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- Title: Africa, Buddies, Diamonds, Politics, And Gold: A Comparison of the Films Blood Diamond (2006) and Gold! (1974) (Critical Essay)
- Author : Nebula
- Release Date : January 01, 2010
- Genre: Reference,Books,
- Pages : * pages
- Size : 358 KB
Description
Hollywood has rediscovered Africa again in such recent films as Beyond Borders (2003), Tears of the Sun (2003), Hotel Rwanda (2004), The Constant Gardener (2005), The Last King of Scotland (2006), and Blood Diamond (2006). All of them portray Africa as the most violent, scary, and apocalyptic hell on earth, teeming with tribal rivalries, unimaginable atrocities, genocide, murderous dictators, poverty, disease, corrupt governments, and children transformed into brutal, stoned killers. (i) Blood Diamond is an adventure story set in Sierra Leone during the civil wars of the 1990s and it surpasses the other films in portraying gut-wrenching violence and sadism, yet it also sets out to give a history lesson on child soldiers, conflict diamonds, and the complicity of the diamond monopoly in helping to create these horrors that still plague Africa, or as film reviewer William Arnold wrote, it is a "multicaret message movie." (ii) Gold! (1974) a film made thirty-two years earlier, deals with another commodity that has transfixed humanity since it was first brought out of the earth, and along with diamonds, a crucial part of the mineral revolution that transformed the history of South Africa. This action-adventure thriller set in the greed-ridden and dangerous world of South African gold mining also features a story of capitalist villainy. An international syndicate plots to flood a gold mine in South Africa thus forcing up the price of the precious commodity on the world gold markets. Glitter, greed, adventure, action, violence, evil international cartels, love-interests, black-white buddies, and South African filming locations mark both films. They are also well intentioned about showing how Africa's mineral resources are exploited and used for the benefit of the developed world. Blood Diamond uses a little guilt trip political message, while Gold! ignores the grim realities of mine life and glosses over the white-black relationships in apartheid South Africa. Peter Hunt's Gold! was the first of Roger Moore's trio of South African films, along with Shout at the Devil(1976) and The Wild Geese (1978). It's very much a film of its time, the mid-seventies--where the villains are easy to spot--they wash their hands, don't smoke and aren't any good in the sack, i.e., Bradford Dillman as Manfred Steyner (also recognizable as "Dirty Harry's" priggish boss in The Enforcer, 1976). While the good guys--Roger Moore as mining engineer Rod Slater--aren't afraid of getting dirty or sleeping with the boss's wife, Susanna York as Terry Steyner. John Gielgud does a turn as Farrell, head of the syndicate that wants to corner the gold market. Ray Milland plays Harry Hirschfield, the mine owner. About this part, Milland said, "I added up my films the other day, and they've got to be nearly 200, I've done six in the past 20 months. This (Gold!) is the kind of part I like, a good easy role without too much hard work in it. A little character to it. I'm not after any more Oscars, hell no!" (iii) Gold! is a Michael Klinger production, with Peter Hunt as director, and the screenplay by Stanley Price and Wilbur Smith (from his novel Goldmine). Along with Moore and Hunt the credits are littered with many of the regular James Bond team most of whom would go through the same flooding the mine routine again in A View to a Kill (1985). The hiking up the price of gold premise is also borrowed from Goldfinger (1964), although a tad more credible than setting off a nuclear bomb in Fort Knox. Moore took the role of Rod Slater after his first James Bond film, hoping the part would cement his credentials as an action star. One interesting piece of trivia involves Roger Moore's initial reluctance to accept the part, owing to the character being a cigarette smoker (he had recently stopped smoking cigarettes and switched to Monte Cristo cigars). As it was necessary for Rod Slater's character to smoke cigarettes rather than cigars, Moore's objection was over ruled, though