing else but just their sheer prowess and a sword or two and a couple of guns, curved architecture, mystical cultures, ancient sensual sexuality, all of this coming through. So this was a 1923 movie of Rudolph Valentino, silent movie star in “The Sheikh .” He plays a desert leader who finds an independent British white woman and of course seduces her. She falls in love with him and et cetera, et cetera. So many of these are portrayed as the white woman from Britain, from the coloniser falling in love with this image of the dashing, young colonised from Arabia. 1962, we have the original, of course of “Lawrence of Arabia” and we see in all of these, we see ignorant tribesmen, but they’re driven by a theology, by an ideology and of course it’s masked because it’s portrayed as ultimately up against the British empire.
Now take away empire and you are left with theology, and you’re left with militancy and that’s a huge shift in the portrayal in the film and in the historical events. When you take away the overall cover, if you like, of fighting empire and empire’s colonisation, you are left with theology and autocracy and it can go to an extreme or be more in the middle, whichever, we see these portrayed here. “Lawrence of Arabia,” what’s different is that Prince Faisal is seen as refined, because he’s western educated as well. Gandhi is western educated. He’s seen as one thing, but he is also seen as refined. In “Khartoum,” what happens in the story is General Gordon is the leader of a small force in Khartoum of soldiers and Sudanese in the city, we call it today, the city of Khartoum in the Sudan and the Maori and the Arabs have conquered and slaughtered a whole lot. Egyptian troops loyal to the British empires and the British in London, under Gladstone as prime minister, are deciding what to do. Do we make an example of them, or do we, and go ahead and slaughter and attack, or do we let them be? What do we do about these upstarts? Because they’re becoming driven by religious zealotry, which is becoming fanatical, as well as becoming a serious militant threat to the British empire. So Gladstone decides, well, he hesitates, he ums and ors, cut a long story short, decides he will send Gordon, 'cause Gordon was a hero in the British Empire at the time. He had helped free the Chinese from slavery and many other things, he was known as Chinese Gordon. He’d done a lot of battles there successfully. He was one of the great British military heroes.
So he said, “Well, let’s send Gordon 'cause he’s a hero, but we’ll decide if we send extra troops to help him or not. We’ll see what happens.” They differ, they’re not sure. Gordon is religious, devout Christian religion, so he sees this as a battle, not between colonised and colonised or empire, he sees it as a battle between Christianity and Islam and Christianity must prevail, but like many colonials, what we see in the film and what we see portrayed in many books and examples later is the ambivalence, the moral ambiguity of the colonial leaders, the colonial officers who are in the field, because on the one hand, they’re trying to understand the culture they’re conquering and they’re fascinated in this case, the exotic foreigner, militant, religious leaders and religious of Arabia, they’re fascinated, but they also have a political and military duty to carry out, to conquer, to prove back to their masters in London, you know that, well, we’ve done it. Now we’ll have cheap labour, all the resources and, you know, empire will be extended. Next slide, please. Thanks, if we can have the next slide, please, Georgia. Okay, so what is going to happen, they send Gordon out, and Gordon goes there, they send a supporting force as well, much, much bigger, but it gets there a few days late and by that time, the battle’s over and Gordon has been slaughtered along with a whole lot of the Sudanese in the town, the city of Khartoum, about 30,000 they reckon, and at least six, 8,000 British troops with some Sudanese troops as well.
Okay, so that’s in essence the story and Gladstone is the one who’s deciding, but is unsure. Gladstone is ambivalent, go out, you know, and support Gordon or not and either way, if it fails, they can blame Gordon or somebody else in the British army. They themselves of the political elite, Gladstone prime minister and the others will be okay. Turns out a little bit different it’ll come to. So it’s the world of Islam, it’s the world of mysterious men taking the white woman of Britain. It’s a world of exotic primitives, savage, partly, not quite the same savage as would’ve been seen as the Maori or would’ve been seen, you know, as in many parts of Africa. So the film is a recreation of this late 19th century war and Gordon is sent out against the fanatical and religious tribesmen under the leadership or the spell of the self-proclaimed Maori, the exceptional one, the expected one. In other words, he claims he’s to say, he has a vision from Mohammed. and a vision from Mohammed is get rid of these Christian and British, get rid of them and establish an Islamic state with Sharia law, that is very minimised and hidden in the film, of course. So that’s the underbelly, which, you know, we would I’m sure show much more of in today’s times. If we can go to the next slide, please. Georgia, okay, thank you. So this is a picture of Gordon. This is a picture of Charlton Heston playing Gordon. You can see what I’m saying. He is ambivalent. He’s a British military officer. He’s riding a camel, he’s wearing a fez, in other words, in the costume, in the film and you see, in life, in history, some of these British colonials, you know, who gone to the other side as they say today, you know, who becoming something of Arabia, they seduced by something of it, way back to “Anthony and Cleopatra,” Antony is seduced by not only the charms, but the sensuality, the mystery, the intrigue, the more physical, less rigid way of life of Egypt compared to ancient Rome in Shakespeare’s play.
They’re intrigued. They’re fascinated. Look at this image and he is got a little Sudanese boy on his lap. This is the image of the colonial master, but he’s adopting aspects of the Arabian culture in his time here. He’s not just coming in purely as a cold military leader and politic and governor and that’s it and this ambivalence, this ambiguity, J. M. Coetzee captures it in waiting for the barbarians in some of his novels and others, where you have these people on the frontier who are in fact fascinated with the exotic foreigner and yet repelled, repulsive and attracted and that’s a constant human dynamic that you see in many films and novels that this captures. This was based on the actual rebellion and basically the Mahdi has taken a whole lot of Arab tribes, pulled them together to take on the British, but not, as I said, not only as empire, it’s got to have a set of beliefs and that is, it’s the devout Muslim fanatic up against the devout Christian governor and underneath it is a clash of the religions and that is what’s given to soldiers, given to tribesman soldiers of both sides of the self and other binary in empire and colonisation. That’s part of the contradiction to me and it’s at these fascinating fault lines that it lies where you don’t just have the stereotype of cowboy and Indian goodies, badies, right, wrong. You have the moral ambiguity, you have the identity ambiguity and multiple identities caught up in interesting characters. “Lawrence of Arabia,” is classic, captures it, probably the best of them all, but “Khartoum” the movie certainly does. You can show the next slide, please. Okay, this is Laurence Olivier, with a black face, which would not of course be allowed today for all sorts of reasons, and we’ll hear him talking in a moment, trying to find a voice and accent, which has been savagely a critiqued for being hammed up, for being so cliched and stereotype and trying to capture, you know, the Muslim leader. We’ve got to put it in its times or when the movie was made and what they’re trying to capture from the 18, mid 1880s, but here he is, there’s the picture again of Laurence Olivier playing the Mahdi.
So what is it? It’s Gordon is one of these, so-called and what’s fascinating is that the colonial empire framed these people as eccentric individualists, as opposed to moral ambiguity and identity, multiple identities forged in one, they frame it as an eccentric individualist. I love these plays with language and it is partly an eccentric individualism, just like “Lawrence of Arabia” and they spring up in British history again and again. You see it with those going to India and back. You see, you know, “Passage to India,” E. M. Forster and so many others. You see these, so-called, inverted commas, eccentric individuals who are caught up and almost British history and empire throws them out and Gordon is deeply religious. He devotes a lot of his money to charitable work, a lot of his salary as a general to helping the poor. All of this is part of the contradiction of the colonials, not only the contradiction of empire. Gordon also has a moral courage. You know, he would not desert the soldiers even though he knows thousands are coming to attack and kill them and he has a sense that the British supporting forces will not get there or get their way too late, which is what they do.
Says an anxiety, there’s a moral dilemma as I’ve said in the film and portrayed in this idea of self and other and it’s these connections of ambiguity that this binary becomes fascinating and for us today, I think as well, it’s history as fiction, it’s obviously fictionalised, but it’s trying to find the essence of the moral dilemma, between coloniser and colonised, as I say, instead of a simplistic goodies, badies right and wrong, sort of cowboy Indian stuff, it’s an epic tale, which the Victorians love these epic tales and they loved not only the conquest, but they loved the sense of ambiguity in their, some of their main characters. Thus, some of these characters became so well known, otherwise they wouldn’t, we wouldn’t know about Laurence today or any of the others, you know, it’s because the British readers who would read about them in newspapers and serial and articles and see photos, they love this and the “Victorian Epic,” and of course they loved also, what we have is the CD backroom of the top of British politics in the Victorian era. There’s the Queen, and then Gladstone and others, the times, Disraeli of the politics in the backroom, you know, and of course the Mahdi portrayed here. This is a complete stereotype, hammed up on the one hand. On the other hand, a fascinating perception of how they were seen at the time the movie was made. Okay, I want to show the next one is the first clip, which is the trailer from the film. We can show it, please.
All beloveds, all men of the desert, I’m the Mahdi, the expected one. In a vision, the Prophet Mohamed has instructed me that mountain and desert tremble, that cities shatter and turn in fear of all those miracles to come. This is how it must be in Khartoum.
Are these bulletins from Khartoum true?
I was sent to Khartoum to assess the Egyptian capacity to deal with the uprising. I assessed it as nil.
Send Gordon to Khartoum,
Gordon, I cannot and will not send military forces up the Nile, but I admit Khartoum cannot be left to its fate without some gesture.
And when the Mahdi floats me down the Nile, the government will assume a pained expression and say to her, majesty, “We sent Gordon, we did the best we could”
Precisely
Attack beloved one, attack now, holy person, there is no more time, it is the moment.
[Narrator] Where the Nile divides, their mighty conflict explodes across the cineroma screen, Charlton Heston as Gordon summoned by his country to defend Khartoum. Laurence Olivier as the Mahdi summoned by a vision to destroy it. Richard Johnson, Ralph Richardson in “Khartoum.”
Thanks, we can freeze it there please. Okay, if we can, yeah, thank you, if we can just freeze it, thanks. So this is the trailer and I think captures everything, got the couple of main characters that we can emotionally identify with through the movie, with the backdrop, what’s it really about? The classic confrontation between Western imperialism and Christianity and the Oriental Eastern Arabia and the fascination with Arabia, with Islamic fundamentalism and that’s what makes it such a topical film for us today. It’s flawed, it’s problematic in the acting in Laurence Olivier’s voice, you know, how he uses the syllables and the sounds, but it captures the essence of so many of our ideas today, you know, which is so real and powerful and how do we capture those characters in those fault lines as I mentioned before? So we have and is the Mahdi merely using Islamic fundamentalism? “I had a vision from the Prophet Muhammad and we must go and,” you know, in order to throw off British empire, not enough to use nationalism, he’s going to use nationalism of Arabia and Islamic fundamentalism, and the other side is going to use the civilised, the need to conquer and Christianity, the need to civilise and Christianize the locals, you know, the colonised. So that’s all implied what this film is about and when they capture these binaries, I think it echoes very powerfully of us today.
Gordon was an idealist. He did believe in the expansion of the British Empire was crucial and there would be a civilising influence on the masses all over, on the heath, basically because he was devout, a devout Christian and the Mahdi is busy conquering Sudan and other parts and he’s also laying waste completely to any Arabs who do not agree with him. No hesitation to slaughter and kill. If you don’t agree, I kill. As much as the Arabs, as much as the Christians, in fact, more his locals to get them scared, so they’re terrified, so they’ll join him, of course, anyone who didn’t think, he see the Mahdi as an Islamic Messiah would be killed. Echoes today are so obvious and so powerful. Hence it’s worth it really to be exploring these things, these old films. Gladstone is the prime minister we saw it. He only wanted the British commitment to be as necessary to defend the newly built Suez Canal, which of course is built by the French and Disraeli, Gladstone’s predecessor had acquired it from the French who built it and Gordon was ordered to go to Khartoum, get the Egyptians, get the British to remain in there and the Europeans out, you know, but he chooses to stay and fight and that’s the key whether the rescuing army, British army arrived in time or not. Okay, I want to show a little bit of the battle scene because we see in the next clip how these are portrayed. The dust, the sweat of Arabia, the blue skies, the vast expenses of desert, not so far from “Raiders of the Lost Ark,” which has got jolly Arabs helping, you know, the American archaeologist, Harrison Ford up against Nazis or whoever, different portrayal of the Arabian stereotype. Okay, if we can show this next clip, please.
Keep those men back. Come on keep them back.
Okay, if we can hold it there. So what we have, and of course this builds up to one of the big battles. This is a separate battle just before the one of Battle of Khartoum but you’re going to see the Sudanese soldiers being slaughtered, of course by the Mahdi, you know, as they’re going through the valley, you know, the technique used very often, goes through the valley and these soldiers are up in the mountain, up on the hills and they’re going to slaughter them, but what’s interesting for me in the scene is it shows the Sudanese soldiers under the British rule, they’re thirsty, they’re dying of thirst and they see a little oasis and they rush for it, get some water, but what it’s really showing is the ill discipline of the Sudanese soldiers, because the British officers are not rushing to get water, but obviously as thirsty, they’re able to control themselves, they’re able to control their primal, their physical urges in order for the bigger picture, they are more civilised and sophisticated in their approach to military and to living, control, discipline, order, structure as opposed to just being driven by impulse, get thirst. A small scene, but indicative of the whole film and indicative of what we’re talking about, of the clash between these two civilizations and we see the Mahdi up there, you know, the classic picture up there on the horse, waiting, calculating, in control, ironically in self-control, so his forces are waiting and in control compared to the forces of the British.
So there’s irony upon irony in the film. It’s small, little, you know, tiny little scenes as well. He’s a fanatic, Namahdi, he wants to wage, whether he’s using the Holy War in order to gain power or vice versa or both, doesn’t matter, it’s that the ordinary people need both, as Harari would say, “Collective fictions are needed.” People fight and die for stories and the story is belief in Holy War, up against the infidels, against the Christian invaders, the British, the colonisers. It’s Holy war as opposed to, and the British, it’s Holy War. It’s not only to conquer the Sudanese and the empire and the values, it’s to Christianize as well, very powerful. Gordon, is he really, when he is defending Khartoum and refuses to leave, 'cause he could have left knowing the Mahdi’s army was coming. He could have left before the Mahdi arrives, he could have even cut a deal, which I’m going to show in the next scene, could have cut a deal with the Mahdi, you know, and bought time at least for rescuing forces of the empire to come, but he doesn’t and this is what makes part of the heroic myth of Gordon. He stands his ground and he will not leave the Sudanese, his own five, 6,000 whatever Europeans, British citizens and soldiers, he will not leave them to the mercy of the Mahdis invading, attacking army and that’s become the heroic myth of the British colonial type who can have empathy and sympathy for the colonised other, but push come to shove, he will fight and protect his civilization and his religion of Christianity at the same and that makes a kind of romantic heroism of Gordon, of Khartoum which went down and has gone down in the annals of British history and Western history. The romantic heroic type will make a stand and fight no matter what, knowing the odds are virtually nil of winning and of their own life, of course. He’s religious, he’s a colonial general and a colonial administrator. Is he really trying to protect the subject or the British empire? Is he trying to look after? Is he already identifying more and more with the Sudanese, with Arabia, I’m going to call it rather than Islam? In his times, I’m saying that and there’s evidence all the way around of these multiple identities inside the one. Okay, we can show the next scene, please. A meeting between Gordon and the Mahdi.
British army, the message, I sent the message, there is no British army. Your soldiers are in Egypt, they play cards, drink the liquor, pursue women.
Why would you send me a false message?
Oh, it is sometimes wise to provide the man with a few Sunday hours of fraudulent hope so that when night comes, he will have a more perfect inward vision of the truth of his hopelessness. I sent the message, there is no British army, you are alone, quite alone.
If this is true, then what difference can it make to you if one man leaves or stays?
It is important to me.
Please explain to me the importance.
Because I am a man of mercy and I tell you, go, leave in safety now
You are not a man of mercy, for your visions have not revealed to you what mercy is and so why do you do this?
You are not my enemy.
Oh, but I am. You should understand Muhammad Ahmad, we are so alike, you and I. You would welcome death, wouldn’t you? If death could be the servant of your life, wouldn’t you? Mh, I too, if my life has a single point, it’s this, I’ve learned to be unafraid of death, but never to be unafraid of failure. If by the act of surrendering my life, I can bring down the world on your head, then it’s an arrangement I welcome. Do you understand? I’m sure you do. If you as a servant of your God must use 100,000 warriors to destroy me, a solitary servant of my God, then you whisper to me, Muhammad Ahmed, who will be remembered from Khartoum? Your God or mine?
If we can hold it there, thanks. So this for me is the most interesting scene in the whole movie. It’s beautifully written, it’s fascinating because who has the moral high ground here? You know, on the one hand, the Mahdi is the wise, he’s portrayed now as the wise archetype, not just the fanatical Islamic zealot. He’s not only portrayed as this ruthless leader, but he’s shown to have, he’s saying “mercy” and accusing the British leader of no mercy. Well, which religion is going to conquer which, which set of values from the religion of mercy and forgiveness or at least mercy and then comes the Heston character of Gordon, which is, well, I’m prepared to die and then it’s, another one is prepared to die, both are. What do we do to protect the God, to protect the religions and the civilizations? What do we mean by martyrdom today? What do we mean by sacrifice today of life for a belief, life for a value? This scene captures in the writing and the acting. We forget about almost the ham acting of Olivier and the black face, but in the writing and the acting that constant cease the circle of moral ambiguity that I was talking about and this is the scene in the writing. Who is the moral superior? In the end, colonisation needs a moral narrative, a moral story of who’s superior, who’s inferior. Not only a reason why, and it can’t just be pragmatic, conquer, get the land, get cheap resources, labour, you know, make them slaves or servants, whatever, or taxes even. There has to be the moral conflict. So first is the wise Mahdi, and then the Gordon is shown to be wise and then a discussion on martyr.
All these things come into this very brief little scene and of course, underlying it is which religion is greater, which religion is going to last, which religion will win the hearts and minds of most people in the world and because the religious beliefs are what is informing these characters individual beliefs. Whether they’re actually ever met or not is doubtful historically, I don’t think they did as far as the historical research I’ve done, but this is the beauty of fictionalised history in film. We can create scenes like this which capture the essence of the fault lines that I’m describing, which are part of the times and echo in our times, I think so powerfully today. Okay, the next scene that I want to show is from, this scene is shown where we have a British military officer, he’s going to be talking briefly describing the end of Gordon, because important in terms of romantic heroism and martyrdom and how they are portrayed as we receive them in our collective memories as we receive the historical stories in our collective memories and it was originally, it was from a painting, there was a painting done of the last, it was called “The Last Stand of General Gordon” by a British artist and it was portrayed as if Gordon is coming out, well, you’ll see, as the guy describes, and it captures as the British military historian captures, it describes the portrayal of heroism, martyrdom with religious iconography. Okay, if we can show the next clip, please.
[Historian] Down. This scene was famously depicted by Charlton Heston in the film, “Khartoum.” It was a story picked up by Victorian painters, a masculine Christian martyr sacrificing himself to the baying forces of Islam. This sort of martyrdom was a common theme in paintings of the period, the last man to die at Isandlwana and “The Last Stand of the Shangani Patrol” represents similar storylines, but it was not the only account of how he died. His Sudanese, ADC claimed that he and Gordon actually fought the Mahdist with revolvers and swords until Gordon was speared. Knocked unconscious, when the Sudanese aid came round, he saw Gordon’s dead body lying nearby, minus his head. Another account tells of Gordon being killed in the street whilst fighting his way towards the Austrian consulate. However, he met his death, his severed head was presented to the Mahdi who put it on public display. As for his body, no one knows, but it was probably tossed in the Nile. Two days later, Wilson’s Flotilla
Okay.
Came in sight of the city.
We can hold it there, please. Thanks Georgia. So two days later, of course, even later, a rescuing force finally arrives, but it’s of course way too late. So this portrayal of that image in that film, in that painting as the guy is saying, is the military historian is saying, you know, this heroic Christ-like image, he appears in painting, sacrificing his life with his men for the greater of the British empire, for the greater of Christianity and he is the ultimate martyr compared to the Mahdi and his head is cut off, put on a pike, how uncivilised, savage, primitive is that, et cetera. So we have this constant conflict of who’s more moral, who’s more civilised, who’s more uncivilised, who’s the real savage or primitive, who isn’t, all played out and although the film as in my opinion is overwritten, it’s some of the battle scenes are too long and I think his problems of Laurence Olivier is the accent and of course the blackface today. You know, there are serious problems with the film, no question. It’s flawed, but we can find moments of brilliance inside it that I think echo for us today so strongly, because the themes are so similar and we don’t need the cover of British Empire for it. We see the themes, which I think are pretty obvious for everyone today when we watch it and how these things are portrayed on TV, watch it portrayed in the fiction of film or a 12 second clip in a TV news item and or less, three seconds, six seconds, you know?
And these are portraying and constantly giving us a narrative, you know, to conquer our minds, whichever side of the coin we may be on of the superior inferior divide or the coloniser colonised divide, in any culture anywhere in the world today and it’s these same themes that echo through ancient Greece colonising, through Alexander the great, through ancient Rome, through countries and civilization conquering wherever. These themes that I’m mentioning today are echoed all the way through with the fascinating fault lines of when the one seems to cross over partly and become more of the other. Alexander the Great himself was accused of becoming too, you know, too Persian, you know, seduced by all of those and forgetting his Macedonian, you know, rigorous militaristic roots and so many others, you know, but that’s part of the fascination of these people. If there remain stock stereotypes, you know, only one side of the coin, only the other side, it would not be interesting in fictionalising history. We would get merely stereotype and I think we would have a less rich understanding of history and the true possibilities of the art form that we’re choosing. As more anecdotes, which I want to finish off with is that finally about a year after this, and when they finally there had been a rescuing force and the word got back to London and Gladstone, the prime minister, not Disraeli, the prime minister at the time who I mentioned had been the ditherer and he hadn’t want to send a whole army out to just save Gordon and save a couple of thousand British or soldiers there, eh, leave them to their fate, who cares? More important Gladstone thought, “If there’s a problem, well I’ll blame Gordon, or I’ll say the rescuing force was too late, which it was, I’ve easily got a scapegoat to blame. I, Gladstone will stay prime minister with my cabinets” and that was fairly accurate to the history of the times. What happened was he underestimated, hubris, the old ancient Greek thought his arrogance of Gladstone because a year later, Queen Victoria, who was a fan of Gordon, he was the sort of dashing general and interested in cultures and peoples and civilizations.
Queen Victoria was a fan of Gordon and a year later, once Gordon had become this romanticised heroic myth in the British media and British culture, Queen Victoria let it be leaked, to put it mildly probably what had happened and yet she sympathised with the fate of Gordon and the whole story and the mythology around Gordon grew. Within a year, Gladstone was out of power, together with his cabinet. So an ironic twist of fate in history, you know, the very one he tried to minimise and deny eventually came back to bite him. Gladstone, you know, through the Victoria’s intervention, if you like and the mythical romantic story of the heroism of Gordon grew and grew and grew huge, similar in the way of the Battle at Isandlwana, you know, the mythical understandings of the Zulus and so many, so many others. You know, we have examples in history. You know, never underestimate the ironies of the historical story that I think can happen and what fictionalised film tries to show, because we have the advantage of hindsight. So we can see in a fictionalised film the, if you like, conceptual essence of what is going on in these battles. So historically the film is a bit of a hit and miss. Historically it takes huge poetic licence with serious, you know, problem areas, but I think the essence is there, of these themes and ideas that I’ve been trying to mention and that last point again about that painting is so symbolic because it’s how it would’ve been done in painting in our times, of course done by the iPhone or the internet, how we will romanticise and mythify certain people who become heroes of our culture and embedded in our collective memories, in this case as part of the story of the coloniser and the colonised. Okay, I’m going to hold it there, thank you and we’ll go onto questions.
Q&A and Comments:
Monica, the name attracted me. “I’m from Khartoum,” oh amazing and all families, “Have all my register families listening.” Oh, I wish I’d known that from the beginning. That’d be fascinating to hear more.
Monica, if you could perhaps email me and, you know, maybe some more interesting things to explore there in your relatives and family and you’re from Khartoum.
Mavis, okay, you can see, can you see? Okay, can we, just adjust your computer? I hope it was able to.
“Film seems to be the type of, or re-release.” Okay, I’m not sure what that is, Yana, I’ll check that. Thanks Mavis.
Yana, “Reviewer writes by Steven Farrell seven months ago. The title, true story is a contradiction.” Yep. Which I think we’ve spoken about today. Gordon, who died is true, the story, yeah and Olivier historically we’ve got to, yeah, but I want to suggest as you’re saying here, and great action, yeah, there is a lot that’s corny as I’ve said, Yana and Alfred, you spot on, I agree. A lot that’s corny, a lot of problems in the film, a lot that isn’t historically accurate. I dunno if there’s no evidence that Gordon and the Mahdi actually met and other things as well, but again, with the benefit of hindsight, with a historical film, film based on history, we try to get the fault lines, the interesting areas that can communicate to an audience today or at least of the 1990s and today is something of these, the real conflicts that are going on aside from the ham aspects, the acting, some of the writing, some of the film shots, et cetera and why they still become worthwhile, what we can learn through film or fiction or literature today.
Marlina, “It’s always forgotten there was colonisation from these other cultures.” Absolutely. The Moors in Spain, African tribes against each other completely. I mean the Zulus certainly, ruthlessly colonised many others smaller tribes, the Mughals in India, Ottoman, all of them, absolutely and I agree the word colonisation is used in this emotionally charged way and that’s why I’ve tried to spend time at the beginning, being specific about what we mean by superior and inferior, the self and the other.
Exactly how are the two portrayed in that binary? Because they do come down to a binary narrative ultimately and how, what are their nuance, how they’re portrayed, and how are they sold to their own publics either way. whichever side of the coin, you know, that’s the collective story that is received by both sides. Absolutely Marlina.
Okay, Ron, great, yeah, thank you. William, “Commercialise first,” “diamonds, spices, luxury for the ruling class,” absolutely, spot on, William. “Anglo Egyptian Sudan, I remembered quite in my youth in 1950s. So Egypt, a coloniser.” Yep. Well the Egyptian certainly colonised, okay, if go back thousands of years as well.
Katherine, “Astonishing coincidence. I’ve been at a parade at Gordon’s school today.” Good god, that’s extraordinary Catherine.
“Where my granddaughter took part, the school was founded in 1885” that’s when the battle happened, “to commemorate General Gordon to educate children the virtues that Gordon exemplified. In a prominent position, overlooking the sports ground is a magnificent bronze statue of General Gordon, mounted on a camel.” That’s extraordinary.
Catherine, as you say, it’s an astonishing coincidence. This is remarkable lockdown, you meet people of so many ilks and so many places. 40, 50 countries around the world, people in lockdown and it’s a real community as Wendy and Trudy, you know, say. It’s completely it. That’s great, Katherine. Thank you. It’s fascinating.
Monica. “It stood in front of the post office, which was a colonial building.” That’s extraordinary. Thanks.
Sunny, “The film was released in the sixties.” Yes, thanks for that, thanks for the correction that I saw there in the typing earlier.
Q: Myrna, “What do you think of four feathers? That shows the savage versus the civilised Brit.”
A: Yeah, very much so.
Romaine, “Romantic solutions fail to allow for irreconcilable differences.” Yes, I agree. Well, “Khartoum” released at '66, thanks. It was a mistake there, yeah, yeah and as many Jewish people left, absolutely. “When son sees photos of Khartoum today,” couldn’t agree more, you know, and the biggest famine happening in the world today is happening in the Sudan, as I’m sure many know, we all know and the Jews were forced to convert to Islam, as you’re saying, Marlina tragically, yes.
Q: Josie, “You mentioned 'Passage to India.’ Will you cast your lens further on British colonialism, fascination with the exotic and India?”
A: Yes, Victorian and Abdul absolutely.
“Old man Batum, or his biography, love affair between his wife, Edwina and Niru.” Yes, absolutely. We would look at a British empire with India, with parts of Africa, with Afghanistan even, you know, with here as well, these parts, I’m calling it because it would’ve fitted the 1880s parts of Arabia.
Myrna, “The sweet perfumes of Arabia,” the Shakespeare’s line, so it’s going with that sensual, mythical, if you like, primitive sense of Arabia goes way back, the Arabian nights, the intrigue, that’s the other.
Myrna, “Historically the issue was never solved and Sudan’s BMS,” absolutely. Josie, “Attenborough’s ‘Gandhi.’” Well that would be a brilliant one to look at and take a couple of sessions, I think, to look at that remarkable form by Attenborough on Gandhi. Thanks for that.
Rita, thank you, appreciate your comments. Thank you and yeah, very kind.
Katherine, “Famous painting hangs in the chapel at Gordon’s school.” Yes. Thanks for that, Katherine.
Q: Barbara, “Please compare British colonisation with Russian imperialism of today.”
A: That is fascinating. I think we, you know, I know Trudy has mentioned to me if I’ll do a series, which I will do on British colonisation, Russian imperialism of today and the past and looking at imperialism and colonisation in different historical contexts and how some of them were portrayed in paintings or films or literature as well. That’s a great idea, Barbara. Thanks.
James, hope you well? “Great performance by Olivier,” yeah. “White actor would not be cast,” exactly. Okay, I don’t believe in the, so-called authentic casting. You know, I have multiple sclerosis, I’ve had it for over 40 years. If somebody was to act somebody with MS, I would need a good actor. It wouldn’t need to me, have a person who has MS. I think that’s ridiculous, frankly. I think acting is about acting, you know, you got to have a good actor to play the part. It’s not about whether they have been a Scottish murderous general called Macbeth, or they have been a lady in order to play Lady Macbeth, or they need to have been a religious leader, whatever, you know, we can go on and on and on. I think it destroys the whole art and craft and meaning of what an actor is. “Truly the best actor,” I agree with you completely, James.
“Best actor is cast regardless of anything else.” You know, this modern obsession, authenticity. Yeah, it’s part of, you know, woke and yeah and in Hollywood and a lot of live theatre as well. You know, part of it is influenced by it. I go with whoever’s the horses for courses, whoever’s the best for the part you cast, simple.
Ron, hope you well Ron. “‘Khartoum’ was produced by Julian Blaustein, Harvard graduate, who made US army training films in the war, Second World War, went on to work for David Selznick, anti-war messages.” That’s great, thank you. Really interesting. Let’s jump here. It’s jump a bit. Then Erica. “Colonialism is indefensible. There’s no moral superiority in Gordon’s side.” I agree with you, Erica. It’s morally indefensible, but is it not historically inevitable? That’s the question on colonisation and therefore, because it is so part of history of societies and cultures throughout the world, that we have to deal with it, we have to look at it and see the moral dilemmas and moral ambiguities inside the phenomenon of colonisation. Great point, Erica.
Q: “Do you think the romantic view of Islam and Arabia, Arabs holds to some extent today?”
A: Yes, because I think and I’m talking about, I’m making a huge generalisation here, but I think there is a sense of romantic with it, which goes back hundreds if not thousands of years. There is that sense of the exotic oriental and where the exotic and the oriental comes in and where it doesn’t, and it can be much more ruthless and fundamentalist. It can be much less, but I think it hovers almost as a shadowy background to Islamic fundamentalism, you know, or parts of Islam in the world today and there are a billion, you know, Muslims, a billion, so we have to remember, you know, I don’t want to stereotype every single person, but I do think that something of this has echoes, possibly the unconscious, you know, again, “Raiders of the Lost Ark,” look at how the Arabian characters and Arabia is portrayed there. Molina wasn’t from Khartoum. That’s extraordinary. Could you, I’d love it if you emailed me or anything that you have family connections with Marlina and others who from Khartoum.
Yana and Alfred, “it important to note that two years later Kitchener was dispatched.” Yes and there was victory and a young Kitchener who came to, he was dispatched and it was victory and Kitchener then became Lord Kitchener, as we all know who fought in the Anglo Boer war and set up the first concentration camp in South Africa, which killed 28,000 African woman of children primarily, but he was there and the Kitchener of the First World War, it was the same young Kitchener who came finally to establish the victory in Khartoum. Marlina, “Terrible was going on in sedan.” Completely, I agree completely.
Andrea, “Please the quote from Harari,” Harari is that, Harari’s main ideas are that we need two things, that out of necessity, collective fictions are born, so out of necessity, collective stories which may be civilised and Christianize in terms of British empire in order to justify to the British back at home and the soldiers who are fighting and dying for it, that there needs to be a story. There needs to be a fiction which is believed in, linked to a religion often, but not always, a God and on the other side as well, you know, Muslim fundamentalism, fanatical, and the heathen has to be civilised and you have the combination of religion of Arab nationalism up against, you know, empire and vice versa. So it’s Harari’s idea is that these people are fighting and dying for stories and he calls them collective fictions, but we’ll do a whole talk on him later as well.
Diane, “Was fascinated by a book I had as a child, ‘The Arabian Nights,’” yes and that’s the one, you know, and I love also the interesting thing, it’s called the “Arabian Nights.” It’s not the Egyptian nights, as I said, or even the Lebanese nights or the Moroccan nights. It’s the Arabian, which has got a whole different connotation of exactly what I’ve been trying to talk about today, of, you know, of Arabia and the mystique partly.
Okay, Myrna. Yeah, okay, great. So thanks very much everybody, and hope you have a great rest of the weekend and Georgia, thanks as always, next week is “Lawrence of Arabia.”