THE ROYAL HUNT OF THE SUN

UK, 1969, 105 minutes, Colour.
Robert Shaw, Christopher Plummer, Nigel Davenport, Michael Craig, Leonard Whiting, Andrew Keir, James Donald.
Directed by Irving Lerner.

The Royal Hunt of the Sun 1s based on Peter Shaffer's successful stage play. (Shaffer is the author of Five Finger Exercise, The Public Eye and the Private Ear.) The film has a certain staginess which it compensates for by use of the widescreen and some outdoor sequences of forced march and a slow motion massacre of the Incas by the Spaniards.

The film is an intellectual pageant. The Spanish court, the expedition in Peru and the Inca court are fine to look at. But the play appeals to the intellect in its issues and in its sometimes caustically witty dialogue. The play centres on the equal antagonists, the low-born, arrogant, ambitious, courageous sceptic, Francisco Pizzaro, the adventurer who decided to march into Peru and rob the Incas' gold and achieve immortality and the illegitimate, royal usurper, the religious-superstitious, powerful and coolly ambitious, Atahualpa, the Inca adventurer king. This personal war and friendship is developed with a sense of fate, destiny.

But old world colonialism, both political and religious, is the target of criticism. The facts are against a fair interpretation: the men chosen to go on such endurance tests as these expeditions could not afford to be over-sensitive or over-scrupulous. Hence we are given the picture of a proud Spain, with the blessing of the Pope, calmly conquering a people, taking their wealth, and their lives, and imposing their religious beliefs. The nature of true religion is strongly questioned, and few answers are forthcoming. The paradox of the rising of Christ and the failure of Atahualpa to rise is part of the climax of the play.

Robert Shaw fits Pizzaro well, although his shouting seems a kind of ranting at times. Christopher Plummer, in a tour-de-force, will surprise those who have only a Sound of Music memory of him. (His versatility can be seen in his aristocratic Wellington in Waterloo and his English fop in Lock up Your Daughters.

A most interesting film, shocking in its re-presentation of a callous period of history, providing a great deal to discuss.

1. What did the title mean?

2. Was it obvious that this film was baaed on a play? Did any staginess spoil the film?

3. The film has been described as an intellectual pageant. Is this a good description?

4. What did the Spanish court scene communicate about Pizzarro, his ambitions and his standing with the Spanish court?

5. How arrogant was the judgment of Charles V in allowing the expedition, demanding a fifth of the gold, yet offering no help, except two friars to baptise the heathens?

6. Was the film anti-religious? What stance did it take on religion, on Christianity? Did it justify its stance? (Does it agree with history?)

7. What right had the Spaniards to consider that their expedition was a civilised and Christian expedition?

8. What kind of persons were:

• Pizzaro - adventurer, bastard, despised by nobility, courageous, ambitious, sceptical,
• The King's representative - arrogant, loyal to the monarchy, cruel - note his confession scene,
• De Soto - courtier, honourable, a man of his word, a friend, yet sharing the Spanish, arrogance and cruelty,
• Martin - young, a reflection of what Pizzaro might have been, idealising - Pizzaro warns him against it; why did he really want to go on the expedition?
• The mercenaries - riff-raff assuming the right to invade Peru for gold and slaughter the Incas. Did they have any genuine motivation or real justification for the expedition?
• The Dominican - Inquisitor, his Christian arrogance and assumption of divine right to judge, stern,
• The Franciscan - seemingly more reasonable, yet filled with fear of evil and Satan, joyless and cruel.

9. What impression did the Incas make? Why did they not resist the invaders?

10. Was the slow-motion slaughter of the Incas right for this film? Why? What impression did it make? (What impression would it have made if filmed at normal speed?)

11. Atahualpa - what kind of man was he - civilised or savage? the parallels with Pizzaro - bastard, usurper; was this parallel developed well in the drama? the struggle as a confrontation of equals?

12. Why did Atahualpa and Pizzaro become friends?

13. What dilemmas did Pizzaro face in keeping his word for Atahualpa's freedom?

14. What should Pizzaro have done once the gold was collected and the men ready to go?

15. Why did the Spaniards want the Inca king's death?

16. Discuss Pizzaro 's confrontations with the Dominican and the Franciscan: the Dominican's horror at Pizzaro's likening himself to a God and Pizzaro's retort that the friar assumed divine rights in judging. "Would Christ have killed the Inca?" The Franciscan's plea that men must know that they are unequal and to preserve love in the world, lovelessness (paganism, Satan in the Incas) must be destroyed?

17. How fair a trial did the Spaniards give Atahualpa?

18. Did Pizzaro believe that Atahualpa would rise again? Why did he hope that he would?

19. How effective was the vigil sequence and the waiting for the sun to warm the king, then the ritual heralding the death of the Inca Empire?

20. The play was written in the 1960s. Was it merely for historical reconstruction or are the issues still relevant? Which issues? Why?