GANDHI: Blu-ray (Columbia/Goldcrest/NFDC, 1982) Sony Home Entertainment
BEST PICTURE –
1982
In the summer of
1982, Hollywood officially entered its ‘empire-building’ renaissance, long
believed to be dead after all those glorious road show epics that had dominated
the 1960’s. The artistic fallow period that followed pictures like Khartoum (1966) and Nicholas and Alexandra (1971) was
buffeted by a decade’s ‘leap-frog’ of corporate takeovers that befell virtually
all the major players; some, like Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer – bought outright for the
cache in their name alone, otherwise shuddered as a production house, while
others – like Paramount - were bought-up for a song by huge conglomerates,
having virtually zero interest in picture-making, though enamored by the idea
of owning ‘glamorous’ real estate in Tinsel Town. The movies that emerged
throughout the 1970’s (and, in fact, the first two years of the 1980’s)
reflected this exodus of necessary funds and facilities to pull off a
big-time/ole-time entertainment. Indeed, Hollywood countermanded the loss of
their creatives by investing smaller sums in more intimate movies that packed
an emotional wallop, or, merely buying outside-produced product, rubber-stamped
with their time-honored studio logo to give it class. Once in a long while, these
remnants of the old guard could still be counted upon to rally a gamble on a
‘big’ ticket purchase – even, joining forces to collaborate on a single picture;
something, the one-time competitive lions of Hollywood would never have agreed
to entertain.
Then, came Gandhi (1982). Richard Attenborough’s
sprawling epic about ‘the little brown
man in sack clothes’ – a proponent for peace against inhospitable
circumstances - Gandhi is precisely a
movie that the old Hollywood could get behind on Oscar night. If the studios
were no longer their domain to dictate, then the Academy, still typified by men
and women who had known such glory days, held the final authority as
arbitrators of good taste. And Gandhi is
their throwback to ‘heroism’ and glamour, before the rank cynicism of the new wave
of film-makers had crept beyond the peripheries to mirror, as well as advance
the darkening tenor of these times. Gandhi is not a movie about hardship –
or rather, is; except that our central figure, in the embodiment of the sublime
Ben Kinglsey, is so fascinatingly pure of heart and steadfast in his motives,
we cannot help but be swayed to take him and the picture at face-value, as an
emotionally impacting exemplar of the classic Hollywood narrative. Interest,
that is too, since Hollywood had absolutely nothing to do with the making of
this movie! Indeed, star come director, Richard Attenborough had cut his
creative teeth in front of the camera during those last days from the
aforementioned epoch when studios were still managed by creatively-slanted
moguls, aspiring to make a good picture in tandem with turning a profit. So, Gandhi would now illustrate for the
bean counters who had since supplanted these moguls, that a good movie and one that
made money for them were not so far removed from one another.
That
Attenborough could find no one to fund the project (virtually all of the moneys
necessary to complete Gandhi, coming
from private investors and indie/art house distributors) attests to the
financial apprehensiveness afflicting the film-making community in Hollywood
then. And who could really blame them? The fiscal implosion of Michael Cimino’s
Heaven’s Gate (1980), the had
effectively wiped the venerable and time-honored United Artists off the map. And
while the corporate entities that had infiltrated Hollywood had very deep
pockets, they could scarcely be counted upon to harbor that risk-taking
mentality so many of the ole-time moguls had oft entertained, applying the old
adage ‘nothing ventured, nothing gained’
as part of their mantra to attain even greater stature and the envy among their
peers when their own product out-grossed, though more importantly, out-classed
the competition. To make Gandhi,
Attenborough would need two strokes of good luck; the first, coming from an
unlikely alliance with the Indian government; the latter, finding just the
right actor to play the part. Then, as now, the Indian caste system was cause
for concern – its upper strata, condescending and opposed to the project, its
lower strata, adhering to a kinship with Attenborough and his crew, determined
that a good movie be made.
Gandhi became something of a passion project for Attenborough
– repeatedly delayed/denied in its journey from page to screen; Attenborough, spurred
on, after having read Louis Fisher’s superb biography, The Life of Mahatma Gandhi. In point of fact, Attenborough’s was
not the first to attempt to chronicle the great pacifists. In 1952, Hungarian-born film-maker, Gabriel
Pascal secured an alliance with Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru, India’s first Prime Minister after
declaring independence. Regrettably, Nehru died in 1964, leaving those plans in
limbo. Meanwhile, in 1962, Attenborough – then, a successful actor who had
never directed a movie – was contacted by Motilal Kothari, an Indian-born civil
servant, working with the Indian High Commission in London. Kothari had been one
of Gandhi’s devout followers and insisted that Attenborough meet him. Attenborough agreed, but was taken aback by
Kothari’s fanatical certainty that he was the only man who could direct the
picture. After reading Fischer's bio,
Attenborough would spend the next 18 years trying to get the movie made. A
meeting with Nehru and his daughter, Indira Gandhi through political connections
via Lord Louis Mountbatten, the last Viceroy of India proved fruitful with Nehru
promising his support. But then, Nehru
died and the process by which Gandhi would
eventually make it to the screen entered yet another unproductive interlude.
During this
interim, the award-winning team of director, David Lean and producer, Sam
Spiegel had planned their own Gandhi
epic following their success with The
Bridge on the River Kwai with Lean’s good luck charm, Alec Guinness as
Gandhi. Again, this never happened, as Lean shifted his interests to Lawrence of Arabia (1962) instead. At
this juncture, Attenborough reluctantly approached Lean with his own Gandhi project; Lean, congenial, and
even suggesting Attenborough ought to consider playing the title role. But
again, nothing came of it as Lean turned to making Ryan's Daughter (1970). Kothari’s passing seemed to signal an end
to India’s willing participation. But a fire had been lit under Attenborough.
Stubbornly, he would see this passion project through, whatever the cost or incurred
setbacks. “I must admit to being totally
enthralled from the word go,” Attenborough reflected years later, “Bills weren't paid on time, and I was
often absent from home...just to keep the project afloat. It took me 20 years,
suffering all sorts of rejection in trying to raise the finances. It very
nearly bankrupted me.”
In 1976, it
looked as though the stalemate would finally be over; Attenborough, having
garnered a tentative deal with Warner Brothers. Unfortunately, Prime Minister
Indira Gandhi declared a state of emergency which made shooting in India
virtually impossible. Charismatic co-producer, Rani Dube persuaded Indira
Gandhi to provide the first $10 million from the National Film Development
Corporation of India, chaired by D. V. S. Raju at that time, on the back of
which the remainder of the funding was finally raised. Then, in 1980,
screenwriter, John Briley introduced Attenborough to Jake Eberts, the chief
executive at Goldcrest – a newly formed production company, eventually
responsible for raising two-thirds of the budget. At long last, Gandhi was a go. The picture opens with
dedications to Motilal Kothari, Louis Mountbatten, the last British Viceroy of
India, and Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru; also, an interesting disclaimer about any
movie’s inability to fully capture a person’s life in totem. In hindsight, this
seems almost an apology for what follows: an ambitious slate of vignettes,
masterfully linked together by John Briley and even more impassionedly realized
by Attenborough’s desire to make a living monument of his subject. Miraculously,
and mercifully, Attenborough does not get his wish, as Ben Kingsley’s portrait
of one of the greatest men of the 20th century evolves into a subtly
nuanced human account of the peacemaker, made real and engaging, despite
espousing nearly 3-hours of platitudes.
And Attenborough
has made an executive decision here that keeps the more personal investigation
of the man at bay, firmly focusing on Gandhi’s adult life – though only those
vignettes that illustrate his compassionate politics. We know absolutely
nothing about Gandhi in private, nor even from childhood; not before, as a
young attorney-at-law, newly returned from Oxford, he is forcibly ejected from
a first-class coach of a moving train in his native India. Arguably, the past
is irrelevant as Attenborough and Briley concentrate on Gandhi’s contributions
to Indian, British and world history. There is no back story here. Even Gandhi’s wife, Kasturba (played with
exquisite determination by Rohini Hattangadi) appears sporadically throughout the
movie, distinguished more by her one moment of defiance, or rather – shame – at
having to ‘rake the latrine.’ The absence creates a distance between Gandhi
and the audience’s understanding of how such an optimistic dreamer could morph
into one of the most astute political philosophers of his generation. Herein, Attenborough
has gone on record, stating that his movie was meant to pay tribute to Mahatma in
an openly deferential attitude. Undeniably, this abetted cooperation from the Indian
government and Gandhi’s surviving heirs and colleagues. If it also prevents the movie from delving beyond
the official transcript of a great man’s life, it nevertheless helps to
mythologize an already larger-than-life figure, sparing no moment to
pontificate, sermonize, and otherwise, establish Gandhi as one of the most
translucent and enigmatic mirages of the 20th century.
Merely to hint
at those critical junctures that helped shape the character of the man is quite
enough for Attenborough, who relies heavily on Ben Kingsley’s startling
transformation and superb mimicry to fill in the blanks. And Kingsley’s tanned
philosopher is one of the truly great performances ever committed to film. Popular
film criticism today has decided that Gandhi
lacks dramatic impetus, citing Attenborough’s inability to pad out the
traditional narrative arc. And indeed, Gandhi
– the movie – is, as its poster art proclaimed more ‘an event’ than a movie, explored in vignettes that, while offering
the barest of connective tissue to move the story along, otherwise provide for
one perpetual tumbling forth to the already revealed political assassination
that opens the show. Gandhi’s Congress Party tour of India is distilled into precisely
the sort of travelogue a Cinerama camera would fall in love with - isolated, remote
and protected – and this, even if the moral conscience of Kingsley’s burgeoning
liberator is implied to have suffered a philosophical crisis of conscience. All
that is missing is a voice-over narration from Lowell Thomas. While one may
argue, Attenborough has sacrificed some of Gandhi’s transformative experiences,
what the storytelling lacks in substance is made up for in Ronnie Taylor
and Billy Williams’ luminous cinematography – a David Lean-esque visual feast.
Given the girth
of Gandhi’s achievements, Attenborough’s movie cannot help but devolve into a
sort of thumbnail sketch. Is it enough to sustain our interests? Arguably, yes.
Could it have been done with more vigor and attention to detail. Probably not
without adding another 3-hours to its runtime. Gandhi is not a life on celluloid, but an impressionist view of its
highlights from the cheap seats, minus even the broader details. And
Attenborough, despite these pitfalls, has given us something better than a moving
tableau, if decidedly a lot less than the definitive look at the man and his
world; skewed further still, through the filter of a white Anglo-Saxon
perspective. If the flavor of India is slightly absent here, then Kingsley’s actor-centric
star turn mostly suffices as the Cole’s Notes’ version of this historical/famous
figure; an actor’s showcase with Kinglsey at his most mystical and moving when
the camera simply waits to capture his subtler expressions, projected larger
than life on the screen, revealing Kingsley’s carefully nuanced impulses to
tell more of the story than as written.
The movie’s reputation
has not weathered well these 30+ years, perhaps more of a sad indictment on our
present age and its inability to appreciate any work on celluloid that would
dare call itself ‘a world event’ and not deign to slam us over the noggins with
a heavily liberalized ‘message’ – and then, proceed to deliver 3-hours of sobering
exceptionalism without making any sort of judgement call. Yet, if innovation on
Attenborough’s part is lacking, Gandhi’s
peerless execution and the overall sincerity, with which everyone from Attenborough
and Kingsley, right down to the most unremarkable extra are exhibiting, remains
faultless. And Gandhi may indeed
hold itself proudly as the very last of the analog era epics. No digitized
crowd scenes here. No fudging in post-production either to add scope and
quality otherwise absent at the time of the shoot. No, everything here is
full-scale, on occasion, dealt with mind-boggling precision.
As example: on
the day Attenborough was preparing to stage Gandhi’s funeral procession, he had
requested as many extras as the India government could corral. By dawn, the gathering
already totaled well over 70,000, and by the time cameras began to roll later in
the morning, the crowds had ballooned in excess of 300,000. Indeed, Gandhi holds the world record for most
extras in a single shot, among them, Indian Air Force Wing Commander R.C.
Shrivastava, who happened to be on leave at the time and was invited to take
part by a friend. Shrivastava also appeared in the penultimate assassination
scene that book-ends our story, paid Rs 500 per day, enough for Shrivastava to
get new tires for his automobile. “I
distinctly remember,” Shrivastava reflected, “Richard Attenborough telling Ben Kingsley - ‘Ben, darling, you are
anticipating the shot. There should be
no expression on your face before the shot is fired’. The assassination scene took three days to shoot. On the last of these,
there were at least 10 takes/retakes because Ben used to change his
expression.”
Gandhi opens with the January 1948 assassination: Gandhi, at
evening prayer, violated by Nathuram Godse (Harsh Nayyar),
who shoots him point blank in the chest. Gandhi exclaims, "Oh, God!" and falls dead. From the staggering disbelief in
this moment, Attenborough leads us directly into the thought-numbing funeral,
and then, a regression to 1893, as the 23-year-old Gandhi is thrown off a South
African train for being an Indian in a first-class, despite having a
first-class ticket. As the laws are biased against Indians, Gandhi stages a
nonviolent protest for the rights of all Indians in South Africa. Beaten near
senseless, and brought before Judge R. S. Broomfield (Trevor Howard) on a
charge of sedition, Broomfield sentences Gandhi to 2-years, but affords him the
honor of standing during his dismissal – signaling his subtle recognition that
the charges forged against the accuse are unjust. Alas, Broomfield’s hands are
tied by the law. And Gandhi, bears no ill will. After numerous arrests and
unwelcome international attention, the government reluctantly recognizes
partial rights for Indians. Gandhi’s
quest for justice is documented by American photographer, Margaret Bourke-White
(Candice Bergen) and journalist, Vince Walker (Martin Sheen, playing a
fictional stand-in for Webb Miller). Gandhi also garners support from Minister
Charlie Andrews (Ian Charleson), whom he befriends momentarily.
As a result of
his victory in South Africa, Gandhi is invited to India as a national hero,
urged to take up the cause for independence from the British Empire. Gandhi’s nonviolent/non-cooperation
campaign attracts millions of followers, despite the threat of violence against
these peaceable protesters and Gandhi’s frequent incarceration. Things reach a
bloody impasse in 1919 and the Jallianwala Bagh massacre. Nevertheless, Gandhi’s
refusal to meet his enemies with reprisals of retaliation generates much
empathy from abroad, creating a pressure cooker of intense public backlash
against Britain. We jump ahead to 1930 and Gandhi’s protest against the
British-imposed salt tax. He also travels to London for a conference concerning
Britain’s possible exodus from India. Alas, this proves fruitless. After the
Second World War, India is granted its independence. Regrettably, the nation remains staunchly
divided by religion and social caste. Plans are drawn up to establish a new country
called Pakistan, encouraging Muslims to live apart. Gandhi is opposed to this
idea, and is even willing to allow Muhammad Ali Jinnah (Alyque Padamsee)
to become the first Prime Minister of a united India. Despite his
protestations, the Partition is carried out and religious tensions between
Hindus and Muslims erupt into nationwide war. Appalled by what he sees, Gandhi
declares a hunger strike. He will not eat until the fighting stops. True to his
edicts, and nearly dying to illustrate his point, the warring factions
eventually subside and a tenuous peace is achieved. Withered with care and age, Gandhi spends his
last days hoping to broker a more definitive peace. Alas, his dream is at an
end; his passion for peace insulting too many dissidents on both sides. After
his assassination, Gandhi is cremated and his ashes are scattered on the holy
Ganga.
Richard Attenborough
dedicated Gandhi - his movie - to
the memory of Kothari, Mountbatten, and Nehru – all gone, by the time the
picture reached the big screen. It had taken more than 30-years to realize their
collective dream to make this biopic. That all of the effort should have resulted
in as fine a production, given to quality despite insurmountable limitations,
is a feat, alone, worthy of our admiration. And, in 1982, after so many years
of Hollywood’s collective cost-cutting, that had deprived audiences of such
spectacles on the screen, it is perhaps fitting that Gandhi should have caught the popular zeitgeist, later to sweep the
Oscars and justify all of its passion, perseverance and hardships conquered
along the way. Movies of such a caliber are rare these days, and Gandhi remains something of an anomaly
among the Academy’s latter-day winners; nominated the same year as E.T. The Extra Terrestrial, Tootsie, Missing, and, The Verdict.
Undoubtedly, Gandhi signaled a
return to the picture-making grandeur of the 1960’s road show epic. Today, it
remains highly watchable, primarily for Ben Kingsley’s galvanized performance.
This 25th
Anniversary Blu-ray exhibits Sony Home Entertainment’s usual hallmarks,
offering an impressive image with robust colors and superbly rendered contrast
and fine details. The entire movie is house on one Blu-ray; a second Blu,
containing many extras, directly ported over from Sony’s old DVD release, alas,
without any upgrades to the video master. As for the movie – it looks wonderful
in 1080p and includes a lengthy and detailed director’s commentary that is
worth the price of admission alone. Attenborough offers us deeper insight into
the politics only glossed over on the screen. Disc 2 houses nine featurettes;
seven, exclusively about the making of the film; two more, devoted to the real
Gandhi’s life and politics. We get three interview pieces – Ben Kingsley’s the
most fascinating; as here is an actor whose modesty and articulateness truly
confounds and is richly rewarding. Sony
wraps up its quality affair with two stills galleries, an interactive map of
dates and places from Gandhi's biography and an original theatrical trailer. While
Attenborough's introduction is concise, almost to the point of being pointless,
his audio commentary covers a lot of ground with miraculous instant recall –
speaking eloquently on historical details, comparing and contrasting these to the
film’s history, discussing the many creative challenges in getting the picture
made, and finally, offering insight on the director’s craft. In the last few
minutes, Attenborough also reflects on his Oscar experience. Bottom line: Gandhi remains a thoroughly ambitious,
and beautifully told epic, imbued with the spark of genius as well as reverence
for its subject matter. This Blu-ray does the movie justice and should be
welcomed viewing.
FILM RATING (out of 5 – 5 being the best)
4
VIDEO/AUDIO
4.5
EXTRAS
5+
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