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 and produced by Sir Richard Attenborough and stars Ben Kingsley as Gandhi.^[2] 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.^[3]

Plot[link]

The screenplay of Gandhi is available as a published book.^[4][5] 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,^[5]:18-21 and his funeral.^[5]: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.^[7] 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.^[8]

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^[9] Britain finally grants Indian independence.^[10] 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.^[11]

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,^[12] 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.^[13]

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.^[14] As this happens, we hear Gandhi in another voiceover:^[15]

As the list of actors is seen at the end, the hymn "Vaishnava Janato" is heard.

Production[link]

This section requires expansion.

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.^[16]

Cast[link]

During pre-production, there was much speculation as to who would play the role of Gandhi.^[17][18] The choice was Ben Kingsley, who is partly of Indian heritage (his father was Gujarati and his birth name is Krishna Bhanji).^[19]

• 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
• Anang Desai as Acharya Kripalani
• Candice Bergen as Margaret Bourke-White
• Edward Fox as Brigadier General Reginald Dyer
• Sir John Gielgud as The 1st Baron Irwin
• Trevor Howard as Judge R. S. Broomfield, the presiding judge in Gandhi's sedition trial.
• Sir John Mills as The 3rd Baron 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 Albert 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
• Pankaj Kapoor as Gandhi's secretary, Mahadev Desai.

Precursors and achievement[link]

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.^[20]

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.^[21][22] 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).^{[citation needed]} 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.^[23]

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.^[24]

Reception[link]

Box office performance[link]

Gandhi was released on December 10, 1982, on only four screens, earning $131,153 in its limited opening weekend.^[1] It received a much wider distribution on February 25, 1983, earning $2,746,571 on its first weekend in wide release and ranking number 2 at the box office.^[1] The film became a commercial success, grossing more than $52.7 million domestically on a budget of $22 million.^[1] In North America, it was the 12th highest grossing film of 1982.^[25]

Critical response[link]

Reviews were broadly positive. The film was discussed or reviewed in Newsweek,^[17] Time,^[26] the Washington Post,^[27][28] The Public Historian,^[29] Cross Currents,^[30] The Journal of Asian Studies,^[31] Film Quarterly,^[32] and elsewhere.^[33] Many years later the movie received an 88% "fresh" rating on the Rotten Tomatoes website.^[34] Ben Kingsley's performance was especially praised. Historian Lawrence James^{[35][clarification needed]} and anthropologist Akhil Gupta^[36] 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."^[26]: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."^[26]: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."^[17] 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."^[17] 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.^[17]

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".^[37] 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[link]

• 55th Academy Awards

The film won eight Academy Awards and was nominated for three more:^[38]

• • Best Picture (won)
  • Best Director (Richard Attenborough) (won)
  • Best Original Screenplay (John Briley) (won)
  • Best Film Editing (John Bloom) (won)
  • Best Actor in a Leading Role (Ben Kingsley) (won)
  • Best Art Direction (won)
  • Best Cinematography (won)
  • Best Costume Design(Bhanu Athaiya) (won)
  • Best Makeup (Tom Smith) (nominated)
  • Best Original Score (Ravi Shankar and George Fenton) (nominated)
  • Best Sound (Gerry Humphreys, Robin O'Donoghue, Jonathan Bates and Simon Kaye) (nominated)

• Golden Globe Award for Best Foreign Language Film
• David di Donatello for Best Foreign Film

See also[link]

• BFI Top 100 British films
• Civil resistance
• List of historical drama films of Asia
• Nonviolent resistance
• Satyagraha

References[link]

External links[link]

This article's use of external links may not follow Wikipedia's policies or guidelines. Please improve this article by removing excessive or inappropriate external links, and converting useful links where appropriate into footnote references. (November 2010)

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Gandhi (film)

• Gandhi at the Internet Movie Database
• Gandhi at AllRovi
• Gandhi at Rotten Tomatoes
• 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)

Links to related articles v t e Films directed by Richard Attenborough 1960s Oh! What a Lovely War (1969) 1970s Young Winston (1972) A Bridge Too Far (1977) Magic (1978) 1980s Gandhi (1982) A Chorus Line (1985) Cry Freedom (1987) 1990s Chaplin (1992) Shadowlands (1993) In Love and War (1996) Grey Owl (1998) 2000s Closing the Ring (2007) v t e Academy Award for Best Picture (1981–2000) Chariots of Fire (1981) Gandhi (1982) Terms of Endearment (1983) Amadeus (1984) Out of Africa (1985) Platoon (1986) The Last Emperor (1987) Rain Man (1988) Driving Miss Daisy (1989) Dances with Wolves (1990) The Silence of the Lambs (1991) Unforgiven (1992) Schindler's List (1993) Forrest Gump (1994) Braveheart (1995) The English Patient (1996) Titanic (1997) Shakespeare in Love (1998) American Beauty (1999) Gladiator (2000) Complete list (1927–1940) (1941–1960) (1961–1980) (1981–2000) (2001–2020) v t e BAFTA Award for Best Film (1981–2000) Best Film The Elephant Man (1981) Chariots of Fire (1982) Gandhi (1983) Educating Rita (1984) The Killing Fields (1985) The Purple Rose of Cairo (1986) A Room with a View (1987) Jean de Florette (1988) The Last Emperor (1989) Dead Poets Society (1990) Goodfellas (1991) The Commitments (1992) Howards End (1993) Schindler's List (1994) Four Weddings and a Funeral (1995) Sense and Sensibility (1996) The English Patient (1997) The Full Monty (1998) Shakespeare in Love (1999) American Beauty (2000) Best Foreign Language Film Christ Stopped at Eboli (1983) Danton (1984) Carmen (1985) Colonel Redl (1986) Ran (1987) The Sacrifice (1988) Best Film Not in the English Language Babette's Feast (1989) Life and Nothing But (1990) Cinema Paradiso (1991) The Nasty Girl (1992) Raise the Red Lantern (1993) Farewell My Concubine (1994) To Live (1995) Il Postino (1996) Ridicule (1997) L'Appartement (1998) Central Station (1999) All About My Mother (2000) Best British Film The Crying Game (1993) Shadowlands (1994) Shallow Grave (1995) The Madness of King George (1996) Secrets & Lies (1997) Nil by Mouth (1998) Elizabeth (1999) East Is East (2000) Complete list (1948–1960) (1961–1980) (1981–2000) (2001–2020) v t e Golden Globe Award for Best Foreign Language Film (1965–1989) 1965-1972 Juliet of the Spirits (1965) A Man and a Woman (1966) Live for Life (1967) War and Peace (1968) Z (1969) Rider on the Rain (1970) The Policeman (1971) The Emigrants (1972) The New Land (1972) 1973-1985 The Pedestrian (1973) Scenes from a Marriage (1974) Lies My Father Told Me (1975) Face to Face (1976) A Special Day (1977) Autumn Sonata (1978) La Cage aux Folles (1979) Tess (1980) Chariots of Fire (1981) Gandhi (1982) Fanny and Alexander (1983) A Passage to India (1984) The Official Story (1985) 1986-1989 The Assault (1986) My Life as a Dog (1987) Pelle the Conqueror (1988) Cinema Paradiso (1989) Complete List (1965–1989) (1990–2009) (2010–2029) v t e Indian independence movement History Colonisation East India Company British India French India Portuguese India Plassey Buxar Anglo-Mysore Wars Anglo-Maratha Wars First Second Third Polygar War Vellore Mutiny First Anglo-Sikh War Second Anglo-Sikh War Rebellion of 1857 British Raj more Philosophies and ideologies Indian nationalism Swaraj Hindu nationalism Gandhism Satyagraha Muslim nationalism in South Asia Swadeshi Socialism Khilafat Movement Events and movements Partition of Bengal Revolutionaries Delhi-Lahore Conspiracy The Indian Sociologist The Sedetious conspiracy Champaran and Kheda Rowlatt Committee Rowlatt Bills Jallianwala Bagh Massacre Non-Cooperation Kakori conspiracy Qissa Khwani Bazaar massacre Flag Satyagraha Bardoli 1928 Protests Nehru Report Fourteen Points of Jinnah Purna Swaraj Salt Satyagraha Round table conferences Act of 1935 Legion Freies Indien Cripps' mission Quit India Indian National Army Bombay Mutiny Coup d'État de Yanaon Provisional Government of India Organisations Indian National Congress All-India Muslim League Anushilan Samiti Jugantar Arya Samaj Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh India House Berlin Committee Ghadar Home Rule Khaksar Tehrik Khudai Khidmatgar Hindustan Republican Association Swaraj Party Indian Independence League All India Kisan Sabha Azad Hind more Social reformers Bal Gangadhar Tilak Muhammad Ali Jinnah Muhammad Iqbal Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi Acharya Kripalani Rahul Sankrityayan Mahatma Jyotirao Phule Gopal Ganesh Agarkar Shahu Maharaj Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar Dhondo Keshav Karve Vitthal Ramji Shinde Mahadev Govind Ranade Swami Dayananda Saraswati Vinayak Damodar Savarkar Swami Vivekananda Swami Sahajanand Saraswati Vinoba Bhave Baba Amte Ram Mohan Roy Gopal Hari Deshmukh Indian independence activists Puli Thevar Yashwantrao Holkar Rahul Sankrityayan Swami Sahajanand Saraswati Tipu Sultan Veerapandiya Kattabomman Sangolli Rayanna Baba Ram Singh Mangal Pandey Rae Ahmed Nawaz Khan Kharal Bakht Khan Veer Kunwar Singh Rani of Jhansi Bahadur Shah Zafar Swami Dayanand Saraswati Bal Gangadhar Tilak Gopal Krishna Gokhale Dadabhai Naoroji Bhikaiji Cama Shyamji Krishna Varma Annie Besant Shyama Prasad Mukherjee Har Dayal Subramanya Bharathi Lala Lajpat Rai Bipin Chandra Pal Rash Behari Bose Chittaranjan Das Bidhan Chandra Roy Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan Maulana Azad Ashfaqullah Khan Ram Prasad Bismil Chandrasekhar Azad Rajaji K. M. Munshi Bhagat Singh Hemu Kalani Sarojini Naidu Achyut Patwardhan Purushottam Das Tandon Alluri Sitaramaraju Muhammad Ali Jinnah Sardar Patel Acharya Kripalani Subhash Chandra Bose Vinayak Damodar Savarkar Jawaharlal Nehru Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi Allama Mashriqi Kotwal Dhan Singh Gurjar V. K. Krishna Menon more British leaders Clive Outram Dalhousie Irwin Linlithgow Wavell Cripps Mountbatten more Independence Simla Conference Cabinet Mission Indian Independence Act Partition of India Political integration Constitution Republic of India