Gandhi (1982)
Richard Attenborough's powerful account of the saintly Indian
leader picked up eight Oscars and drew breathless praise from
critics, partly for Ben Kingsley's quietly charismatic and
thoughtful portrayal of the Mahatma (Kingsley is actually
half-Indian and is from the same village where Gandhi was born),
and partly for Attenborough's painstaking yet grand direction.
It is a film that combines eye-popping spectacle and idealism
to distil the essence of a complex figure from a less chaotic and
more sober era, while remaining relevant to the concerns of today.
The story begins in January, 1948, in New Delhi, when an
assassin's bullet ends the life of a man who changed the course of
world history. The movie then works its way back to 1893, when
Gandhi was a young, British-trained attorney sent to South Africa
to defend Indian immigrants against tyranny and injustice under
England's domination.
Without seeking conflict or inviting trouble, he began his
odyssey for human rights by seeking equality for Hindus with the
philosophy, "Even if you are a minority of one, truth is
truth. "
Fined, imprisoned, harassed and beaten, Gandhi was physically
and financially humiliated, but no one could destroy his dignity
or self-respect. "They can have my dead body but not my
obedience", he declared, and millions took notice.
Back in Bombay in 1915, he began to dedicate his life to one
goal - uniting all of India, with its filthy, illiterate,
overpopulated, sprawling, primitive, poverty-stricken chaos, and
giving each person a sense of national pride.
Miraculously, he became the first Indian in two hundred years
to gain concessions from the British, and eventually, through
peaceful, non-violent refusal to cooperate with the rulers, he
forced them to grant India independence and freedom.
Stopping revolutions through fasting almost to the point of
death, then getting arrested all over again by the very British
demagogues he had protected from bloodshed, he remained undaunted.
If this movie seems now to lack the flair of, say, Schindler's
List or Michael Collins, it's probably fair to say that
it influenced both.
Over 300,000 extras appeared in the movie's funeral scene. For
this scene, 11 camera crews shot 20,000 ft of film (more than the
total footage of the completed film). The edited funeral scene ran
for only 125 seconds of screen time.
The story that Richard Attenborough demanded a second take on
the funeral scene with the words "Once more poppets, with a
little more grief", is unfortunately false.
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