Confetti of Empire: The Conquest of Everest in Nepal, India, Britain, and New Zealand

Abstract

The Conquest of Everest, the official film of the first ascent of Mount Everest, opens with the famous summit photograph of Tenzing Norgay holding aloft his ice axe, from which the flags of Britain, Nepal, India, and the United Nations flutter in the wind. Tenzing, a Sherpa raised in Nepal but for twenty years a resident of India, reached the summit with Edmund Hillary, a New Zealand beekeeper, on 29 May 1953, in a British expedition led by Colonel John Hunt. In the film, the summit photograph is followed by the opening credits and the scene in London on 2 June 1953, when news of the ascent was announced on the same day as Queen Elizabeth II's coronation. As crowds wave British flags to the beat of military bands, the Queen's gilded carriage rolls through ceremonial archways on the streets of London. The narrator then announces: “And to add to the cheers, the newspapers reported an extra of extras. Britain had one new victory: Men had climbed Mount Everest.”The Conquest of Everest, (1953), National Film and Television Archive, British Film Institute, London.