Khartoum - Aufstand am Nil

SPOILERS.

I first saw this some years ago and found it impressive but maybe I've seen Lawrence of Arabia too often in the interim. It owes a lot of Lawrence, appearing as it did four years after. As in Lawrence,a lone British officer is sent to the desert to set things straight. He's mysterious, a paradox. He rides camels and gets into battles with the enemy. He fails in his mission.

Well, Charlton Heston as "Chinese" Gordon doesn't really seem too mysterious when you come down to it, even though he himself tells us, "My life is not an open book. Not to you, not to any man. Not even to myself." Yet he's a pretty normal guy. People keep calling him "vain" behind his back but it doesn't seem like vanity to me when you're trapped behind the lines and expect the British, who sent you there in the first place, to come and get you out.

Actually Heston is pretty good. His mass is imposing. His uniforms are splendiferous. His acting doesn't shoot out the lights but he's convincing because Gordon is well within his range. Olivier, as the Mahdi, "the expected one," the kind of rabid charismatic warrior that religions seem to generate on a regular basis, gives a little better performance because, let's face it, he's a more efficient ham. You killed to prevent killing, he tells Gorden. "I kill to prevent more killing. Tell me, Gordon Pasha, where is the difference?" And he holds both his hands up and gives them a little twist, while looking slyly out of the corner of his eyes at Heston. For Heston such techniques would be infra dig. Olivier plays this in blackface, by the way. All of the Egyptians, as well as the Sudanese, are in blackface. Man, these Egyptians are dark. Not just swarthy. Not even dark like sub-Saharan Africa is dark, but a shiny bluish-black like a freshly polished boot.

It's not a bad film and it does describe Gordon and his predicament in intelligible terms. We're never at a loss for what's going on. But Lawrence of Arabia, inevitably, keeps springing to mind. And Khartoum seems plodding by comparison, especially in the direction. You may remember, to take a single example, the scene in which Lawrence and his irregulars blow up a train and then puncture the cars with machine gun bullets. Lawrence shouts for them to cease fire because the passenger cars are being turned into lacework. Nobody hears him, so he fires a flare. No one pays attention, so Lawrence must run out in front of his own guns screaming at his men to stop shooting. Finally the firing sputters raggedly to a stop.

There's nothing like that here. In this movie, Gordon generals a battle on horseback with the Madhi's supporters and everybody -- every one of the extras -- runs to his mark and does what he's supposed to. The battles are full of the same extras in long shot, slashing away at each other with scimitars or whatever they are. Nobody seems to get dirty. The dialogue is strictly functional. And one has to think of Lean's USE of the desert setting. That fulsomely ominous vermilion sun peeking up over the flat spirit level of a horizon at dawn. We have the desert here too, but it might almost have been a painted backdrop. It isn't a presence. Dearden uses a lot of swooping helicopter shots as if to say, "Wow -- what a vast emptiness." But we don't get to KNOW it. We don't get to see its rocks or its animals or is leisurely dust devils. It might as well be a studio jungle as a desert.

The score is good, though. It borrows from Eric Wolfgang Korngold but it's effective -- sweeping, majestic, and rife with breast-bursting button-popping imperial sentiment.

In the end it's a watchable epic movie. If you haven't seen Lawrence of Arabia, rent the two of them and show them in succession -- if you can stay awake that long. It's the difference between a good-enough movie and a great movie.

As a writer and actor, I found "Khartoum" to be a fascinating project. And even if the producers never solved all of the fictionalized biography's inherent questions and problems entirely, the resulting cinematic feature came out I suggest as intelligent, literate, thoughtful, a film very much worth seeing more than once. The chief question about George Gordon, a pseudo-religious colonial general, administrator and enigmatic character is whether he really championed the subjects of Britain's evil Empire or whether he just wanted them quietly subjected; there is much evidence on both sides of the question. In the film, for filmic purposes, we assume he is genuine; that he is in fact jeopardizing his own life at low odds doing something most political experts consider impossible because he cares about the Sudanese and their (we assume) more-hopeful future under British rule than under that of a pseudo-religious murderous and highly-intelligent zealot. Nothing, I suggest, could be more timely for men to consider not long after the 9/11 attacks staged by the Mahdi's equally-repulsive spiritual brethren than the real attitude of the imperialist power of the last century targeted by a rival imperialist have-not Musilim fanatic. If we assume, as the screenplay's author Robert Ardrey would have us believe, that the core truth about Gordon was that he cared about responsibility more than about playing Establishment politics, playing leader or staying alive, then the man is definitely worth making a film about, and worthy his place in history. After an interesting but leisurely exposition of the region and the background to the Nile, the Sudan and its peoples, replete with lovely scenes, and a narration read by the great actor Leo Genn, we witness the destruction of an ill-officered British army by the forces of The Expected One, a dangerous new religious rebel. Back in England, Horace Gladstone, Prime Minister and Machiavellian politician, is appalled. There seems to be no solution to his problem of what to do next, until someone suggests getting General "Chinese" Gordon to risk his life opposing the new fanatic. They believe he would have to be crazy to do so; they tell him so. He agrees to go. So with no plan and what he discovers is a pat hand dealt by Fate against him, he heads to Egypt. He tries to get the slaver whose son he killed and whose power he reduced to be governor of the Sudan; the man refuses, angrily. He finds the Mahdi making headway, but he is received by the British in Khartoum and the populace as a savior. "It's good to be home," he tells them. But in truth, he is in a hornet's nest. Eventually, he has to pack all the foreigners out, and then he must fortify the city on the Nile; wait out the flood season while its heights keeps the invaders away, and eventually also he must conduct a great raid 1. to deprive the Mahdi of supplies; and 2. to provision the city. Then there is a wait--as a relief army by a reluctant Gladstone is trained, and straggles up the Nile to relieve him--three days too late. The film is beautifully-made. My only complaint is that we hardly see Khartoum at all after the initial welcoming scene. Every other scene in the film is to me like seeing history brought to life. The two great invented scenes--a meeting between Gordon and Gladstone and a meeting between the Mahdi and Gordon are the best dramatic scenes in the film in my judgment; if they did not happen, they certainly should have. Basil Dearden's direction to me is admirable in every respect; atmosphere goes past style in difficult and reward-level; this film is frequently atmospheric. The art direction by John Howell and the cinematography by veteran Edward Scaife are both outstanding. Yakima Canutt of Ben-Hur chariot -race fame directed the elaborate battle scenes. Pamela Cornell was the chief set dresser. In the cast are Charlton Heston trying very hard and frequently succeeding as Gordon, even though he cannot quite do a British accent. As the Mahdi, Olivier is award level, making spare but telling use of his wide arsenal as an actor; he used his Moorish success as "Othello" to flesh out a most memorable monster. In the cast, Richard Johnson is very good, Ralph Richardson, Nigel Green, Michael Hordern and Alexander Knox are outstanding. My favorite scene is the great meeting between Gordon and the Mahdi; but there are others--the great roundup, the arrival, Gordon and his servant (Johnny Sekka) in several maddening attempts to gain information, the great reception and the Prime Minister's meeting, the annihilation of William Hicks's army, etc. I find this is a very underrated film, made by adults perhaps too late to find an audience capable of appreciating its full values.

Charles George Gordon was one of those eccentric individualists like Lawrence of Arabia who spring up in British history. He was a deeply religious man who spent most of his hard-earned salary (he often accepted *less* pay than he was offered) on charitable work. He helped the poor, educating destitute boys and providing pensions for the elderly. The grafitto 'God Bless the Kernel (Colonel)' was often seen scrawled on walls near his home.

He was also distrusted by the Establishment. A brilliant tactician and commander of troops he was constantly passed over for postings abroad because he was unpredictable. When he was asked to report on the grievances of the Basuto people by the British administration in South Africa, he sided with the Basuto and was shipped home very quickly. As Captain Willard says in 'Apocalypse Now': "They didn't dig what he had to tell them." You have to remember, too, that Gordon was a national hero. This was like firing Norman Schwarzkopf after the Gulf War.

The film fails to touch the depths of Gordon's character and in some cases is well off the mark (Charlton Heston seems far too interested in that Egyptian dancer!). We are shown that Gordon could be ruthless in the pursuit of justice (he executes a servant for theft, regardless of any personal feelings).

The fact remains that Gordon was a man of enormous moral and physical courage. He would not desert Khartoum and leave the people to be slaughtered. It now seems likely (and more in character) that he died fighting to the end.

The film is a tribute to that courage and some of the best moments occur when we are allowed to see the twinges of self-doubt and anxiety that Gordon suffered and overcame. The well-staged action scenes are like decoration on the moral diemmas at the heart of the film. Charlton Heston is physically wrong for the part but gives one of his best performances. He isn't outclassed by Olivier in any way, an achievement in itself.

This film, which I saw in downtown Detroit when I was eight years old,remains one of my all-time favorites.Its a little talky, a little pretentious, but still grand fun, with exciting battle sequences, wonderful, over the top performances,and a truly stirring, if corny score. Robert Ardrey, notorious theorist of the "territorial imperative",wrote the script, and Basil Dearden directed. Martin Scorsese once listed it among his guilty pleasures.

The siege of Khartoum and its loss under General Charles "Chinese" Gordon is one of those epic tales the Victorians loved. Gordon was such a flamboyant character that even Hollywood could not match him. "Khartoum" gives us the Victorian Epic while at the same time the seedier backroom Victorian politics that essentially sent Gordon to his death along with the citizens of Khartoum. Charleton Heston is quite good as Gordon ably giving us the many enigmatic facets of the real man's character. But even that falls short as I think Gordon is too complex a character for any actor. Olivier in black face as the Mahdi may offend the political correctness crowd but his performance is excellent, fair and avoids lapsing into carricature. The physical production is quite impressive with 2nd unit director Yakima Canut staging some very impressive battle scenes. If you want a sequel to this film than I would recommend the original 1930's version of "The Four Feathers" (which stared a very young John Gielgud) which takes place some 10 years after the events of "Khartoum" and centers on the retaking of the Sudan. Interesting to have a "sequel" come 30 years before. There is a TV remake of "The Four Feathers". Avoid it like the plague!