Scene of the Week: Gandhi

On Mahatma Gandhi’s birth anniversary check out this excellent scene from one of the greatest movies ever made – Gandhi. The movie was nominated for 11 Oscars and won 8 including Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor (Ben Kingsley) and Best Original Screenplay.

More Scenes from the movie.

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12 Comments
  1. Rafsan Cr 10 years ago

    haven´t see the film .So is it okay to watch the scenes ? i mean any spoiler .

  2. Tanqeed Movies 10 years ago

    Rafsan Cr Its a biopic based on Gandhi so I think you should know what happened or the spoiler 😉 Yes you can watch the scenes. May be you should avoid the 7th one (3rd from last).

  3. Manish Kumar 10 years ago

    its very good movie .. kingsley is awesome .. never for a moment i thought he is nt gandhi ( comparing with old pics of gandhi)

    • Author
      sputnik 10 years ago

      Agree. Ben Kingsley not only looked like Gandhi but also gave a brilliant performance.

  4. FS 10 years ago

    Best ever film on Gandhi… But yeah, a foreign actor had to justify the role of Gandhi not any Indian actor. Loved the film as well as performances i would say.

  5. John Galt 10 years ago

    FS,

    Kingsley is part Indian..Infact he is Gujju and so was Gandhi

  6. ank_16n 10 years ago

    Ben kingsley is not his real name he had a indian name which he changed while entering in to hollywood…..

    yes he is gujarati…….FS ‘gujarati’ ..!! 😛

  7. Author
    sputnik 10 years ago

    Ben Kingsley is a British citizen born in England of Indian descent. His father was born in Kenya and mother was British. His grandfather was a Gujarati Ismaili Muslim who moved to Zanzibar and then to Britain.

    “He was born Krishna Bhanji in Scarborough in 1943. His father, Rahimtulla Harji Banjhi, was a doctor of Gujarati descent; his mother, Anna Lyna Mary Goodman, was an English model and actress ”

    Link

    “Mr. Kingsley’s family has not lived in India for three generations: his paternal grandfather, a spice trader, left India to settle in Zanzibar, where Mr. Kingsley’s father lived until going to England at the age of 14.”

    Link

  8. Bored 10 years ago

    Its a well made movie. Made Gandhi a household name in US due to the Academy wins. Ben was very good here.

  9. Author
    sputnik 10 years ago

    Actor and director Richard Attenborough dies aged 90

    Oscar-winning British film director Richard Attenborough has died at the age of 90, his son has said.

    Lord Attenborough was one of Britain’s leading actors, before becoming a highly successful director.

    In a career that spanned six decades, he appeared in films including Brighton Rock, World War Two prisoner of war thriller The Great Escape and later in dinosaur blockbuster Jurassic Park.

    As a director he was perhaps best known for Gandhi, which won him two Oscars.

    Sir Ben Kingsley, who played the title role, said he would “miss him dearly”.

    “Richard Attenborough trusted me with the crucial and central task of bringing to life a dream it took him 20 years to bring to fruition.

    “When he gave me the part of Gandhi it was with great grace and joy. He placed in me an absolute trust and in turn I placed an absolute trust in him and grew to love him.”

    Lord Attenborough had been in a nursing home with his wife for a number of years, BBC arts editor Will Gompertz said.

    He had also been in a wheelchair since falling down stairs six years ago, our correspondent added.

    His son told the BBC that Lord Attenborough died at lunchtime on Sunday.

    His family is expected to make a full statement on Monday.

    ‘Huge impact’
    Paying tribute, Prime Minister David Cameron tweeted: “His acting in “Brighton Rock” was brilliant, his directing of “Gandhi” was stunning – Richard Attenborough was one of the greats of cinema.”

    Actress Mia Farrow tweeted: “Richard Attenborough was the kindest man I have ever had the privilege of working with. A Prince. RIP ‘Pa’ – and thank you.”

    Chris Hewitt from Empire Magazine told BBC News Lord Attenborough had a “huge impact” on cinema, describing him as a “universally beloved” figure.

    Tribute was paid to the Labour peer from his party.

    “Lord Attenborough made an enormous contribution to our country and to the film industry both as an actor and a director. His films will be loved for generations to come,” it said.

    “He believed passionately in social justice and the Labour Party and was a vocal campaigner against apartheid. He will be sadly missed. Our thoughts are with his family and friends.”

    Richard Attenborough – selected filmography
    As actor:
    In which we serve – 1942
    Brighton Rock – 1947
    The League of Gentlemen – 1960
    The Great Escape – 1963
    Doctor Dolittle – 1967
    10 Rillington Place – 1971
    Jurassic Park – 1993
    Miracle on 34th Street – 1994
    Elizabeth – 1998

    As director:
    Grey Owl – 1999
    In Love and War – 1996
    Shadowlands – 1993
    Chaplin – 1992
    Cry Freedom – 1987
    A Chorus Line – 1985
    Gandhi – 1982
    Young Winston – 1972
    Source: Imdb.com

    Lord Attenborough was also a life president of Chelsea Football Club, which said it was “deeply saddened” to learn of his death.

    “He led a long and successful life and always found time for the things in life he loved most, one of which was Chelsea FC,” the club said.

    “His personality was woven into the tapestry of the club over seven decades. He was a consistent force for good at the club, even in dark times.

    “He will be greatly missed, and the thoughts of everyone at Chelsea FC are with his family and friends at this sad time.”

    He had been in a nursing home with his wife for a number of years
    Along with his naturalist brother David, Lord Attenborough was one of Britain’s best-known screen celebrities.

    He was hailed for his 1947 chilling portrayal of teenage hoodlum and murderer Pinkie in Brighton Rock.

    On stage he was a member of the original cast of Agatha Christie’s long-running whodunnit, The Mousetrap.

    In the 1960s, he was part of a star-studded cast in the prisoner-of-war drama The Great Escape.

    His greatest achievement as a director was the 1982 epic Gandhi, which collected eight Oscars.

    Later in his acting life he starred in Steven Spielberg’s Jurassic Park in 1993, as the park’s billionaire creator John Hammond.

    Born in Cambridge in 1923, he started acting at the age of just 12, making his professional stage debut aged 18.

    He was appointed a CBE in 1967 and knighted nine years later in 1976, before being made a life peer in 1993.

    He married his wife, actress Sheila Sim, in 1945. His son Michael was born in 1949, followed by two daughters, Jane and Charlotte.

    Michael is a theatre director and former artistic director of the Almeida Theatre in Islington, north London, and Charlotte is an actress.

    His family faced tragedy in 2004 when his elder daughter Jane Holland, her daughter, Lucy, and her mother-in-law, also named Jane, were killed in the south Asian tsunami on Boxing Day.

    Link

  10. Author
    sputnik 10 years ago

    The aam aadmi behind Attenborough’s Gandhi

    When the actor-director Richard Attenborough died recently, the tributes mostly focused on the film Gandhi. But only one of the many obituaries I saw mentioned — and that in passing — the remarkable (and remarkably self-effacing) man who was instrumental in persuading Attenborough to convey the Mahatma’s life and struggles so eloquently on celluloid.

    This ‘unknown Indian’ was named Motilal Kothari. Of Gujarati origin, he had settled in London, where he worked on the staff of the Indian High Commission. When, in the late 1950s, he was diagnosed with heart trouble, he resolved to “sell my life dearly”. As he later recalled, “I decided I had to try to do something, however small, which I believed to be a positive step for humanity”. Gandhi’s message of peace resonated ever more strongly in a world engulfed by violence — why not have it expressed in that most popular medium, the feature film?

    In October 1961, Kothari approached Louis Fischer, author of a major biography of the Mahatma. Fischer generously offered his book, free of charge, on which to base the film. In July 1962, Kothari asked Richard Attenborough whether he would be the director. In February 1963, Attenborough agreed. At Kothari’s suggestion, the prospective director got Lord Mountbatten to speak to the Indian prime minister, Jawaharlal Nehru. Nehru endorsed the project “so long as the film was one of complete integrity”.

    Kothari and Attenborough had a script prepared by Gerald Hanley. In November 1963, they visited Nehru and showed him the script. Nehru “found it to be written in the right spirit”. The text was then revised based on comments by experts. At the same time, a company called Indo-British Films Ltd was formed for the project, with Attenborough and Kothari serving as directors.

    The above facts are based on an unpublished note by Motilal Kothari that I found in the papers of Horace Alexander, a Quaker activist who had been close to Gandhi. It was Alexander who put Kothari (and Attenborough) in touch with Mira Behn (Madeleine Slade), Gandhi’s adopted daughter, then living in retirement in Switzerland. No one knew the Mahatma better than Mira, and she was to provide crucial insights for the film.

    On the 19th of December 1964, a press conference was held at London’s Savoy Hotel, where Kothari and Attenborough presented their plans. Here Kothari called Gandhi “the only man, at least in our century, who has shown by his own practice, a way of life that suggests a hope of solution of the outstanding world problems of today”. Announcing that Attenborough would direct the film, Kothari remarked: “If we succeed, even approximately, in portraying in our story, the rare and exquisite courtesy and compassion, humour and humility, courage and wisdom of this unique man, I believe that people, all over the world, coming out of the cinemas, will say to themselves … How good it is to be a man, and how wonderful it could be to try to be a good human being.”

    This was said in December 1964. Attenborough’s Gandhi came out a full 18 years later. What accounted for the delay? One problem was funding: Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer first agreed to produce the film, then backed out. Another problem was finding the right scriptwriter. Kothari was very keen on Robert Bolt, who had written a wonderful play about Thomas More. More was ‘A Man For all Seasons’, whereas Gandhi, said Kothari, was ‘A Man For All Humanity’. Bolt wrote some sketches, but declined to go further.

    The project stalled for a third reason: Kothari and Attenborough had a falling-out (the reasons for which are not clear). Kothari then asked David Lean to direct the film. He also visited India in 1965 and 1968, when he met Nehru’s successors, Lal Bahadur Shastri and Indira Gandhi, and urged them to support the project.

    Motilal Kothari had originally hoped that the film would be ready by the time of the Gandhi Centenary, in 1969. That did not come to pass; and, in January 1970, Kothari himself succumbed to a heart attack. By now David Lean had lost interest in the project. Fortunately, Attenborough had not. Motivated by Kothari’s memory, and encouraged by (among others) the great sitarist Ravi Shankar, he raised money (and interest) in India, the United Kingdom and the United States. In his book In Search of Gandhi, Attenborough acknowledges his immense debt to Kothari, who was one of the film’s dedicatees (the others were Nehru and Mountbatten).

    Although it won eight Oscars and was a box-office success, Attenborough’s Gandhi had a mixed reception among critics. Some reviewers were laudatory, seeing it as a successful representation of the Mahatma and his message. Others complained that it idealised its subject, and that it either left out important characters (Bose, Ambedkar) or caricatured them (Jinnah).

    In a note for the script-writer, Motilal Kothari had singled out three aspects of Gandhi’s work: his identification with the poor, his struggles against injustice, and, finally, “his determination to practice continually everything himself first, before he asked others to do it”.

    For Kothari, the Mahatma was in “exactly the same predicament as we all are today; the ever suffering humanity — especially poverty; the class war as it manifested itself in the caste system in India and class struggles elsewhere; racial discrimination and religious intolerance; and the most important of all, national and ideological rivalries leading to war and violence”.

    These words were spoken in 1964. They retain their resonance 50 years later. Meanwhile, the film that Motilal Kothari inspired and initiated, Richard Attenborough’s Gandhi, is still watched and discussed in classrooms and homes across the globe.

    Link

    • Anjanpur685Miles 10 years ago

      Not exactly this article but I read few others when Richard Attenborough died.

      I am glad that the film turned out to be the way it is and even if there was a delay, I think “goras” understood Gandhi better at that time than us Indians who dissed Mahatma Gandhi in a way and were mesmerized with Bhagat-singh/Bose/Savarkar/RSS kind of small and insignificant players in a way.

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