| Gandhi | |
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Theatrical release poster |
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| Directed by | Richard Attenborough |
| Produced by | Richard Attenborough |
| Screenplay by | John Briley |
| Starring | Ben Kingsley |
| Music by | Ravi Shankar George Fenton |
| Cinematography | Billy Williams Ronnie Taylor |
| Editing by | John Bloom |
| Studio | Goldcrest Films |
| Distributed by | Columbia Pictures |
| Release date(s) | 30 November 1982 (India) 3 December 1982 (United Kingdom) |
| Running time | 191 minutes |
| Country | India United Kingdom |
| Language | Hindi English |
| Budget | $22 million |
| Box office | $52,767,889 |
Gandhi is a 1982 biographical film based on the life of Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, who led the nonviolent resistance movement against British colonial rule in India during the first half of the 20th century. The film was directed by Richard Attenborough and stars Ben Kingsley as Gandhi.[1] They both won Academy Awards for their work on the film. The film was also given the Academy Award for Best Picture and won eight Academy Awards.
It was an international co-production between production companies in India and the UK. The film premiered in New Delhi on 30 November 1982.[2]
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The screenplay of Gandhi is available as a published book.[3][4] The film opens with a statement from the filmmakers explaining their approach to the problem of filming Gandhi's complex life story:
| “ | No man's life can be encompassed in one telling. There is no way to give each year its allotted weight, to include each event, each person who helped to shape a lifetime. What can be done is to be faithful in spirit to the record and to try to find one's way to the heart of the man...[5] | ” |
The film begins with Gandhi's assassination on 30 January 1948,[4]:18-21 and his funeral.[4]:15-18 After an evening prayer, an elderly Gandhi is helped out for his evening walk to meet a large number of greeters and admirers. One of these visitors—Nathuram Godse—shoots him point blank in the chest. Gandhi exclaims, "Oh, God!" ("Hē Ram!" historically), and then falls dead. The film then cuts to a huge procession at his funeral, which is attended by dignitaries from around the world.
The early life of Gandhi is not depicted in the film. Instead, the story flashes back 55 years to a life-changing event: in 1893, the 24-year-old Gandhi is thrown off a South African train for being an Indian sitting in a first-class compartment despite having a ticket.[6] Realizing the laws are biased against Indians, he then decides to start a non-violent protest campaign for the rights of all Indians in South Africa. After numerous arrests and unwelcome international attention, the government finally relents by recognizing some rights for Indians.[7]
After this victory, Gandhi is invited back to India, where he is now considered something of a national hero. He is urged to take up the fight for India's independence (Swaraj, Quit India) from the British Empire. Gandhi agrees, and mounts a non-violent non-cooperation campaign of unprecedented scale, coordinating millions of Indians nationwide. There are some setbacks, such as violence against the protesters and Gandhi's occasional imprisonment.
Nevertheless, the campaign generates great attention, and Britain faces intense public pressure. After World War II[8] Britain finally grants Indian independence.[9] Indians celebrate this victory, but their troubles are far from over. Religious tensions between Hindus and Muslims erupt into nation-wide violence. Gandhi declares a hunger strike, saying he will not eat until the fighting stops.[10]
The fighting does stop eventually, but the country is divided by religion. It is decided that the northwest area of India, and eastern part of India (current day Bangladesh), both places where Muslims are in the majority, will become a new country called Pakistan . It is hoped that by encouraging the Muslims to live in a separate country, violence will abate. Gandhi is opposed to the idea, and is even willing to allow Muhammad Ali Jinnah to become the first prime minister of India,[11] but the Partition of India is carried out nevertheless.
Gandhi spends his last days trying to bring about peace between both nations. He thereby angers many dissidents on both sides, one of whom assassinates him in a scene at the end of the film that recalls the opening.[12]
As Godse shoots Gandhi, the film fades to black and Gandhi is heard in a voiceover, saying "Oh God". The audience then sees Gandhi's cremation; the film ending with a scene of Gandhi's ashes being scattered on the holy Ganga.[13] As this happens, we hear Gandhi in another voiceover:[14]
| “ | When I despair, I remember that all through history the way of truth and love has always won. There have been tyrants, and murderers, and for a time they can seem invincible, but in the end they always fall. Think of it--always. | ” |
As the list of actors is seen at the end, the hymn "Raghupati Raghava Raja Ram" is heard.
Shooting began on 26 November 1980 and ended on 10 May 1981. Over 300,000 extras were used in the funeral scene, the most for any film according to Guinness World Records.[15]
During pre-production, there was much speculation as to who would play the role of Gandhi.[16][17] The choice was Ben Kingsley, who is partly of Indian heritage (his father was Gujarati and his birth name is Krishna Bhanji).[18]
This film had been Richard Attenborough's dream project, although two previous attempts at filming had failed. In 1952, Gabriel Pascal secured an agreement with the Prime Minister of India (Pandit Nehru) to produce a film of Gandhi's life. However, Pascal died in 1954 before preparations were completed.[19]
In 1962 Attenborough received a phone call from Motilai Kothari, an Indian-born civil servant working with the Indian High Commission in London and a devout follower of Gandhi. Kothari insisted that Attenborough meet him to discuss a film about Gandhi.[20][21] Attenborough read Louis Fischer's biography of Gandhi and agreed and spent the next 18 years attempting to get the film made. He was able to meet Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru and his daughter Indira Gandhi through a connection with Lord Louis Mountbatten, the last Viceroy of India. Nehru approved of the film and promised to help support its production, but his death in 1964 was one of the film's many setbacks.
David Lean and Sam Spiegel had planned to make a film about Gandhi after completing The Bridge on the River Kwai, reportedly with Alec Guinness as Gandhi. Ultimately, the project was abandoned in favour of Lawrence of Arabia (1962). Attenborough reluctantly approached Lean with his own Gandhi project in the late 1960s, and Lean agreed to direct the film and offered Attenborough the lead role. Instead Lean began filming Ryan's Daughter, during which time Motilai Kothari had died and the project fell apart.[22]
Attenborough again attempted to resurrect the project in 1976 with backing from Warner Brothers. Then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi declared a state of emergency in India and shooting would be impossible. Finally in 1980 Attenborough was able to secure both the funding and locations needed to make the film. Screenwriter John Briley had introduced him to Jake Eberts, the chief executive at the new Goldcrest production company that raised approximately two-thirds of the films budget. Co-producer Rani Dube persuaded Prime Minister Indira Gandhi to provide the remaining $10 million from the India's National Film Development Corporation.[23]
Reviews were broadly positive. The film was discussed or reviewed in Newsweek,[16] Time,[24] the Washington Post,[25][26] The Public Historian,[27] Cross Currents,[28] The Journal of Asian Studies,[29] Film Quarterly,[30] and elsewhere.[31] Many years later the movie received an 88% "fresh" rating on the Rotten Tomatoes website.[32] Ben Kingsley's performance was especially praised. Historian Lawrence James[33] and anthropologist Akhil Gupta[34] were two of the few who took a more negative view of the film.
In Time, Richard Schickel wrote that in portraying Gandhi's "spiritual presence... Kingsley is nothing short of astonishing."[24]:97 A "singular virtue" of the film is that "its title figure is also a character in the usual dramatic sense of the term." Schickel viewed Attenborough's directorial style as having "a conventional handsomeness that is more predictable than enlivening," but this "stylistic self-denial serves to keep one's attention fastened where it belongs: on a persuasive, if perhaps debatable vision of Gandhi's spirit, and on the remarkable actor who has caught its light in all its seasons."[24]:97
In Newsweek, Jack Kroll stated that "There are very few movies that absolutely must be seen. Sir Richard Attenborough's Gandhi is one of them."[16] The movie "deals with a subject of great importance... with a mixture of high intelligence and immediate emotional impact... [and] Ben Kingsley... gives what is possibly the most astonishing biographical performance in screen history." Kroll stated that the screenplay's "least persuasive characters are Gandhi's Western allies and acolytes" such as an English cleric and an American journalist, but that "Attenborough's 'old-fashioned' style is exactly right for the no-tricks, no-phony-psychologizing quality he wants."[16] Furthermore, Attenborough
mounts a powerful challenge to his audience by presenting Gandhi as the most profound and effective of revolutionaries, creating out of a fierce personal discipline a chain reaction that led to tremendous historical consequences. At a time of deep political unrest, economic dislocation and nuclear anxiety, seeing "Gandhi" is an experience that will change many minds and hearts.[16]
According to the Museum of Broadcast Communications there was "a cycle of film and television productions which emerged during the first half of the 1980s, which seemed to indicate Britain's growing preoccupation with India, Empire and a particular aspect of British cultural history".[35] In addition to Gandhi, this cycle also included Heat and Dust (1983), Octopussy (1983), The Jewel in the Crown (1984), The Far Pavilions (1984) and A Passage to India (1984).
The film won eight Academy Awards and was nominated for three more:[36]
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