name	Gandhi
director	Richard Attenborough
producer	Richard Attenborough
screenplay	John Briley
starring	Ben Kingsley
music	Ravi ShankarGeorge Fenton
cinematography	Billy WilliamsRonnie Taylor
editing	John Bloom
studio	Goldcrest Films
distributor	Columbia Pictures
released
runtime	191 minutes
language	HindiEnglish
country
budget	$22 million
gross	$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. 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.

Synopsis

The screenplay of ''Gandhi'' is available as a published book. The film opens with a statement from the filmmakers explaining their approach to the problem of filming Gandhi's complex life story:

The film begins with Gandhi's assassination on 30 January 1948, and his funeral. 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. 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.

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 Britain finally grants Indian independence. 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.

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, 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.

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. As this happens, we hear Gandhi in another voiceover:

As the list of actors is seen at the end, the hymn "Raghupati Raghava Raja Ram" is heard.

Production

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''.

Cast

During pre-production, there was much speculation as to who would play the role of Gandhi. The choice was Ben Kingsley, who is partly of Indian heritage (his father was Gujarati and his birth name is Krishna Bhanji).

Ben Kingsley as Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi

Rohini Hattangadi as Kasturba Gandhi

Roshan Seth as Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru

Saeed Jaffrey as Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel

Virendra Razdan as Maulana Azad

Candice Bergen as Margaret Bourke-White

Edward Fox as Brigadier General Reginald Dyer

John Gielgud as Baron Irwin

Trevor Howard as Judge R. S. Broomfield, the presiding judge in Gandhi's sedition trial.

John Mills as Lord Chelmsford

Shane Rimmer as Commentator

Martin Sheen as Vince Walker, a fictional journalist based partially on Webb Miller.

Ian Charleson as Reverend Charles Freer Andrews

Athol Fugard as General Jan Smuts

Günther Maria Halmer as Dr. Herman Kallenbach

Geraldine James as Mirabehn (Madeleine Slade)

Alyque Padamsee as Muhammad Ali Jinnah

Amrish Puri as Khan

Dilsher Singh as Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan (Frontier Gandhi)

Ian Bannen as Senior Officer Fields

Richard Griffiths as Collins

Nigel Hawthorne as Kinnoch

Richard Vernon as Sir Edward Gait, Lieutenant-Governor of Bihar and Orissa

Michael Hordern as Sir George Hodge

Shreeram Lagoo as Gopal Krishna Gokhale

Terrence Hardiman as Ramsay MacDonald

Om Puri as Nahari

Bernard Hill as Sergeant Putnam

Daniel Day-Lewis as Colin, a young man who insults Gandhi and Andrews

John Ratzenberger as American Lt. Driver for Bourke-White

Precursors and achievement

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.

Later David Lean and Sam Spiegel planned to make a film about Gandhi after completing ''The Bridge on the River Kwai'' (1957), reportedly with Alec Guinness as Gandhi. Ultimately, the project was abandoned in favour of ''Lawrence of Arabia'' (1962). It was only when co-producer, Rani Dube persuaded Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, to provide the first $10 million from the India Government on the back of which the rest of the film's funds were raised that the film became possible.

Response

Reviews were broadly positive. The film was discussed or reviewed in ''Newsweek'', ''Time'', the ''Washington Post'', ''The Public Historian'', ''Cross Currents'', ''The Journal of Asian Studies'', ''Film Quarterly'', and elsewhere. Many years later the movie received an 88% "fresh" rating on the Rotten Tomatoes website. Ben Kingsley's performance was especially praised. Historian Lawrence James and anthropologist Akhil Gupta 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." 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 then 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."

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." 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." 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.

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". 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).

Awards and nominations

55th Academy Awards

*Best Picture

*Best Director (Richard Attenborough)

*Best Original Screenplay (John Briley)

*Best Film Editing (John Bloom)

*Best Actor in a Leading Role (Ben Kingsley)

*Best Art Direction

*Best Cinematography

*Best Costume Design

Golden Globe Award for Best Foreign Language Film

David di Donatello for Best Foreign Film

See also

BFI Top 100 British films

Civil resistance

List of historical drama films of Asia

Nonviolent resistance

Satyagraha

References

External links

4 Speeches from Movie in Text, Audio, Video from AmericanRhetoric.com

Movie script

Gallery of photos from the set of ''Gandhi''

''Gandhi'' 25 Year Reunion, filmed BAFTA event with cast and crew (3 December 2007)

Category:1982 films Category:British films Category:Indian films Category:English-language films Category:Hindi-language films Category:Media related to Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi Category:1980s drama films Category:Best Foreign Language Film Golden Globe winners Category:Best Picture Academy Award winners Category:Biographical films Category:British drama films Category:British Indian films Category:Columbia Pictures films Category:English-language Indian films Category:Epic films Category:Films based on actual events Category:Films directed by Richard Attenborough Category:Films featuring a Best Actor Academy Award winning performance Category:Films set in India Category:Films set in South Africa Category:Films set in the 1890s Category:Films set in the 1900s Category:Films set in the 1910s Category:Films set in the 1920s Category:Films set in the 1930s Category:Films set in the 1940s Category:Films set in the Indian independence movement Category:Films shot anamorphically Category:Films whose art director won the Best Art Direction Academy Award Category:Films whose cinematographer won the Best Cinematography Academy Award Category:Films whose director won the Best Director Academy Award Category:Films whose director won the Best Director Golden Globe Category:Films whose editor won the Best Film Editing Academy Award Category:Films whose writer won the Best Original Screenplay Academy Award Category:Goldcrest Films films Category:Films set in the partition of India

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