The Voortrekkers: A Cinematographic Reflection of Rising Afrikaner Nationalism

THE VOORTREKKERS; A CINEMATOGRAPHIC REFLECTION OF RISING AFRIKANER NATIONALISM By Elizabeth Grotti e Strebel With the focus of the world's attention increasingly fixed on South Africa and the confrontation between Black and Afrikaner nationalism, it is interesting to highlight a film instrumental in fostering the growth of Afrikaans consciousness in the period just after the Anglo-Boer War. This film was The Voortrekkers made in 1916 by Harold Shaw of the London Film Company who went out to South Africa to shoot the film for African Film Productions J The film is very much a South African Birth of a Nation. Although The Voortrekkers lacks the brilliant cinematography, particularly the innovative editing techniques of Birth of a Nation, there are striking similarities between the two films. Both films were conceived of on a grand scale, unprecedented in their respective countries in terms of production costs and effort. Both films are historical epics. The narrative of The Voortrekkers traces the events of the Great Trek of Boer emigrants from the Cape to Natal in 1837, the massacre of Voortrekker leader Piet Retief and his party by the Zulus under Dingaan and the subsequent Boer retaliation and victory over the Zulus in the Battle of Blood River on December 16, 1838. The celebration of the Afrikaans people who had just been so decisively defeated in the Anglo-Boer War (1899-1902) is analagous to Griffith's championing of the proud but defeated American Southerners. In both films, the conscious attempt is made to rehabilitate the defeated group. The Voortrekkers reveals a deft psychological transference , whereby dominance over the Blacks replaces a failure to dominate the British. Another point of similarity between The Voortrekkers and Elizabeth Gnottle Strebel has earned a Ph.D. In Hlstony fanom Pnlnceton University. Hen article on "French Social Cinema ofa the 1930s and the Populan Fnont," which appeared In the Journal ofa Contemponany Hlstony In 1977, was based on her dissertation. 25 Birth of a Nation is that both rebound with classic dichotomous stereotypes of the Black man, the faithful servant vs. the barbarous free and independent Black. However, whereas Birth of a Nation engendered a great deal of controversy upon its release and Griffith was, in certain quarters, vigorously attacked for his racism, The Voortrekkers was greeted with near universal acclaim by White South Africans, thus sowing the seeds for the 1948 counter-revolution. The Voortrekkers must be seen in the context of Afrikaners striving to achieve their own identity, to establish themselves as a unique people with their own history, leaders, religion, commemorative days in the face of their subjugation at the hands of the British. The very titles of the film contributed to the Afrikaans language movement, as it was the first South African film to use titles in both English and Afrikaans on a split screen. 2 Although as early as 1877, S. J. du Toit had written Die Geskiedenis van ons Land in die Taal van ons Volks (The History of Our Country in the Language of Its People), only in 1918 was Afrikaans raised to the level of an official language of the Union and only in 1925 did it replace Dutch as one of the languages of Parliament. It is thus in the period immediately after the Anglo-Boer War, when for example poet Eugene Marais first began writing in the vernacular, that the Afrikaans revival experienced its real flowering, and it is of this revival that The Voortrekkers is reflective. The film was essentially the inspiration of Dr. Gustav Preller, one of the pioneers of the Afrikaans language movement and the author of a number of books including the standard biography of Piet Retief and the series Voortrekker Mense. Preller took great pains in checking the authenticity of props,, costumes, and in general the historically verifiable aspects of production. Clearly, most of his attention focused on the role of the whites where a high degree of authenticity was achieved. The portrait of the Zulus, on the other hand, is impressionistic, inaccurate, and riddled with stereotypes. No expense was spared in the shooting of the film. For the Battle of Blood River scene, an artificial river holding some 10 million...