Gandhi was released by Columbia Pictures in India on 30 November 1982, in the United Kingdom on 3 December, and in the United States on 8 December. It was praised for providing a historically accurate portrayal of the life of Gandhi, the Indian independence movement and the deleterious results of British colonisation on India. Its production values, costume design, and Kingsley's performance received worldwide critical acclaim. It became a commercial success, grossing $127.8 million on a $22 million budget. Gandhi received a leading eleven nominations at the 55th Academy Awards, winning eight, including Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Actor (for Kingsley). The British Film Institute ranked it as the 34th greatest British film of the 20th century. The American Film Institute ranked the film 29th on its list of most inspiring movies.
Plot
On January 30, 1948, Gandhi is assassinated by Nathuram Godse. His funeral is held and his casket is brought throughout Delhi accompanied by a mourning Nehru, and millions of Indians, and dignitaries from across the globe.
In June 1893, a young Mohandas Gandhi is thrown off a train in South Africa despite having a first class ticket. He decides to campaign for Indians to be seen as equal to Whites in South Africa, which attracts the attention of Dada Adab, president of the Natal Indian Congress, who invites him to perform a demonstration where he burns his pass in retaliation. The South African Government then try to enact a law where Indians are to have themselves fingerprinted, akin to criminals. Gandhi then performs a speech about how unjust the new law is, and how they must fight it with non violence. Gandhi later holds numerous demonstrations, including where he is arrested on the order of Jan Smuts, Prime Minister of South Africa. Later, the Government release him and relent by giving some rights to Indians. It is seen as a success. Gandhi also meets Charles Andrews, an Anglican clergyman who wishes to help Gandhi with his mission. He also meets Vince Walker, an American journalist from the New York Times, who takes special interest in Gandhi. Gandhi’s work is at his ashram, where many figures who work with Gandhi from the beginning including Andrews, Hermann Kallenbuch, and later Madeleine Slade, who Gandhi names Mirabehn.
Gandhi is later invited to India in 1915, where he meets the leadership of the Indian National Congress: Sardar Patel, a young Jawaharlal Nehru, Maulana Azad, and Muhammad Ali Jinnah, who is advocating for India to have self rule, and meets Gopal Krishna Gokhale, who becomes his mentor. Jinnah supports Gandhi’s involvement in politics especially due to his victory in South Africa, but his unconventional approach bothers him. They later attend a conference of the Indian National Congress led by Jinnah, who advocates self rule, and a speech by Gandhi who later captivates the people’s mind, which Patel takes an interest in.
Gandhi pledges allegiance to the British Empire in WW1, but demands India has self rule. He holds satyagrahas at Champaran and Kheda, where they are brutally curtailed by the British.
Despite Indian involvement in WW1, the British administration in India passes the Rowlatt Act, which is seen as betrayal. While a group of people listen to a speech about freedom, General Reginald Dyer orders his soldiers to fire at them despite giving them no warning, committing the Amritsar massacre. Gandhi and Nehru later mourn the dead.
The Congress leaders discuss methods on how to protest the British rule, when Jinnah brings up the idea of non-cooperation, and is surprised to see Gandhi agree. It is an immediate success, but leads to the Chauri Chaura incident, where protestors kill and burn police officers in the United Provinces. Disgusted, Gandhi orders to call off the non-cooperation movement, which angers Jinnah because of the amount of support they have rallied. Gandhi retreats to his ashram and fasts to call off the masses, and Nehru informs him that Jinnah and the rest of the Congress have called off the non cooperation movement.
Gandhi then organises the Salt March, as a response to the British monopoly on salt in India. He is accompanied by Vince Walker and his associate, who report of the determination of Gandhi and his followers. Gandhi is then invited to London by Ramsay MacDonald, to attend the Round Table conferences regarding future Dominion status for the Indian Empire. However, they prove fruitless and Gandhi and the other Congress leaders are imprisoned for the duration of WW2. During a period of house arrest, Gandhi's wife Kasturba dies, and he mourns her.
Dissatisfied by the Congress and Gandhi, and fearing Hindu domination in independent India, Jinnah resigns from the Congress and goes back to the Muslim League, where he begins demands for a separate state to be made out of British India for the Muslim minority. Gandhi is upset, and in 1945, Viceroy Louis Mountbatten declares that India is to be independent soon, and that he will be the last Governor-General of India. The leaders of the Indian independence movement organise a meeting on behalf of Jinnah to discuss the future of India. Gandhi offers Jinnah to be Prime Minister and to choose the first cabinet of India, instead of Nehru, who agrees if it means keeping an independent India. Jinnah declines, stating that an independent Pakistan is the only way Muslims can be safe, despite the objections of Patel, Nehru, and Azad.
India is given independence in August 1947, and millions of people cross the borders into the new India and Pakistan. Sectarian violence happens along the new borders, and Hindus and Muslims alike commit atrocities against each other. The military attempt to control violence in Delhi and Bombay, while in Calcutta murder and violence between Hindus and Muslims is rampant as rape, lynching, murder, and arson fill the streets. Devastated, Gandhi holds a fast unto death, which leads to Hindus standing down, and Huseyn Suhrawardy to call upon Muslims to stop fighting, and the violence stops. A Hindu man goes to Gandhi and mourns about how he killed a Muslim baby, for his son was killed in the violence. Gandhi orders him to find a Muslim boy whose family had died in the violence, and raise him as a faithful Muslim.
Gandhi spends his last days trying to bring peace between India and Pakistan, and between Hindus and Muslims. On his way to prayers, Nathuram Godse shoots Gandhi point blank 3 times, who exclaims “Oh, God!”. Gandhi’s ashes are poured over the Ganges, and he is mourned by the leaders of the Congress and the Indian independence movement as a whole.
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 (Jawaharlal Nehru) to produce a film of Gandhi's life. However, Pascal died in 1954 before preparations were completed.[3]
In 1962 Attenborough was contacted by Motilal 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.[4][5] Attenborough agreed, after reading Louis Fischer's biography of Gandhi and spent the next 18 years attempting to get the film made. He was able to meet prime minister 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. Attenborough would dedicate the film to the memory of Kothari, Mountbatten, and Nehru.
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).[6] 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.[7]
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. Co-producer Rani Dube persuaded prime minister 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.[8][9] Finally in 1980 Attenborough was able to secure the remainder of the funding 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 film's budget.[citation needed]
Shooting began on 26 November 1980 and ended on 10 May 1981. Some scenes were shot near Koilwar Bridge, in Bihar.[10] Over 300,000 extras were used in the funeral scene, the most for any film, according to Guinness World Records.[11]
Casting
During pre-production, there was much speculation as to who would play the role of Gandhi.[12][13] The choice was Ben Kingsley, who is partly of Indian heritage (his father was Gujarati and his birth name is Krishna Bhanji).[14]
Release
Gandhi premiered in New Delhi, India on 30 November 1982. Two days later, on 2 December, it had a Royal Premiere at the Odeon Leicester Square in London[15] in the presence of Prince Charles and Princess Diana before opening to the public the following day.[16][17] The film had a limited release in the US starting on Wednesday, 8 December 1982, followed by a wider release in January 1983.[2] In February 1983 it opened on two screens in India as well as opening nationwide in the UK and expanding into other countries.[18]
Reception
Critical response
Reviews were broadly positive not only in India but also internationally.[19] The film was discussed or reviewed in Newsweek,[12]Time,[20] the Washington Post,[21][22]The Public Historian,[23]Cross Currents,[24]The Journal of Asian Studies,[25]Film Quarterly,[26]The Progressive,[27]The Christian Century[27] and elsewhere.[28] Ben Kingsley's performance was especially praised. Among the few who took a more negative view of the film, historian Lawrence James called it "pure hagiography"[29] while anthropologist Akhil Gupta said it "suffers from tepid direction and a superficial and misleading interpretation of history."[30] Also Indian novelist Makarand R. Paranjape has written that "Gandhi, though hagiographical, follow a mimetic style of film-making in which cinema, the visual image itself, is supposed to portray or reflect 'reality'".[31] The film was also criticised by some right-wing commentators who objected to the film's advocacy of nonviolence, including Pat Buchanan, Emmett Tyrrell and Richard Grenier.[27][32] In Time, Richard Schickel wrote that in portraying Gandhi's "spiritual presence... Kingsley is nothing short of astonishing."[20]: 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."[20]: 97 Roger Ebert gave the film four stars and called it a "remarkable experience",[33] and placed it 5th on his 10 best films of 1983.[34]
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."[12] 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."[12] 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.[12]
An important origin of one myth about Gandhi was Richard Attenborough's 1982 film. Take the episode when the newly arrived Gandhi is ejected from a first-class railway carriage at Pietermaritzburg after a white passenger objects to sharing space with a "coolie" (an Indian indentured labourer). In fact, Gandhi's demand to be allowed to travel first-class was accepted by the railway company. Rather than marking the start of a campaign against racial oppression, as legend has it, this episode was the start of a campaign to extend racial segregation in South Africa. Gandhi was adamant that "respectable Indians" should not be obliged to use the same facilities as "raw Kaffirs". He petitioned the authorities in the port city of Durban, where he practised law, to end the indignity of making Indians use the same entrance to the post office as blacks, and counted it a victory when three doors were introduced: one for Europeans, one for Asiatics and one for Natives.[36]
Richard Grenier in his 1983 article, "The Gandhi Nobody Knows", which was also the title of the book of the same name and topic, also criticized the film, arguing it misportrayed him as a "saint". He also alleged the Indian government admitted to financing about a third of the film's budget. He also criticized the films' portrayal of Muhammed Ali Jinnah, although he does not elaborate much on this criticism.[37] Grenier's book later became an inspiration for G. B. Singh's book Gandhi: Behind the Mask of Divinity. Parts of the book also discuss the film negatively.
One notable person, Mark Boyle (better known as "The Moneyless Man") has stated that watching the film was the moment that changed his life and said that after that, he took Mahatma Gandhi's message of peace and non-violence to heart and that the film inspired him to become an activist.[38][39]
Review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes retrospectively collected 111 reviews and judged 89% of them to be positive, with an average rating of 8.30/10. The website's critical consensus reads: "Director Richard Attenborough is typically sympathetic and sure-handed, but it's Ben Kingsley's magnetic performance that acts as the linchpin for this sprawling, lengthy biopic."[40]Metacritic gave the film a score of 79 out of 100 based on 16 critical reviews, indicating "generally favorable reviews".[41]CinemaScore reported that audiences gave the film a rare "A+" grade.[42] In 2010, the Independent Film & Television Alliance selected the film as one of the 30 Most Significant Independent Films of the last 30 years.[43]
The film was included by the Vatican in a list of important films compiled in 1995, under the category of "Values".[44]
Outside of the United States and Canada, the film grossed US$75 million in the rest of the world, the third highest for the year.[2]
In the United Kingdom, the film grossed £7.7 million (£22.3 million adjusted for inflation).[49][50] It is one of the top ten highest-grossing British independent films of all time adjusted for inflation.[49]
In India, it was one of the highest-grossing films of all-time (and the highest for a foreign film[18]) during the time of its release by earning over ₹100 crore or 1billion rupees. At today's exchange rate, that amounts to US$14.9 million, still making it one of the highest-grossing imported films in the country. It was shown tax free in Bombay (known as Mumbai since 1995) and Delhi.[19]
The film grossed a total of $127.8 million worldwide.[2]Goldcrest Films invested £5,076,000 in the film and received £11,461,000 in return, earning them a profit of £6,385,000.[51]
The film was also successful on home video selling over 50,000 copies in the United States in 1983 despite a $79.95 retail price.[52]
^See Pascal, Valerie (1970). The disciple and his devil: Gabriel Pascal, Bernard Shaw. New York: McGraw-Hill. ISBN978-0-595-33772-9. Archived from the original on 17 December 2019. Retrieved 15 October 2016. Page 219 states that "Nehru had given his consent, which he confirmed later in a letter to Gabriel: 'I feel... that you are the man who can produce something worthwhile. I was greatly interested in what you told me about this subject [the Gandhi film] and your whole approach to it."
^Kroll (1982, p. 60) mentions advocacy of Alec Guinness, John Hurt, and Dustin Hoffman, and quotes Attenborough as stating that "At one point Paramount actually said they'd give me the money if Richard Burton could play Gandhi."
^See Jack Kroll (1982). "To be or not to be... Gandhi". Newsweek (13 December 1982): 63. – "Born Krishna Bhanji, Kingsley changed his name when he became an actor: the Kingsley comes from his paternal grandfather, who became a successful spice trader in East Africa and was known as King Clove."
^Christian Williams (6 December 1982). "Passage to 'Gandhi'; Attenborough's struggle to bring the Mahatma's life to the screen". Washington Post. pp. Show, F1.
^Coleman McCarthy (2 January 1983). "'Gandhi': Introduction to a moral teacher". Washington Post. pp. Style, K2.
^Stephen Hay (1983). "Review: Attenborough's "Gandhi"". The Public Historian. 5 (3). University of California Press on behalf of the National Council on Public History: 85–94. doi:10.2307/3377031. ISSN0272-3433. JSTOR3377031.
^Darius Cooper (1983). "Untitled [review of Gandhi by Richard Attenborough]". Film Quarterly. 37 (2). University of California Press: 46–50. doi:10.2307/3697391. ISSN0015-1386. JSTOR3697391.
^ abcDeParle, Jason (September 1983). "Why Gandhi Drives The Neoconservatives Crazy". The Washington Monthly: 46–50.
Attenborough, Richard. In Search of Gandhi (1982), memoir on making the film
Hay, Stephen. "Attenborough's 'Gandhi,'" The Public Historian, 5#3 (1983), pp. 84–94 in JSTOR; evaluates the film's historical accuracy and finds it mixed in the first half of the film and good in the second half
