gandhi movie review summary

In the middle of this epic film there is a quiet, small scene that helps explain why “Gandhi” is such a remarkable experience. Mahatma Gandhi, at the height of his power and his fame, stands by the side of a lake with his wife of many years. Together, for the benefit of a visitor from the West, they reenact their marriage vows. They do it with solemnity, quiet warmth, and perhaps just a touch of shyness; they are simultaneously demonstrating an aspect of Indian culture and touching on something very personal to them both. At the end of the ceremony, Gandhi says, “We were thirteen at the time.” He shrugs. The marriage had been arranged. Gandhi and his wife had not been in love, had not been old enough for love, and yet love had grown between them. But that is not really the point of the scene. The point, I think, comes in the quiet smile with which Gandhi says the words. At that moment we believe that he is fully and truly human, and at that moment, a turning point in the film, Gandhi declares that it is not only a historical record but a breathing, living document.

This is the sort of rare epic film that spans the decades, that uses the proverbial cast of thousands, and yet follows a human thread from beginning to end: “Gandhi” is no more overwhelmed by the scope of its production than was Gandhi overwhelmed by all the glory of the British Empire. The movie earns comparison with two classic works by David Lean, “ Lawrence of Arabia ” and “ Doctor Zhivago ”, in its ability to paint a strong human story on a very large canvas.

The movie is a labor of love by Sir Richard Attenborough, who struggled for years to get financing for his huge but “non-commercial” project. Various actors were considered over the years for the all-important title role, but the actor who was finally chosen, Ben Kingsley , makes the role so completely his own that there is a genuine feeling that the spirit of Gandhi is on the screen. Kingsley’s performance is powerful without being loud or histrionic; he is almost always quiet, observant, and soft-spoken on the screen, and yet his performance comes across with such might that we realize, afterward, that the sheer moral force of Gandhi must have been behind the words. Apart from all its other qualities, what makes this movie special is that it was obviously made by people who believed in it.

The movie begins in the early years of the century, in South Africa. Gandhi moved there from India in 1893, when he was twenty-three. He already had a law degree, but, degree or not, he was a target of South Africa’s system of racial segregation, in which Indians (even though they are Caucasian, and thus should “qualify”) are denied full citizenship and manhood. Gandhi’s reaction to the system is, at first, almost naive; an early scene on a train doesn’t quite work only because we can’t believe the adult Gandhi would still be so ill-informed about the racial code of South Africa. But Gandhi’s response sets the tone of the film. He is nonviolent but firm. He is sure where the right lies in every situation, and he will uphold it in total disregard for the possible consequences to himself.

Before long Gandhi is in India, a nation of hundreds of millions, ruled by a relative handful of British. They rule almost by divine right, shouldering the “white man’s burden” even though they have not quite been requested to do so by the Indians. Gandhi realizes that Indians have been made into second-class citizens in their own country, and he begins a program of civil disobedience that is at first ignored by the British, then scorned, and finally, reluctantly, dealt with, sometimes by subterfuge, sometimes by brutality. Scenes in this central passage of the movie make it clear that nonviolent protests could contain a great deal of violence. There is a shattering scene in which wave after wave of Gandhi’s followers march forward to be beaten to the ground by British clubs. Through it all, Gandhi maintains a certain detachment; he is convinced he is right, convinced that violence is not an answer, convinced that sheer moral example can free his nation as it did. “You have been guests in our home long enough,” he tells the British, “Now we would like for you to leave.” The movie is populated with many familiar faces, surrounding the newcomer Kingsley. Where would the British cinema be without its dependable, sturdy, absolutely authoritative generation of great character actors like Trevor Howard (as a British judge), John Mills (the British viceroy), John Gielgud , and Michael Hordern? There are also such younger actors as Ian Bannen , Edward Fox , Ian Charleson, and, from America, Martin Sheen as a reporter and Candice Bergen as the photographer Margaret Bourke-White.

Gandhi stands at the quiet center. And Ben Kingsley’s performance finds the right note and stays with it. There are complexities here; “Gandhi” is not simply a moral story with a happy ending, and the tragedy of the bloodshed between the Hindu and Muslim populations of liberated India is addressed, as is the partition of India and Pakistan, which we can almost literally feel breaking Mahatma Gandhi’s heart.

I imagine that for many Americans, Mahatma Gandhi remains a dimly understood historical figure. I suspect a lot of us know he was a great Indian leader without quite knowing why and such is our ignorance of Eastern history and culture we may not fully realize that his movement did indeed liberate India, in one of the greatest political and economic victories of all time, achieved through nonviolent principles. What is important about this film is not that it serves as a history lesson (although it does) but that, at a time when the threat of nuclear holocaust hangs ominously in the air, it reminds us that we are, after all, human, and thus capable of the most extraordinary and wonderful achievements, simply through the use of our imagination, our will, and our sense of right.

Roger Ebert

Roger Ebert was the film critic of the Chicago Sun-Times from 1967 until his death in 2013. In 1975, he won the Pulitzer Prize for distinguished criticism.

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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.

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Parents Say 7 Reviews
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Brilliant biopic engages, educates, and inspires.

Parents Need to Know

Why Age 12+?

The film chronicles a period of conflict in South African and Indian history, be

A white man calls Gandhi a "Kaffir," which is an Afrikaans ethnic slur

Adults drink alcohol in seeming moderation. Cigarette smoking is depicted.

Any Positive Content?

India, a country of millions, managed to overthrow foreign rule through an unpre

By teaching nonviolent disobedience, Mohandas Gandhi led a continent to self-rul

Violence & Scariness

The film chronicles a period of conflict in South African and Indian history, between whites and darker-skinned people, British and Indians, and Hindus and Muslims. Gandhi is thrown off a train in South Africa because his skin is dark. He and other protesters are beaten by white authorities in South Africa and later by British soldiers and affiliated police in India. British soldiers are shown carrying out a graphic massacre, gunning down 1,500 unarmed, peacefully gathered Indian protesters, including women and children. A large, angry mob of Indians attacks government police officers, setting their station on fire and killing some when they come running out of the burning building. Hindus and Muslims beat each other in riots.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Violence & Scariness in your kid's entertainment guide.

A white man calls Gandhi a "Kaffir," which is an Afrikaans ethnic slur; although once a neutral description of a black person, by the 20th century it was commonly used in South Africa as a denigrating and offensive racial term.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Language in your kid's entertainment guide.

Drinking, Drugs & Smoking

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Drinking, Drugs & Smoking in your kid's entertainment guide.

Positive Messages

India, a country of millions, managed to overthrow foreign rule through an unprecedented policy governed by nonviolent protest of unfair laws and domination.

Positive Role Models

By teaching nonviolent disobedience, Mohandas Gandhi led a continent to self-rule. When the frustrated Indian citizenry lapsed into violence, Gandhi fasted until near death to persuade his fellow Indians that violence merely begat more violence. If they attained their freedom by violence, he told them, he wanted no part of it. He demonstrates integrity, humility, perseverance, and courage.

Parents need to know that Gandhi begins with Gandhi's assassination and shows brutal beatings and a violent depiction of a shooting massacre. That said, this movie provides a brilliant way to learn about history and about the spiritual principles of nonviolence, tolerance, and self-sacrifice. It's advisable to break the movie over two nights (there is an intermission). To stay in the loop on more movies like this, you can sign up for weekly Family Movie Night emails .

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Based on 7 parent reviews

Helps build empathy and historical context

What's the story.

Director Richard Attenborough 's extensive biopic GHANDI begins as the influential Indian spiritual and political leader ( Ben Kingsley ) takes a stand against the Pass Laws in South Africa and implements his methods of nonviolent protest for the first time. The film spans Gandhi's adult life, showing how his spiritual principles of equality, tolerance, and nonviolence inspired India to push for independence from British rule. The movie pulls no punches in showing the violence that came out of the partition of India into India and Pakistan.

Is It Any Good?

Weighing in at more than three hours, this amazing biopic is a must-see for families with an interest in history or civil rights. Ben Kingsley is brilliant as Gandhi, and the cast includes such luminaries as Sir John Gielgud, Candice Bergen , Martin Sheen , Roshan Seth, Trevor Howard , and Edward Fox.

Talk to Your Kids About ...

Families can talk about what motivated Gandhi and why people followed him. How was he a different kind of leader?

What parallels to the American civil rights movement do you see?

What can modern leaders learn from Gandhi?

How does Gandhi demonstrate perseverance and courage ? What about integrity and humility ? Why are those important character strengths ?

Movie Details

In theaters : December 8, 1982
On DVD or streaming : August 27, 2001
Cast : Ben Kingsley , Candice Bergen , Edward Fox
Director : Richard Attenborough
Inclusion Information : Indian/South Asian actors, Female actors
Studio : Columbia Tristar
Genre : Drama
Topics : History
Character Strengths : Courage , Humility , Integrity , Perseverance
Run time : 190 minutes
MPAA rating : PG
MPAA explanation : some violence
Last updated : November 13, 2023

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Gandhi (1982)

One of the 15 films listed in the category "Values" on the Vatican film list .

Overshadowing even Ben Kingsley’s astonishing, transcendent performance in his first major screen role is a larger, more formidable presence: that of Mohandas K. Gandhi himself. Richard Attenborough’s ambitious, Oscar-winning biographical epic is solid rather than inspired moviemaking, but the greatness of its subject and the force of his principles are so palpably realized that Gandhi achieves real transcendence.

Artistic/Entertainment Value

Moral/spiritual value, age appropriateness, mpaa rating, caveat spectator.

Yes, it’s both fictionalized and hagiographical, assiduously filing the rough edges and smoothing over the contradictions and tensions in its complex subject. The film depicts Gandhi as a lifelong pacifist and egalitarian who rejected war and the Indian caste system with its "untouchables," though in fact his rejection of both came late in life and was less than absolute. It touches briefly on Gandhi’s withdrawal from marital relations with his wife, but omits his practice, so alien to the Christian precept of avoiding even "near occasions" of sin, of "testing" his moral resolve by sharing his bed with naked teenaged girls.

But Attenborough captures the force of the literally revolutionary principle of nonviolent resistance that Gandhi pioneered and championed, which would later inspire such figures as Martin Luther King, Jr. and Nelson Mandela.

Faced with indomitable, oppressive British imperial presence, Gandhi’s fellow countrymen have no viable military response except terrorism. But Gandhi argues, with devastating logic that has only become more inescapable over time, that terrorism not only further justifies oppressive measures, even if it succeeds it liberates a country only to terrorize it in turn. It’s a message that disgruntled societies and individuals today ignore at their own peril.

Gandhi’s practice is predicated on the belief that moral authority, not superior force, ultimately prevails in the court of public opinion. Literally turn the other cheek, and if your attacker himself isn’t overcome with shame eventually the conscience of others will become your ally. All that is required is the courage and humility to be a true victim for your cause.

It seems naive — but it conquered the British Empire. First in South Africa, where in one harrowing scene we see Indian protesters, attacked by mounted police, actually lie down on the ground in front of the horses, out of range of the policemen’s batons, relying on the horses’ aversion to treading on people to avoid being trampled. Then in India, where Gandhi’s celebrity and penchant for punitive fasting when displeased gives him the clout to unite Hindus and Muslims behind his principle of nonviolent resistance. And finally throughout the world, where other colonial peoples were inspired by Gandhi’s success to seek their own independence, ultimately replacing the British Empire of yesterday with the Commonwealth of today.

But Gandhi’s crusade is marked by failure as well as success. Having achieved his goal of nonviolently rendering India ungovernable for the British, he is unable to parlay Indian unity against the British into a united post-British India.

Tensions between the Hindu majority and the Muslim minority, the latter of which had come to rely on the British as their advocates, come to a head. Ironically, Gandhi’s efforts to reach out to the Muslims elicit even greater ill will from his own Hindus. Gandhi fights tooth and nail against the segregation of the subcontinent into Hindu India and Muslim Pakistan, but in the end human concupiscence, the fruit of original sin, overcomes his efforts to appeal to what is best in man.

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Gandhi Review

01 Jan 1982

188 minutes

The enduring sweep of David Lean’s work owes much to his poeticising of history’s more mundane features into the descant of high adventure, whereas Richard Attenborough dedicated and finely tuned biopic of that beloved nappy-clad pacifist, avers grandeur in search of truth. A tricky principal amongst the shrill intensity of the movies. For all the momentous history (the opening funeral cast just about everyone in India) and striking moments of human intimacy on show, his film is often a doze, lacking the full conviction of a good epic to cut loose.

The subject itself, the godlike Mahatma, that shrewish guru whose only worldly trapping is his pair of wire-rimmed specs, offers up a staggering accomplishment but an unassuming mythology. His passive-aggressive stance in the face of religious conflict and the rigours of both British colonialism and the Indian caste system, consummately investigated by John Briley’s intelligent script, has none of the stirring action or belly-fire of a Lawrence Of Arabia or a Ben-Hur. Hence this three-hour tramp through his life is very talky and slow and deliberately unlovely as Gandhi rises from the campaigning lawyer clamouring for the rights of Indians in Apartheid swept South Africa to an uncompromising figurehead. His determined stance of non-violent confrontation often cruelly lead to violent reprisal, in one of the film’s most searing moments a group of his followers are bloodily beaten down by British soldiers without even flinching.

It is obvious that Attenborough is engaged in a deeply felt labour of love and the film possesses a contained power similar to the man himself; Ben Kingsley, an unknown chosen to play him, does a fine job at assuming iconography, unwilling to epitomise a bland goodness, and exposes his irritating pigheadedness. But in the director’s unwillingness to excite the tale, as if its disapproving subject was keeping a keen eye from whatever heaven he was taken to, the film remains proud but forgettable

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Once in a long while a motion picture so eloquently expressive and technically exquisite comes along that one is tempted to hail it as being near perfect. Such a film is “ Gandhi .” Unfortunately, this does not mean that Columbia has an automatic box office bonanza. There is a vast identification gap to be bridged, but once that is accomplished there should be a large and appreciative audience, from late teenagers on through the geriatric set. “Gandhi” is as topical as the headlines out of the Near East. It is a triumph for Richard Attenborough and catapults him to the top rank of directors. For this is a picture that always will be referred to as the high point in his career.

The canvas upon which the turmoil of India, through its harshly won independence in 1947 from British rule, is, as depicted by Attenborough, bold, sweeping, brutal, tender, loving and inspiring. He has juggled the varied emotional thrusts with generally expert balance.

His handling of mob sequences, which exude raw, savage power, shows that the director and his assistants were in complete control every inch of the way. There is nothing stagy about them; they throb with vitality and immediacy, and are so extremely effective only because they were conducted by a sure and steady hand.

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The brutal massacre of more than 1500 Indian men, women and children by native soldiers under the command of British Brigidier General R. E. Dyer in a compound called Jallianwalla Bagh, from which there’s no escape, numbs the senses and overwhelms a viewer with disgust and anger. This largely forgotten dark moment in modern history is even more horrendous than the recent slaughter in Lebanon which gave Israel a black-eye.

It might be argued that as a biography of a man who shaped a nation, the film is not as penetrating as one might wish, but Attenborough takes care of this nicely in a foreword which says, “There is no way to give each year its allotted weight, to include each event, each person who helped to shape a lifetime.” .Attenborough and scenarist John Briley agreed to attempt to capture the “spirit” of the man and his times, and in this they have succeeded admirably.

It also might be argued that the picture is somewhat long and a bit slow at times (188 minutes, plus intermission) but Attenborough is nothing if not thorough, resorting to expository conversation interludes to fill in gaps which could not be explained adequately by the camera. In short, this is a film in the grand style, with all the punctuation marks meticulously placed.

Ben Kingsley, the British (half Indian) actor, who portrays the Mahatma from young manhood as a lawyer in South Africa, is a physically striking Gandhi and has captured nuances in speech and movement which make it seem as though he has stepped through black and white newsreels into the present Technicolor reincarnation. (The first four Techni 70m prints were made in England, and the remainder will be via the Deluxe lab.)

From the time he first experiences apartheid in being unceremoniously booted off of a train in South Africa after obtaining his law degree in London, Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi becomes a man with a mission – a peaceful mission to obtain dignity for every man, no matter his color, creed, nationality.

In Briley’s *screenplay, the only untoward incident between Gandhi and wife Kauturba come. When, as part of the austere and severe cloak of humility that was to become the inner force of his life, he asks her to swab the communal latrine. She is repelled and rebels mildly. There are some accounts which suggest that the family relationships were not quite as idyllic as portrayed in this picture. Indeed, a drop of vinegar here and there would have made it that much more natural.

For those who came along too late to catch the newsreel accounts of Gandhi’s many demonstrations of passive resistance through fasts and other means in more than 50 years of struggle, including some violent political factionalism within India, to gain national independence, this film should be a fascinating history lesson.

The thin voice of the ageing Gandhi, whose life was ended at age 78 by an assassin’s bullet in 1948, should ring out loud and clear from the screen to remind the world that for all our technological progress the mind and heart of mankind remains in the dark ages, surging with envy, greed and bigotry.

* While the focus of the drama is naturally on the person of Kingsley, who gives a masterfully balanced and magnetic portrayal of Gandhi, the unusually large cast, some with only *walkthrough roles, responds nobly to Attenborough’s sensitive and introspective direction.

Calling for individual mention are Edward Fox as General Dyer; Candice Bergen as Margaret Bourke-White; Geraldine James as devoted disciple Mirabehn; John Gielgud as Lord Irwin; Trevor Howard as Judge Broomfield; John Mills as the Viceroy; Rohini Hattan as Mrs. Gandhi; Roshan Seth as Nehru and Athol Fugard as General Smuts.

There are literally “thousands” in the mob scenes and the logistics of production must have been awesome. The camerawork of Billy Willlams and Ronnie Taylor is fabulous1 and ditto the work of their operators. The score, springing from the talents of Ravi Shankar and George Fenton is a major plus in evocation of the film’s many emotional variations. There can be no doubt that “Gandhi” is a picture which took many talents to make, yet it is as much the embodiment of a single individual’s conception as any film could be.

UK - US - India

Production: Columbia Pictures presentation in association with International Film Investors, Goldcrest Films International, National Film Development Corp. Ltd. of India, and Indo-British Films Ltd. Produced, directed by Richard Attenborough; Screenplay, John Briley, Exec producer, Michael Stanley-Evans; co-producer, Ran Dube.
Crew: Camera (color) Billy Williams and Ronnie Taylor; music, Ravi Shankar; orchestral score and additional music, George Fenton; in charge of production, Terence A. Clegg; assistant director, David Tomblin; editor, John Bloom; production designer, Stuart Craig; second-unit director/cameraman, Govind Nihalani; sound, Simon Kaye, costume design, John Hollo, Bhanu Athaiya; supervising art director, Bob Laing; art directors, Ram Yedekar, Norman Dorme; set decorator Michael Seirton; sound editor, Jonathan Bates; special effects, David Hathaway; associate producer, Suresh Jindal. Reviewed at Gomillion Sound Studios, Sept.23, 1982. MPAA Rating PG. Running time: 188 MIN. Original review text from 1982.
With: Mahatma Gandhi - Ben Kingsley Margaret Bourke-White - Candice Bergen General Dyer - Edward Fox Lord Irwin - John Gielgud Judge Broomfield - Trevor Howard The Viceroy - John Mills Walker - Martin Sheen Kasturba Gandhi - Rohini Hattangedy Charlie Andrews - Ian Charleson General Smuts - Athol Fugard Herman Kallenbach - Gunter Maria Halmer Sardar Patel - Saeed Jaffrey Mirabehn - Geraldine James Mohamed Ali Jinnah - Alyque Padamsee Khan - Amrish Puri Pandit Nehru - Roshan Seth Senior Porce Officer - Ian Bannen Principal Secretary - Michael Bryant Advocate General - John Clements Collins - Richard Griffiths Kinnoch - Nigel Hawthorne G.O.C - Bernard Hepton Sir George Hodge - Michael Hordern Lord Mountbatten - Peter Harlowe Lady Mountbatten - Jane Myerson

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Eye For Film >> Movies >> Gandhi (1982) Film Review

Reviewed by: Amber Wilkinson

Richard Attenborough's epic rendering of the life and times of Mahatma Gandhi has received plenty of plaudits and scooped eight Oscars (including best film, best director and best leading actor) following its 1982 release. However, while it certainly is an epic film painted on a broad and beautiful canvas, it is very difficult to engage with it.

Ben Kingsley excels as the unassuming hero who leads his countrymen to freedom from British rule using peaceful means, however you can't help but be disappointed by other aspects of the film.

Attenborough guides us on a whistle stop tour through Gandhi's life, from his first brush with British imperialism when he is ousted from a South African train for being a "black" lawyer, to his hunger strikes which led to India's peaceful protests against the British and his ultimate assassination. The film looks the part: sumptuously shot and with a cast of thousands.

However, the subsidiary characters are very poorly fleshed out. We see, for example, Gandhi's young sons near the start of the movie and yet we never meet them again, which seems all the more odd as his wife (Rohinni Hattangandy) plays a fairly major role in the film.

Despite boasting a formidable cast of some of Britain's finest elder statesmen of theatre, including John Gielgud, John Mills and Edward Fox, their characters fail to rise above the one-dimensional. It is as though there is simply no time for character explanation or exploration because Attenborough has his hands full with the huge job of relating such an epic political tale.

Geraldine James, in particular, as his British acolyte Mirabehn is tragically underused, leading the few lines she is given to be uttered without conviction. In fact, her entire presence in the film is explained in barely two sentences meaning that the watcher has only the vaguest grasp of how their friendship came about.

This is an informative and enjoyable movie - watching it is certainly an education - but it is not without its flaws, which while none of them are fatal, still leave you wondering how much better it could have been if the care and attention spent on Gandhi had been spread out over the rest of the production.

Director: Richard Attenborough

Writer: John Briley

Starring: Ben Kingsley, Candice Bergen, Edward Fox, John Gielgud, Trevor Howard, John Mills, Martin Sheen, Rohini Hattangandy, Geraldine James

Runtime: 188 minutes

Country: UK/USA/India,

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Release details.

Duration: 188 mins

Cast and crew

Director: Richard Attenborough
Screenwriter: John Briley
Ben Kingsley
Candice Bergen
John Gielgud
Trevor Howard
Martin Sheen
Ian Charleson
Athol Fugard
Daniel Day-Lewis

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Gandhi (UK/India, 1982)

With its mammoth 191-minute running length, Gandhi requires a commitment to watch. Although it has some pacing issues (particularly during the final 40 minutes), it is by no means an unrewarding experience. Attenborough, who had a fondness for biographies (he also made films about Winston Churchill, Charlie Chaplin, C.S. Lewis, and Ernest Hemingway), is in his element. Some historians have argued that Gandhi is too much of a hagiography but, even if the movie presents the title figure in a decidedly favorable light, it makes up for any factual inaccuracies with the depth and power of its characterization. Attenborough’s direction in concert with John Briley’s screenplay and Ben Kingsley’s titanic performance creates one of the 20 th centuries most recognizable cinematic avatars of a real-life person. Put this on the same level as George C. Scott’s indelible Patton.

The struggle for India’s independence, which Gandhi joins during World War I, is uneven and often unpleasant. Although Gandhi rejects violence, it is used often against the protesters, most notably in the 1919 Jallianwala Bagh massacre, when a British force opens fire against a mass of unarmed civilians, killing at lest 400 and injuring more than 1000. The commander of the troops, Brigadier-General Reginald Dyer (Edward Fox), defended his actions by claiming that his ruthlessness was necessary to preserve the Empire.

Gandhi represented a turning point in Ben Kingsley’s career. Prior to winning the Academy Award, he was better known for his theater work (although he had also some film and television exposure). Attenborough cast him in part because he fit the mandate of an English-speaking actor of Indian descent. (Kingsley’s birth-name was Krishna Pandit Bhanji.) The strength of his performance, which not only embodied the real-life character he was playing but was riveting in its own right, earned him universal plaudits and opened doors that would see him playing a variety of screen roles in years to come. He is now among the most respected and recognized Indian-British actors in the world.

Attenborough’s approach to the material is epic is every sense of the word. The narrative spans more than half-century but doesn’t have the condensed, “greatest hits” feel that undermines many biopics. Attenborough understands how to focus on key incidents then move on without making the narrative seem disjointed or discontinuous. The cinematography is lush without being too romantic. Ravi Shankar’s score gives an authentic Indian flavor. (George Fenton, who would work with Attenborough in some of his post- Chaplin films, provided additional music and helped to arrange Shankar’s contributions.)

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Directed by Richard Attenborough

His triumph changed the world forever.

In the early years of the 20th century, Mohandas K. Gandhi, a British-trained lawyer, forsakes all worldly possessions to take up the cause of Indian independence. Faced with armed resistance from the British government, Gandhi adopts a policy of 'passive resistance', endeavouring to win freedom for his people without resorting to bloodshed.

Ben Kingsley Candice Bergen Edward Fox John Gielgud Trevor Howard John Mills Rohini Hattangadi Martin Sheen Ian Charleson Harsh Nayyar Athol Fugard Günther Maria Halmer Saeed Jaffrey Geraldine James Alyque Padamsee Amrish Puri Roshan Seth Ian Bannen Michael Bryant John Clements Richard Griffiths Nigel Hawthorne Bernard Hepton Michael Hordern Shreeram Lagoo Virendra Razdan Richard Vernon Prabhakar Patankar Vijay Kashyap Show All… Nigam Prakash Supriya Pathak Neena Gupta Shane Rimmer Peter Harlowe Anang Desai Winston Ntshona Peter Cartwright Marius Weyers Richard Mayes Alok Nath Dean Gasper Ken Hutchison Norman Chancer Gulshan Kapoor Charu Bala Chokshi Raj Chaturvedi Avpar Jhita Anthony Sagger Om Puri David Gant Daniel Day-Lewis Ray Burdis Daniel Peacock Avis Bunnage Caroline Hutchison Mohan Agashe Sudhanshu Mishra Dina Nath John Savident John Patrick Michael Godley Stewart Harwood Stanley McGeagh Christopher Good David Markham Jyoti Sarup John Naylor Wilson George Hanshu Mehta Sudarshan Sethi Sunila Pradhan Moti Makan Jalal Agha Rupert Frazer Manohar Pitale Homi Daruvala K.K. Raina Vivek Swaroop Raja Biswas Dominic Guard Bernard Hill Rama Kant Jha Nana Palsikar Alpna Gupta Chandrakant Thakkar John Quentin Graham Seed Keith Drinkel Bob Barbenia Gerald Sim Colin Farrell Sanjeev Puri Gareth Forwood Vijay Crishna Sankalp Dubey James Cossins Gurcharan Singh John Vine Geoffrey Chater Ernest Clark Habib Tanvir Pankaj Mohan Subhash Gupta Aadil Rajeshwar Nath S.S. Thakur Rahul Gupta Barry John Brian Oulton James Snell John Boxer Gerard Norman Bernard Horsfall Richard Leech Pankaj Kapur Tarla Mehta David Sibley Dalip Tahil Stanley Lebor Terrence Hardiman Monica Gupta Jon Croft William Hoyland John Ratzenberger Jack McKenzie Tom Alter Jane Myerson Roop Kumar Razdan Bani Sharad Joshi Vagish Kumar Singh Dilsher Singh Sudhir Dalvi Tilak Raj Irpinder Puri Pren Kapoor Vinay Apte Aswini Kumar Avinash Dogra Shreedhar Joshi Suhas Palshikar Karkirat Singh Shekhar Chatterjee Amarjeet Pratap Desai Bhatawadekar Prakash Sunil Shende Rovil Sinha Derek Lyons Fred Wood Nassar Abdulla

Director Director

Richard Attenborough

Producers Producers

Richard Attenborough Terence A. Clegg Suresh Jindal Shama Habibullah Rani Dubé Alexander De Grunwald

Writer Writer

John Briley

Casting Casting

Susie Figgis Dolly Thakore

Editor Editor

Cinematography cinematography.

Billy Williams Ronnie Taylor

Assistant Directors Asst. Directors

Steve Lanning Bhisham Bhasin Julian Wall Roy Button Kamal Swaroop Peter Waller David Tomblin M. Shahjehan

Additional Directing Add. Directing

Govind Nihalani

Executive Producer Exec. Producer

Michael Stanley-Evans

Camera Operators Camera Operators

Devlin Bose Chic Anstiss Ted Deason K. Kanti

Additional Photography Add. Photography

Govind Nihalani A.K. Bir

Production Design Production Design

Stuart Craig Robert W. Laing

Art Direction Art Direction

Robert W. Laing Ram Yedekar Norman Dorme Agnes Fernandez Cliff Robinson

Set Decoration Set Decoration

Michael Seirton Jill Quertier Aruna Harprasad Amal Allana Nissar Allana

Visual Effects Visual Effects

Stunts stunts.

Gerry Crampton

Composers Composers

Ravi Shankar George Fenton

Sound Sound

Simon Kaye Gerry Humphreys Robin O'Donoghue John Richards Taffy Haines Jonathan Bates

Costume Design Costume Design

John Mollo Bhanu Athaiya

Makeup Makeup

Connie Reeve Tom Smith

Hairstyling Hairstyling

Vera Mitchell Paula Gillespie

Goldcrest Indo-British International Film Investors National Film Development Corporation of India Columbia Pictures

India UK USA

Primary Language

Spoken languages.

English Hindi

Releases by Date

30 nov 1982, 02 dec 1982, 06 dec 1982, 07 dec 1982, theatrical limited, 08 dec 1982, 24 mar 1983, 30 mar 1983, 01 dec 1982, 01 jan 1983, 17 feb 1983, 18 feb 1983, 25 feb 1983, 04 mar 1983, 10 mar 1983, 18 mar 1983, 22 mar 1983, 25 mar 1983, 28 mar 1983, 01 apr 1983, 02 apr 1983, 16 apr 1983, 30 sep 1983, 27 sep 1984, 08 apr 1989, 31 dec 1990, 19 jul 1991, 08 sep 2011, 01 jul 2021, 17 may 1992, 07 aug 2001, 22 aug 2001, 28 aug 2001, 05 feb 2002, 29 sep 2003, 12 feb 2007, 20 feb 2007, 20 nov 2007, 18 feb 2009, 18 jul 2011, 01 feb 2019, 07 jul 2021, 25 jul 2021, 23 nov 2002, releases by country.

Theatrical PG
Theatrical limited Gent
Theatrical 14
Physical 14
Theatrical 11
Physical DVD
Theatrical K-12
Theatrical TP
Physical VHS
Physical Blu-Ray
Digital VOD
Digital 12 Netflix
Physical 4K UHD
Theatrical 12 West Germany
Theatrical 12
Premiere U New Delhi
Theatrical limited Jerusalem

Netherlands

Physical 12 DVD
TV 12 Nederland 1
Physical 12 Blu ray

Philippines

Theatrical M/12

South Korea

Theatrical APTA
Physical APTA Bluray
Premiere PG London Royal Premiere
Premiere New York City, New York
Premiere Los Angeles, California
Theatrical limited PG

United Arab Emirates

191 mins More at IMDb TMDb Report this page

Popular reviews

Review by megan ★★★ 7

this took 3.47 class periods to watch

Review by dumbsville ★★★★★ 8

They didn’t have to go THIS hard when making the Gandhi movie

Review by cinemacl🎃wn ★★★★ 2

Winner of 8 Academy Awards including Best Picture, Gandhi is a masterwork of astounding production, both in scope & ambition, that brings on screen the extraordinary life story of its titular character whose non-violent, non-cooperative protests sparked a revolution that eventually brought India its independence from British rule, and has continued to influence various leaders & political movements around the world ever since.

Bookended by his assassination & subsequent funeral in 1948, the story of Gandhi begins in South Africa in 1893 where, after being thrown off the train for being a person of colour, Mohandas K Gandhi initiates a non-violent protest campaign for the rights of all Indians in the country and eventually secures a victory. The plot then covers his journey…

Review by Stevie ★★★½ 7

Probably plays better if you didn’t know Gandhi was...pretty racist and misogynistic tbh. Even then, I found this to be one of those Best Picture winners that is technically well made but also fairly hollow. However you want to interpret that.

Review by Jake Alda Coffey ★★★★

This review may contain spoilers. I can handle the truth.

*Gandhi gets shot within the first five minutes of the movie*

Me: sheesh, this is going to be a short movie.

*sees there’s 3 hours remaining*

Review by Paul Elliott ★★★★ 1

This historical drama directed by Richard Attenborough, based on the life of Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi (with Ben Kingsley in the title role), thankfully allows a few displays of quick-tempered naturalness from its subject. It's these moments that rank among some of the more welcomed within the narrative, but regrettably, the film is not above idolisation. Nevertheless, there are certainly a plethora of sensitive passages within the film which gain empathy for his hardships and his people's intimidation.

Kingsley is magnificent throughout and shows incredible aptitude portraying a man over a narrative fifty-year period, and he's just as convincing regardless of the point of time in history onscreen. He is supported magnificently by a diverse arrangement of talented actors, from the hallmark intensity of Daniel Day-Lewis to the admirable Martin Sheen. Gandhi is a movie which is unexpectedly concise considering its generous runtime and works remarkably well as a demonstrative underdog story.

Review by 📀 Cammmalot 📀 ★★★★ 5

Cinematic Time Capsule 1982 Marathon - Film #133

”An eye for an eye only ends up making the whole world blind”

Quite simply, Ben Kingsley’s Oscar winning transformation is absolutely phenomenal.

Although, having John Ratzenberger inexplicably overdubbed by Martin Sheen was easily the film’s most surreal performance.

AMAZING FACT: Gandhi's funeral scene employed 300,000 extras, which holds the Guinness World Record for the largest number of extras in one scene. And thanks to CGI this record will most likely never be broken.

”You're an ambitious man, Mr. Gandhi” “I hope not”

Cinematic Time Capsule - 1982 Ranked

Review by 20oldboy03 ★★★★½ 13

Fünfundvierzig Millionen Briten …

Dreihundertzwanzig Millionen Inder …

Mit ihren dreihunderttausend Statisten die Größte Massenszene der Filmgeschichte …

Ein einziger sie bindend …

Sein Name Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi …

Sein Ruf die Zeit überdauernd …

Aus seinen Lenden Milliarden entsprungen …

Zerbrochen im Glauben …

Drei Nationen sich bildend …

Ins Leben gerufen durch Krishna Pandit Bhanji alias Sir Ben Kingsley

Eingefangen in einhundertneunzig Minuten …

Zwölf Oscarnominierungen …

Neun Gewinne …

Daraus entstanden ein Meisterwerk …

Angesicht einer Laufzeit von über drei Stunden keine Sekunde langweilig, langatmig oder zäh. Sir Richard Attenborough fängt die Geschichte Gandhis brillant ein und wird wohl von dem für diese Rolle geborenen Ben Kingsley verkörpert als hätte sich der 1948 Ermordete selbst gespielt.

Fazit: Ein Klassiker.

Review by Quintin ★★★★ 3

Three hour movies, historical films, and biopics are all things I try to actively avoid in movies. So I wasn't excited going into this film but it was pretty remarkable.

Gandhi is a character made for film. He is an epic hero that has some incredible moments throughout his journey. Ben Kinglsey portrays him extremely well and it actually feels like I am watching this hero leap off the screen.

My biggest issue is the directorial choice to show him dying twice. The first scene of the film is his death, then we follow his journey about death never being the answer, and then it ending on his death once again. The whole film is about how violence never solves…

Review by CJ Probst ★★★★ 5

I feel like if you have unified national peace and tolerance as your goal in life to be accomplished, maybe start smaller than the 2nd most populous country in the world. You have to crawl before you can walk buddy.

It is curious that so many people became invested in this man's intentional starving of himself when there were like millions of Indians starving on accident.

Don't say "like", just say "millions of Indians starving on accident."

I also learned that Mahatma Gandhi was terrible in a fight.

I kid, I kid it's really good if you can get over all of the white people playing brown-skinned people.

This has the Guiness record for most extras ever used. All they had to do was film any old random spot in India though.

I'm going to go have some tikka masala with naan and try not to feel awful about it.

Review by olivia 🏳️‍⚧️ 🍉 ★★★ 3

Watched in history class because my teacher is absent and the long term sub wanted us to learn something while he came up with a lesson plan

Poverty is the worst form of violence.

This is probably one of the few films that's very clearly Oscar-bait that I do at least like. While I find it far from Best Picture worthy, Ben Kingsley puts on an admittedly fantastic performance, and Richard Attenborough's direction, as simple as it is, is charming and fitting. I get why it's such a long movie, the opening quote makes that clear, but it does have some issues with pacing that make the film drag at its heels too much too often, and when it goes…

Review by Kibriya⚡ ★★★★ 2

Celebrating 76th Independence day 🇮🇳 by watching a biopic on Father of our nation which is made my British people from whom we got independence, which is celebrated so much as a film and is one of the best British films ever made winning 8 Oscars! What an irony! ;_;

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Gandhi (1982)

Directed by richard attenborough.

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Description by Wikipedia

Gandhi is a 1982 epic biographical film which dramatises the life of Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, the leader of India's non-violent, non-cooperative independence movement against the United Kingdom's rule of the country during the 20th century. Gandhi was written by John Briley and produced and directed by Richard Attenborough. It stars Ben Kingsley in the title role. The film covers Gandhi's life from a defining moment in 1893, as he is thrown off a South African train for being in a whites-only compartment, and concludes with his assassination and funeral in 1948. Although a practising Hindu, Gandhi's embracing of other faiths, particularly Christianity and Islam, is also depicted.

Gandhi was released in India on 30 November 1982, in the United Kingdom on 3 December, and in the United States on 6 December. It was nominated for Academy Awards in eleven categories, winning eight, including Best Picture. Richard Attenborough won for Best Director, and Ben Kingsley won for Best Actor. The film was screened retrospective on 12 August 2016 as the Opening Film at the Independence Day Film Festival jointly presented by the Indian Directorate of Film Festivals and Ministry of Defense, commemorating 70th Indian Independence Day.

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Part of collection, related movies.

Alternate Titles

the many flashbacks of his life including Gandhi, a British-trained attorney, given racist treatment in 1893 when he was traveling in a compartment on a South African Railways train to Pretoria with a first-class ticket, and was asked: "Just what are you doing in this car, coolie?...There are no coloured attorneys in South Africa"; when Gandhi resisted, he was threatened: "Just move your black ass back to third class or I'll have you thrown off at the next station" - and he was literally dumped off at the next station
the sequence of another issue with racial discrimination when Gandhi escorted Rev. Charlie Andrews (Ian Charleson) from India along the street, and they were confronted by three white racist bullies, including young thug Colin (a young Daniel Day-Lewis); Gandhi bravely assured the Reverend as they were confronted by the gang with words from the New Testament: "Doesn't the New Testament say: 'If your enemy strikes you on the right cheek, offer him the left?'...I have thought about it a great deal and I suspect He meant you must show courage, be willing to take a blow, several blows, to show you will not strike back, nor will you be turned aside. And when you do that, it calls on something in human nature, something that makes his hatred for you decrease and his respect increase. I think Christ grasped that, and I have seen it work"; when he came upon the youth face-to-face, he asserted: "You'll find there's room for us all"
the scene of Gandhi's informal interview with NY Times reporter Vince Walker (Martin Sheen) during a visit to Gandhi's humble and diverse ashram (community), when Gandhi asserted his philosophy about resisting unjust laws: "There are unjust laws as there are unjust men"; when Walker queried: "You're a small minority to take on the South African government not to mention the British Empire," Gandhi predictably replied: "If you are a minority of one, the truth is the truth"
the sequence of Gandhi's rousing speech in which he advocated non-violent resistance to unjust South African laws: "...In this cause, I too am prepared to die. But, my friend, there is no cause for which I am prepared to kill. Whatever they do to us, we will attack no one, kill no one. But we will not give our fingerprints, not one of us. They will imprison us. They will fine us. They will seize our possessions. But they cannot take away our self-respect if we do not give it to them.... I am asking you to fight. To fight against their anger, not to provoke it. We will not strike a blow. But we will receive them. And through our pain, we will make them see their injustice. And it will hurt as all fighting hurts. But we cannot lose. We cannot. They may torture my body, break my bones, even kill me. Then, they will have my dead body, not my obedience. (applause) We are Hindu and Muslim, children of God, each one of us. Let us take a solemn oath in His name that, come what may, we will not submit to this law"
in a London conference Gandhi's harsh words against the British government represented by Mr. Kinnoch (Nigel Hawthorne), arguing for the British to leave India in order to establish Indian independence: "If you will excuse me, Your Excellency, it is our view that matters have gone beyond legislation. We think it is time you recognized that you are masters in someone else's home. Despite the best intentions of the best of you, you must, in the nature of things, humiliate us to control us....It is time you left...I beg you to accept that there is no people on Earth who would not prefer their own bad government to the good government of an alien power...In the end you will walk out because 100,000 Englishmen simply cannot control 350 million Indians if those Indians refuse to cooperate. And that is what we intend to achieve. Peaceful, nonviolent noncooperation till you yourself see the wisdom of leaving, Your Excellency"
the sequence of the brutal Amritsar Massacre in 1919, when troops of the British Indian Army commanded by Colonel Reginald Dyer (Edward Fox) fired their rifles into a crowd of Indians, assembled to peacefully protest, for about 10 minutes

the historical depiction of speeches during the nonviolent "non-cooperation campaign," around 1921, when first Gandhi's wife Kasturba (Rohini Hattangady) and then Gandhi spoke - he exhorted Indians to burn English cloth as a protest: ("To gain independence we must prove worthy of it. There must be Hindu-Muslim unity always. Second: No Indian must be treated as the English treat us. We must remove untouchability from our hearts and from our lives. Third: We must defy the British. Not with violence that will inflame their will, but with a firmness that will open their eyes. English factories make the cloth that makes our poverty. All those who wish to make the English see bring me the cloth from Manchester and Leeds that you wear today and we will light a fire that will be seen in Delhi and in London. And if, like me, you are left with only one piece of homespun, wear it with dignity")
the sequence depicting the 1930 protest against the British-imposed salt tax with the highly symbolic Salt March and its subsequent beating by British police of hundreds of nonviolent protesters in Dharasana, witnessed and reported by NYT journalist Walker by phone: "'They walked both Hindu and Muslim alike with heads held high without any hope of escape from injury or death. It went on and on into the night.' Stop. 'Women carried the wounded and broken bodies from the road until they dropped from exhaustion.' Stop. 'But still, it went on and on. Whatever moral ascendancy the West held was lost here today. India is free for she has taken all that steel and cruelty can give and she has neither cringed nor retreated'"
after religious tensions erupted when the Partition of India occurred, Gandhi (considered "the father of the nation"), declared a hunger strike, saying he would not eat until the fighting stopped ("An eye for an eye only ends up making the whole world blind...If we obtain our freedom by murder and bloodshed, I want no part of it....And I will fast as a penance for my part in arousing such emotions. And I will not stop until they stop...If I die, perhaps they will stop")

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Gandhi 1982 Film Review: A Timeless Lesson in Courage And Compassion From a Controversial Ascetic

Gandhi 1982 Film Review: The Timeless Lessons in Courage And Compassion From a Controversial Ascetic

Last updated on November 2nd, 2023 at 10:42 am

Gandhi 1982 is a British-Indian historical biopic drama film that tells the story of Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, an Indian lawyer who became the leader of the Indian independence movement against British colonial rule.

The film marvellously portrays the life of Mahatma Gandhi who became India’s political hero and spiritual guru through his non-violent approach to achieving Swaraj or home rule from the British colonial hegemony. It also shows how Gandhi’s dream of a united independent India was shattered in the partition of India by creating Pakistan as an independent country for Muslims.

The film stars Ben Kingsley as Gandhi, with a supporting cast that includes Rohini Hattangadi as Kasturba Gandhi, John Gielgud as Viceroy Lord Irwin, Candice Bergen as Margaret Bourke-White, Edward Fox as Brigadier General Reginald Dyer, and Martin Sheen as Vince Walker.

The film was a critical and commercial success, winning eight Academy Awards, including Best Picture, Best Director and Best Actor, Ben Kinsley. Directed by Richard Attenborough and written by John Briley, The British Film Institute Gandhi 1982 ranked it as the 34th greatest British film of the 20th century.

When I watched Gandhi 1982, I felt like I went back to my time. Felt like perhaps it was the exact ambience of the early 90s, so felt so attached to the atmosphere. Though the film showcases the bright side of Gandhi regardless of the pessimistic ideas of people like me, it shows the exact manner in which he rose to be Mahatma Gandhi. Having acquired half of the cost for the film from the Congress government, it duly pays its debts to the investors, Gandhi’s supporters and cinema lovers by recreating the history of India during its struggle for independence from the British Empire.

It represents Gandhi in his own real terms as if it were a documentary shoot in his lifetime with compelling reality. Every word Gandhi uttered was full of wisdom and uplifting for the spirit. But the dark sides and hypocrisy of Gandhi is a different subject matter discussed in The Doctor And The Saint by Indian eminent writer Arundhati Roy. It’s one of the 101 best films I have been reviewing.

Table of Contents

On 30 January 1948, on his way to an evening prayer service, an elderly Gandhi is helped out for his evening walk to meet a large number of greeters and admirers. One visitor, Nathuram Godse, shoots him point-blank in the chest. His state funeral is shown, the procession attended by millions of people from all walks of life, with a radio reporter speaking eloquently about Gandhi’s world-changing life and works.

In June 1893, the 23-year-old Gandhi is thrown off a South African train in Pietermaritzburg for being an Indian sitting in a first-class compartment, despite his having a first-class ticket Realising the laws are biased even against well-educated and successful Indians, he then decides to start a non-violent protest campaign for the rights of all Indians in South Africa, comprised with indentured workers, arguing that they are British subjects and entitled to the same rights and privileges as whites.

After writing about the discrimination to the press, Gandhi with his wife gathered with other Indians in Natal under the banner of the South Africa Congress Party. Gandhi led the struggle of the passenger Indians bravely, and from the front. Two thousand people burned their passes in a public bonfire; Gandhi was assaulted mercilessly, arrested and imprisoned. To the gathered Indians, he said they were called to help in proclaiming the right to be treated as equal citizens of the empire.

To eliminate the difference between the Europeans and Indians, he proposes to burn the pass they had to carry around in fire in front of British security officials. The Congress Committee and its supporters drop their passes in a wooden bucket to be burned. Police obstructed the carrier, Khan, while bit Gandhi as he tried to collect the passes from the ground to put on the fire. There one day Gandhi met Charles Andrews, an English missionary who came from India to meet him.

After the march with the mine workers, Gandhi was imprisoned along with thousands of others. After a settlement with Jan Smut, Gandhi in 1915, after 21 years returned to India, in the royal navy ship with a heroic welcome by the Congress Party of India. Sardar Patel was with him.

Soon after that, he got himself involved in the ‘home rule struggle’ or Swaraj, inspired by his mentor Gopal Krishna Gokhale, of the moderate faction of Hindus. He is urged to take up the fight for India’s independence (Swaraj or home rule, Quit India) from the British Empire.

He travelled the length and breadth of the country to get to know it. His first satyagraha or march was in Champaran, Bihar, in 1917. Three years before his arrival there, landless peasants living on the verge of famine, labouring on British-owned indigo plantations, had risen in revolt against a new regime of British taxes.

Gandhi travelled to Champaran and set up an ashram from where he backed their struggle. Gandhi stayed in Champaran for a year and then left. Though he was arrested from Chmaparan for not leaving the province at the command of the authority. But the case was dismissed and he was released.

At Mohammad Ali Jinnah’s residence, Gandhi met with Maulana Azad, Jawaharlal Nehru, Patel and others in a meeting. There he proposed a nationwide general day of prayer and fasting with the abstention of work of all men on 6 April against the Anarchical and Revolutionary Crimes Act, popularly known as Rowlett Act 1919 which gave the government powers of detention without trial to cope with the threat of revolutionary violence.

The satyagraha had been planned to protest the Rowlett Act passed in 1919 to extend the British government’s wartime emergency powers. But the public unrest went out of control which created intense chaos which broke him badly.

All sections of Indian political opinion protested and Mohandas Gandhi launched his first all-India mass civil disobedience campaign to defy the new law. It led to some localized violence in Bombay and Delhi. The agitation and protestation led to the Amritsar Temple massacre.

At the order of General Dyer, 1516 protestors were killed including women and children on 13 April 1919, known as the Jallianwala Bagh massacre, also known as the Amritsar massacre. The crowds at Amritsar had gathered to protest against the Rowlatt Bills and demonstrate nationalist sentiment.

Later as a part of the non-cooperation movement against British rule, on 31 August 1921, Gandhi ordered burning the of foreign clothes during his speech and the replacement of foreign apparel with the hand-spun fabric of Khadi.

In 1922, when the Non-Cooperation Movement was at its peak, things went out of control. A mob killed twenty-two policemen and burnt down a police station in Chauri Chaura in the United Provinces (today’s Uttar Pradesh). Gandhi saw this violence as a sign that people had not yet grown into true marchers, that they were not ready for non-violence and non-cooperation.

After the massacre, Gandhi declared the campaign to be stopped. He said he would fast indefinitely until the campaign stopped. Without consulting any other leaders, Gandhi unilaterally called off the march. But stopped it though, he was arrested again on sedition on 10 March 1922 and was sentenced to 6 years of imprisonment. After his release, he started his life his Porbandar Ashram in Gujarat, his birthplace.

Raising anti-colonial nationalism to the common Indians, Gandhi led them in challenging the British-imposed salt tax with the 400 km Salt Satyagraha, or Dandi Salt March in 1930. He called on Indians to march to the sea and break the British salt tax laws. Hundreds of thousands of Indians rallied to his call on the anniversary of the Amritsar Massacre towards the Indian Ocean.

Mahatma Gandhi is leading the Salt Satyagraha or Salt March against British rule in 1930

He was arrested and Gandhi was imprisoned again and ninety thousand people were arrested were also arrested. However, Gandhi was released in 1931, halting the campaign after the British made concessions to his demands.

In the same year, Gandhi represented the Indian National Congress at a round table conference in London to discuss India’s possible independence, called by Prime Minister Ramsay MacDonald. He did not like the British idea of dividing India on religious lines.

In 1942, during the Quit India Movement, Gandhi was arrested along with his wife and was imprisoned in the Aga Khan Palace in Pune where his wife dies of a heart attack.

By 1944 the British government had agreed to independence, on the condition that the Congress Party and the Muslim League resolve their differences. Despite Gandhi’s resistance to the principle of partition, India and Pakistan became separate states when the British granted India its independence in 1947. Bloody sectarian violence ensued. on 23 March 1947, the last viceroy Mountbatten came to India and oversaw the Partition of India into India and Pakistan.

Jinnah wanted India bifurcated with Muslim-majority provinces to Pakistan for he feared that after the end of the British slavery, Hindus will enslave Muslims in a Hindu-majority India despite Gandhi’s assurance of their protection. Gandhi was obstructed by a group of Hindu nationalist protesters outside his ashram. One of them told him not to meet with Jinnah.

In the meeting, when Gandhi proposed Jinnah to be the first prime minister of India instead of breaking India by letting Nehru stand down, Nehru replied that the majority Hindus fear that he is giving too much to the Muslims and no one would accept it while Jinnah threatened Gandhi with the possible war in a united India.

Fearing the civil war, Gandhi gave in to an independent India and an independent Pakistan. India had been divided. At his ashram in Calcutta, the flagstone was seen without a flag. He did not celebrate the independence of a divided India which began bloody Hindu-Muslim riots, especially in Muslim-majority West Bengal.

Religious tensions between Hindus and Muslims erupted into nationwide violence. Repulsed by this sudden unrest, Gandhi declared a hunger strike, in which he will not eat until the fighting stopped. The fighting does stop eventually.

Mohammad Ali Jinnah (played by Alyque Padamsee), far left, Maulana Abdul Kalam Azad (played by Virendra Razdan), Mahatma Gandhi (played by Ben Kinsley), Jawaharlal Nehru (played by Roshan Seth) and Sardar Patel (played by Saeed Jaffrey) at Jinnah's residence.

Riots ensued during the Hindu-Muslim migration from and to India and Pakistan. According to Kuldip Nayar’s account, the number of people killed in migration is 1-3 million as 10 to 12 million non-Muslims from Pakistan and Muslims from India migrated.

As the British rule ends, Gandhi travelled to Calcutta amid the fierce prostration and riot appealing for peace and staying in a Muslim house. He began to fast until normalcy prevailed in Calcutta. He fell seriously ill there during the time when came Hossein Shahid Shohrawardy, the inciter of the great Calcutta killing, to ensure that the riot had stopped.

At times, as a Hindu rioter came to complain to Gandhi that he is going to hell because he killed a Muslim child to avenge his dead son who was killed by Muslims, he suggested that he must find an orphan boy and raise him as a Muslim as penance. Gandhi spends his last days trying to bring about peace between both nations.

Back in New Delhi in Birla House, Mathuram Godse shot him in the chest on his way to his evening prayer, on 30 January 1948. Gandhi is cremated and his ashes are scattered on the Ganges.

What to Consider

The Gandhi 1982 is a portrayal of Mahatma Gandhi’s life and his works related to political change during India’s struggle against British oppression in a nutshell. His rise in politics and the development of political philosophy is somewhat captured. Time indeed created a Mahatma, ‘great soul’ when it was needed most when fortune made him a great leader of him.

As it just happens that all great men bore great critiques, so did Gandhi in the same land for all he willed to dedicate his life, accepted asceticism, and hoped to be the reincarnation of Jesus Christ whom he covertly envied and quoted in numerous incidences.

When the angry mob attacked the police station and killed police and his non-violence approach failed, some of his leaders thought it was just an eye for an eye against the British oppression, Gandhi retrospectively said, “An eye for an eye only ends up making the whole world blind”, echoing Jesus Christ, “You have heard that it was said, “An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth. But I tell you not to retaliate the injury; but whoever strikes you on the right cheek, turn the other to him also”.

An eye for an eye only ends up making the whole world blind Mahatam Gandhi

From the later part, I think, born his non-violence approach of which he narrates the meaning as, “I suspect he meant you must show courage be willing to take a blow, several blows, to show you won’t strike back, nor will you be turned aside. And when you do that, it calls on something in human nature that makes his hatred for you decrease and his respect increase.”

When visited by Charles Andrews, the Anglican priest, he said about the deplorable condition of attire, “If l want to be one with them l have to live like them”, which matches with Saint Paul’s “To the Jews I became like a Jew, to win the Jews.”

When Gandhi said, “They will imprison us. They will fine us. They will seize our possessions. But they cannot take away our self-respect if we do not give it to them”, it has a similarity to what Jesus Christ says, “And do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather fear him who can destroy both soul and body in hell.”

True that his humanistic philosophy developed from Christianity, Islam, Judaism, Islam, Leo Tolstoy’s thinking on Christianity and Hinduism. Though, Arundhati Roy writes, “Born into a Bania (Vaishya) family in 1869—Gandhi was one of the Hindu reformers after Ishwar Chandra Bidya Shagor and Raja Rammohan Roy. For his entire life, the Bhagavad Gita was his guiding text in his spiritual, moral and political trajectory.

Even though throughout his entire political career he tried to empathise with Muslims and assimilate every religion into one common political platform, he sustained very regressive, lopsided, anti-modern, anti-liberal views about the Untouchables, Dalits, Bhangis (Scavengers) and lowly castes who have been embroiled with swirling servitude, subjected of inhuman treatment, barred from the right to live like human beings; and have been fighting for equality, social acceptance, spiritual recognition, and financial well-being.”

Nevertheless, Gandhi somehow caught the tide. Born as a prince into a well-to-do family he was privileged to join the Inner Temple, one of the four London law colleges, whose father was the prime minister of the princely state of Porbandar.

He accepted voluntary poverty and remained in that state till his death, remained half naked in self-spined khadi clothes to show how determined to reject the European clothes made in European industries depriving the local indigo industry. Gandhi was John Maxwell’s type of leader who “knows the way”, he said, “shows the way and goes the way”.

Yet, there are numerous things that shed light on Gandhi. Let us take suppose when he said to New York Times journalist Vince Walker when asked why in his ashram he prepares the meal and cleans toilets, he said “Yes, it’s one way to learn that each man’s labour is as important as another’s. While you’re doing it, cleaning the toilet seems far more important than the law.” He even tried to throw his wife out of the ashram as she refused to do the works of untouchables, in South Africa.

He once confided to Ms Slade, who he called Mirabehn and who became a lifelong devotee to Gandhi, that “When I despair, l remember that all through history the way of truth and love has always won. There have been tyrants and murderers and, for a time, they can seem invincible. But in the end, they always fall.”

One sentence that struck me hard is “Where there’s injustice, I always believed in fighting. The question is, do you fight to change things or to punish?” He clarified to Nehru and other his kind of fighting which is to change the minds of the ruler not to punish them which separate the base intention of revenge from Christ’s kind of fight against all form of evil and injustice by making them see the wrong. Gandhi meant, to fight to change the perception, not to avenge which is up to God. “I will fight for freedom, but I will not hate”, he said.

I will fight for freedom, but I will not hate” Mahatma Gandhi

He really believed that non-violence can change the world for the better, even if that non-violent approach is directed against a cruel ruler like Adolf Hitler. When house-arrested in Aga Khan Palace, Life magazine photojournalist Margaret Bourke-White asked him, “Do you really believe you could use nonviolence against Hitler?

“Not without defeats” Gandhi replied, “and great pain. But are there no defeats in this war? No pain? What you cannot do is accept injustice from Hitler or anyone. You must make the injustice visible. Be prepared to die like a soldier to do so”. When asked about his determination to visit Pakistan, to Margaret Bourke-White he responded by saying, “I’m simply going to prove to Hindus here and Muslims there that the only devils in the world are those running around in our own hearts. And that is where all our battles ought to be fought.”

Despite any controversies and criticism, I must put what the English commentator said during Gandhi’s funeral, “A private man with no wealth, no official title or office nor the commander of armies or a ruler of vast lands. He could not boast any scientific achievement or artistic gift.

Yet men governments, dignitaries from the world over have joined hands today to pay homage to this little brown man in the loincloth who led his country to independence. Mahatma Gandhi has become the spokesman for the conscience of all mankind. He was a man who made humility and simple truth more powerful than empires.”

Just before the final talk with Jinnah on Pakistan’s independence Nehru and Maulana Abdul Kalam Azad came to take to Jinnah’s place. He was in his ashram when he abruptly stood up without the help of his living sticks, Manu and Aba who hurriedly joined him to assist. Seeing their promptness he said, I’m your granduncle but l can still walk either of you into the ground. I don’t need to be pampered in this way.”

Then he placed a light slap on Manu or Aba’s nodding head on his right side, the suddenly changed his mind and tapped tenderly on her head”, the scene and flawlessness of which made me enthralled.

Gandhi 1982: Analysis

Gandhi 1982 is a film that deals with themes of freedom, justice, and nonviolence. It shows how Gandhi’s philosophy of nonviolence was able to unite the Indian people and bring about change. The film also highlights the importance of leadership, and how one person can make a difference. Gandhi’s philosophy of nonviolence is still relevant today and is a powerful message for all people facing oppression.

Whatever your expectations are of Richard Attenborough’s Gandhi , they are likely to be exceeded. Expectations of a $22m enterprise, half of which were obtained from the Indian Government. The film does not betray anything of Attenborough’s 20-year struggle for the means to make it.

Attenborough might well have been prevented at that time if he had known that before the project would be granted, he would be 20 years older; that his three most valued supporters—Nehru, Lord Mountbatten and an Indian Civil Servant named Mothilal Kotari, to whom the film is jointly dedicated– would all have died.

The striking virtue of the film is its uncompromising simplicity. Gandhi’s life, purpose and influence are evoked through a series of sketches of incidents and people, covering the five and a half decades, from his arrival in South Africa to his death by assassination in 1948, soon after the independence of India for which he had fought throughout his life and the partition of the country which had devastated his hopes.

Such simplicity demands expertise as well as discipline. Gandhi is a model of old, conservative, and in this case admirable virtues of the British cinema, in technical method and performance. Almost entirely shot in India, in hard climates and locations, the film is technically immaculate.

The photography of Billy Williams and Ronnie Taylor never succumbed to the almost irresistible temptations of the picturesque, while sensuously conveying the sense of light and dust-haze. The remarkable technical expertise that accomplishes the ageing process of the principal characters covering half a century is wholly modest, especially of Gandhi, played by Ben Kingsley.

In a revealing interview with an enterprising new film magazine Stills , Attenborough notes that the resourcefulness of Kingsley’s stage training equipped him to deal with the unpredictability of working with huge crowds of extras when it is estimated that around a million Indians appear in the film. Kingsley’s Gandhi is a wholly real and believable person, from the cheerful little lawyer of the nineties to the aged spiritual leader of a nation.

However, Gandhi is a major contribution to a year of thrilling success for British films. Much more important, it is an artist’s personal tribute, deeply felt and simply expressed, to the spiritual worth of another human being. “Gandhi showed us” Attenborough has said, “how to stop killing one another”.

Every act and scene was full of spontaneity, fascination and realism. But I kind of happen to find the rule of Maulana Abdul Kalam Azad (played by Birendra Razdan) raw, misplaced and amateurish.

Gandhi 1982 is a film that, I think, is definitely capable of quenching the thirst for the history of the Indian subcontinent and the British empire, and about a man who accepted voluntary poverty to speak for the oppressed and the subjects of injustice. The film stands the test of time as a powerful and emotionally resonant drama. Its portrayal of Gandhi and his philosophy of nonviolence is a masterful one, and Ben Kingsley’s performance is widely considered to be one of the greatest in the history of cinema.

Gandhi ’s portrayal of the Indian independence movement is also noteworthy, as it shows how Gandhi’s philosophy of nonviolence was able to unite the Indian people for good and bad and bring about political change.

The film’s depiction of the partition of India and Pakistan is also powerful and gives insight into the tragic aftermath of the independence movement. It is a film that not only offers an accurate account of the life of Mahatma Gandhi but also a powerful message of hope, unity, and nonviolence.

Gandhi 1982

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How Accurate Is the Movie 'Gandhi'?

“No man’s life can be encompassed in one telling. There is no way to give each year its allotted weight, to include each event, each person who helped to shape a lifetime. What can be done is to be faithful in spirit to the record and try to find one’s way to the heart of the man….” -Mahatma Gandhi

So reads the preamble to Richard Attenborough’s film Gandhi . Released in 1982, the three-hour-plus epic encompasses more than 50 years of history and attempts to chronicle the life of the man who has come to be hailed as the father of modern India.

But how accurate is the film?

It took 20 years to get the movie made

A labor of love for director Attenborough, the preamble wording above is perhaps in some way his excuse if the verisimilitude of the project does not always add up for scholars.

“In the case of Gandhi , Attenborough is having to navigate the biography with the epic and with the social statement. There are all these pressures in terms of balancing a narrative script when you’re condensing 50 years of history and trying to make a good film,” adds Alvarez.

''Of course it's a cheek, it's an impudence to tell 50, 60, 70 years of history in three hours,'' Attenborough told The New York Times when the film was released in 1982. In terms of actual historical events though, Attenborough generally succeeded. He has the major moments in the life of Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi on film starting from his time as a young lawyer in South Africa to his use and preaching of nonviolent civil disobedience which helped lead India to independence from British rule. on film starting from his time as a young lawyer in South Africa to his use and preaching of nonviolent civil disobedience which helped lead India to independence from British rule.

Gandhi contains the important historical moments: Gandhi’s removal from a first-class train carriage due to his ethnicity and subsequent fight for Indian civil rights in South Africa (1893-1914); his return to India (1915); the 1919 Jallianwala Bagh Massacre in Amritsar that saw British Indian Army soldiers open fire on a gathering of unarmed men, women and children resulting in hundreds of deaths; Gandhi’s numerous arrests by the British ruling party in the hope it would diminish his teachings of noncooperation; the Salt March or Dandi March of 1930 in which, as a demonstration over the British tax on salt, Gandhi and his followers walked almost 400 miles from Ahmedabad to the sea near Dandi in order to make salt themselves; his marriage to Kasturba Gandhi (1883-1944); the end of British rule in 1947 when the British Indian Empire split into Hindu-majority India and Muslim-majority Pakistan; and his assassination by shooting at the hands right-wing Hindu nationalist Nathuram Godse in 1948.

A British-India coproduction, Gandhi was filmed in India with many of the actual locales used, including the garden of the former Birla House (now Gandhi Smriti) where Gandhi was shot and killed.

Ben Kingsley and Ian Charleson in Gandhi

Critics didn't like the director's portrayal of real people

It’s the depiction of real persons where Attenborough takes his greatest liberties and has drawn most criticism. The character of Vince Walker (Martin Sheen), the New York Times ’ journalist Gandhi initially meets in South Africa and then again at the time of Salt March is fictional, inspired by real-life American war correspondent Webb Miller who did not meet the real Gandhi in South Africa, but whose coverage of the march on the Dharasana Salt Works helped change global opinion on the British rule of India. Other characters in the film such as photographer Margaret Bourke White ( Candice Bergen ) did in fact famously photograph Gandhi for Life magazine in 1946 and was the last person to interview Gandhi before his assassination in 1948.

Major criticism, both at the time of the film’s release and still today, centers on the portrayal of Muhammed Ali Jinnah, the father of Pakistan and champion of Muslim rights in South Asia. The film was banned in Pakistan at the time of its release and over the years, the depiction of Jinnah has come under heavy scrutiny, from the non-resemblance of actor Alyque Padamsee in the role to his depiction as an obstructionist to Gandhi’s plans. The latter disagreements loom large on film, basically ignoring Jinnah’s unwavering commitment to independence from colonial rule. “Jinnah was shown as a villain in the whole thing, skipping his entire role as Ambassador of Hindu Muslim Unity,” according to Yasser Latif Hamdani, lawyer and author of Jinnah: Myth and Reality .

Such criticism highlights the cinematic balancing act of biographical films, says Alvarez. “You’re dealing with condensing events, creating composite characters – if in real life there were a handful of politicians involved you may narrow it down to one just for the simplicity of the narrative, sometimes characters are invented for the benefit of the audience to understand better.”

Attenborough was well aware of what putting Gandhi’s life onscreen would entail, including the portrayal of real people as secondary characters to the titular. “Overriding all judgments must be, and always will be, the need to establish the acceptability and credibility – the humanity – of the leading character,” he said of the film.

Mahatma Gandhi

Ben Kingsley wanted to focus on Gandhi's soft side

To embody Mahatma Gandhi (Mahatma being an honorific derived from Sanskrit meaning great or high soul/spirit) Attenborough turned to British actor Kingsley, whose father came from the same area in India in which Gandhi was born. Due to time restraints of what would already be a lengthy feature film, Attenborough omitted certain parts of Gandhi’s life – some that would perhaps not be as palatable to audiences, including his estrangement with his children, his views on diet and celibacy. “Unquestionably, he was cranky,” Attenborough said of Gandhi. “He had idiosyncrasies, cranky ideas – all his attitudes toward diet and sex and medicine and education, to an extent. But they were relatively minor parts of his life, minor parts of his makeup.”

What Attenborough and Kingsley focus on is the peace-loving, soft-spoken, spiritual-leader Gandhi, whose quiet work brought radical change to the world. Gandhi, in reality, was also a British-trained lawyer and shrewd politician and manipulator. Such elements of his character are given minor precedence in the hagiographical retelling. “Kingsley’s performance definitely brought [the film] to another level,” says Alvarez. “It’s not what I would call a warts-and-all biography, you don’t really see the darker side of the man or his serious flaws. It’s basically a heroic study.” In his review of the film, Roger Ebert said Kingsley “makes the role so completely his own that there is a genuine feeling that the spirit of Gandhi is on the screen.”

Though it has been criticized for truncation of events, depictions of towering real-world figures and omissions of both historical and human scale, Gandhi succeeds as a film. Critics agree Kingsley’s performance ultimately elevated what was always a resonant and important story, as did Attenborough’s old-fashioned (even in 1982) approach to filmmaking – a grand cinematic scale that gets to the heart and reveals the humanity of, the central character. “The only kind of epics that work,'' Attenborough said in 1982, ''are intimate epics.”

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West Virginia University - The Research Repository @ WVU - Gandhi: The Spirituality and Politics of Suffering
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Table Of Contents

Gandhi , British-Indian historical film , released in 1982, that tells the story of Mahatma Gandhi and his struggle to win independence for India through nonviolent civil disobedience . The movie won eight Academy Awards , including that for best picture , and five Golden Globe Awards , including that for best foreign film. It was also named best film at the BAFTA ceremony and took four additional BAFTA Awards.

( Read Martin Scorsese’s Britannica essay on film preservation. )

Empty movie theater and blank screen (theatre, motion pictures, cinema).

The movie opens with the 1948 assassination of Gandhi (played by Ben Kingsley ) by Nathuram Godse (Harsh Nayyar) and Gandhi’s funeral. The movie then takes up Gandhi’s story in 1893, when he is a young lawyer in South Africa and is thrown off a train for being in the first-class section (where Indians are not permitted) although he has a first-class ticket. He begins a protest campaign against the treatment of Indians in South Africa. His work attracts the attention of an American reporter, Walker ( Martin Sheen ). After a mass imprisonment of striking Indian miners, Gandhi and General Jan Smuts ( Athol Fugard ) reach a compromise. Gandhi returns to British-ruled India in 1915 and meets with Congress Party members Jawaharlal Nehru (Roshan Seth) and Sardar Patel ( Saeed Jaffrey), who introduce him to Muslim League leader Mohammed Ali Jinnah (Alyque Padamsee). Gandhi travels through the country, learning and advocating nonviolent resistance. The widespread protests do result in some loosening of restrictions. However, a successful general strike is followed by the Massacre of Amritsar , in which troops led by General Reginald Dyer (Edward Fox) fire on a nonviolent protest, killing hundreds.

Gandhi’s noncooperation movement expands throughout the country. He encourages the burning of British-made clothes and the weaving of clothing to wear instead. When one protest ends in violence by Indians against the British police, Gandhi begins a fast to end the use of violence by protesters. At one point he is imprisoned for sedition . In his most successful protest, he leads the Salt March to the sea so that Indians can make their own salt and avoid paying the British tax on salt. Gandhi later participates in a Round Table Conference in London to discuss the possibility of Indian independence, but no agreement is reached. During World War II , Gandhi and his wife, Kasturba (Rohini Hattangadi), are imprisoned for speaking against the war. After the end of the war, a new British viceroy, Lord Mountbatten (Peter Harlowe) arrives to facilitate Indian independence. Gandhi argues for a unified Hindu and Muslim country, but Jinnah believes that partition is necessary to avert civil war . In the end, British India is divided into the two independent countries of India and Pakistan . When violence breaks out between Muslims and Hindus on the border between the countries, Gandhi begins a long fast for peace. After he breaks his fast, he plans to travel to Pakistan but is assassinated before he can leave.

Director Richard Attenborough decided that he wanted to make a film about Gandhi in 1962 after having read a biography. He attained the approval of Nehru, who was then prime minister of India , and spent the next two decades trying to get the project off the ground. When at last he secured financing, there were protests by Indian filmmakers and others against Indian support going to the making of a British-directed movie about an Indian subject. The movie drew some criticism for its simplification of history and near deification of the title character, but Gandhi was generally well received in India, Britain, and the United States .

Studios: International Film Investors, National Film Development Corporation of India, Goldcrest Films International, and Indo-British Films
Director: Richard Attenborough
Music: Ravi Shankar
Cinematographers: Ronnie Taylor and Billy Williams
Ben Kingsley (Mahatma Gandhi)
Saeed Jaffrey (Sardar Patel)
Roshan Seth (Jawaharlal Nehru)
Alyque Padamsee (Mohammed Ali Jinnah)
Rohini Hattangadi (Kasturba Gandhi)
Lead actor* (Ben Kingsley)
Art direction*
Cinematography*
Costume design*

Cast & crew
User reviews

Metacritic reviews

100 Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert What is important about this film is not that it serves as a history lesson (although it does) but that, at a time when the threat of nuclear holocaust hangs ominously in the air, it reminds us that we are, after all, human, and thus capable of the most extraordinary and wonderful achievements, simply through the use of our imagination, our will, and our sense of right.
100 The Telegraph The Telegraph Attenborough's stately film is in every sense of the word an epic and Ben Kingsley is superb as Mahatma Ghandi, aging as he does 50 years during the three-hour film, and transforming from dapper young lawyer to loin-cloth wearing ascetic.
100 Variety Variety Once in a long while a motion picture so eloquently expressive and technically exquisite comes along that one is tempted to hail it as being near perfect. Such a film is Gandhi.
90 The Guardian The Guardian With the help of his cinematographers, Billy Williams and Ronnie Taylor, Attenborough has produced a very beautiful-looking movie that is maybe a little too seductive for its own good. But Attenborough shows once again his skill in managing the big set-piece.
90 Slate Slate Yes, Gandhi is a hagiography and not a nuanced, darkly shaded, or even very convincing portrait of an ambitious and deeply strange man. And as an account of the muddled, messy origins of Indian independence, the film is guilty of historical malpractice. But taken as a black-and-white morality play, Gandhi is unmatched. Simplifications and all, this is the movie my parents wanted me to see as a child—and it's the movie I'd want my own (purely theoretical) children to see as well.
90 Time Out Time Out Of course the film raises more questions than it comes near to answering, but its faults rather pale beside the epic nature of its theme, and Kingsley's performance in the central role is outstanding.
80 The New York Times Vincent Canby The New York Times Vincent Canby Neither Mr. Attenborough nor John Briley, who wrote the screenplay, are particularly adventurous filmmakers. Yet in some ways their almost obsessively middle-brow approach—their fondness for the gestures of conventional biographical cinema—seems self-effacing in a fashion suitable to the subject. Since Roberto Rossellini is not around to examine Gandhi in a film that would itself reflect the rigorous self-denial of the man, this very ordinary style is probably best.
80 Empire Simon Crook Empire Simon Crook Grand in scope, the best thing here is still Sir Ben Kingsley's central performance; the film will always deserve to be seen for this alone.
60 TV Guide Magazine TV Guide Magazine Despite an intelligent title performance by Ben Kingsley and impressive cinematography in the manner of David Lean, this huge, clunky biopic offers less than meets the eye. Director Attenborough seeks not to understand but to canonize his subject; as a result, both Gandhi's teachings and the complexities of Indian political history are distorted and trivialized.
50 Slant Magazine Slant Magazine Though Kingsley’s saturnine poise is much more interesting in roles which call for varying degrees of slipperiness, he nevertheless manages to bring shades into the inherently monochromatic saintliness of the role with life-sized, profoundly felt gravity and dignity, all while executing that marvelous, peculiarly British trick (remember Robert Donat in Goodbye, Mr. Chips) of seeming to age from within.
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Gandhi movie review & film summary (1982)
Gandhi (1982) In the middle of this epic film there is a quiet, small scene that helps explain why "Gandhi" is such a remarkable experience. Mahatma Gandhi, at the height of his power and his fame, stands by the side of a lake with his wife of many years. Together, for the benefit of a visitor from the West, they reenact their marriage vows.
Gandhi (film)
Gandhi is a 1982 epic biographical film based on the life of Mahatma Gandhi, a major leader in the Indian independence movement against the British Empire during the 20th century. A co-production between India and the United Kingdom, the film was directed and produced by Richard Attenborough from a screenplay written by John Briley.It stars Ben Kingsley in the title role.
Gandhi
Rated 5/5 Stars • Rated 5 out of 5 stars 04/08/24 Full Review Sachin E Gandhi was no mahatma, but he sure was a leader of the masses Rated 4.5/5 Stars • Rated 4.5 out of 5 stars 02/05/24 Full ...
Gandhi Movie Review
Our review: Parents say ( 7 ): Kids say ( 20 ): Weighing in at more than three hours, this amazing biopic is a must-see for families with an interest in history or civil rights. Ben Kingsley is brilliant as Gandhi, and the cast includes such luminaries as Sir John Gielgud, Candice Bergen, Martin Sheen, Roshan Seth, Trevor Howard, and Edward Fox ...
Gandhi (1982)
In 1893, the 23-year-old Gandhi is thrown off a South African train for being an Indian sitting in a first-class compartment despite having a first-class ticket. Khan (Amrish Puri) (in South Africa) is a Indian Muslim trader and tells Gandhi (who has been in the country for only a week) on how things have been for Indians under apartheid.
Gandhi (1982)
Gandhi: Directed by Richard Attenborough. With Ben Kingsley, Rohini Hattangadi, Roshan Seth, Candice Bergen. The life of the lawyer who became the famed leader of the Indian revolts against the British rule through his philosophy of nonviolent protest.
Gandhi (1982)
Gandhi (1982) A. One of the 15 films listed in the category "Values" on the Vatican film list. SDG. Overshadowing even Ben Kingsley's astonishing, transcendent performance in his first major screen role is a larger, more formidable presence: that of Mohandas K. Gandhi himself. Richard Attenborough's ambitious, Oscar-winning biographical ...
Gandhi Review
Mohandas K Gandhi, an Indian lawyer working in South Africa, returns home to the conclusion that the British have made his countrymen second clas citizens. He begins non-violent protests, becomes ...
Gandhi
The thin voice of the ageing Gandhi, whose life was ended at age 78 by an assassin's bullet in 1948, should ring out loud and clear from the screen to remind the world that for all our ...
Gandhi (1982) Movie Review from Eye for Film
Richard Attenborough's epic rendering of the life and times of Mahatma Gandhi has received plenty of plaudits and scooped eight Oscars (including best film, best director and best leading actor) following its 1982 release. However, while it certainly is an epic film painted on a broad and beautiful canvas, it is very difficult to engage with it.
Gandhi 1982, directed by Richard Attenborough
Its subject is an Indian spiritual leader almost unknown to today's Western youth, who not only preached a more sophisticated and forceful version of the pacifist ethic than ever flowered in the ...
Gandhi
Gandhi is a powerful searing epic about one of the most remarkable men to walk this earth. Richard Attenborough creates a monumental triumph with this thought provoking portrait about one of the greatest cultural figures who peacefully protested against the encroaching colonists, with a stance on non-violence as iron-clad as his desire to give his people independence and inspired a nation.
Gandhi
Some historians have argued that Gandhi is too much of a hagiography but, even if the movie presents the title figure in a decidedly favorable light, it makes up for any factual inaccuracies with the depth and power of its characterization. Attenborough's direction in concert with John Briley's screenplay and Ben Kingsley's titanic ...
‎Gandhi (1982) directed by Richard Attenborough • Reviews, film + cast
Synopsis. His triumph changed the world forever. In the early years of the 20th century, Mohandas K. Gandhi, a British-trained lawyer, forsakes all worldly possessions to take up the cause of Indian independence. Faced with armed resistance from the British government, Gandhi adopts a policy of 'passive resistance', endeavouring to win ...
Gandhi
Film Review by Frederic and Mary Ann Brussat. Director Richard Attenborough's respect for Mohandas K. Gandhi (1869-1948) is revealed in this film's opening statement: "No man's life can be encompassed in one telling. There is no way to give each year its allotted weight, to include each event, each person who helped to shape a lifetime.
Gandhi (1982)
Find trailers, reviews, synopsis, awards and cast information for Gandhi (1982) - Richard Attenborough on AllMovie. Find trailers, reviews, synopsis, awards and cast information for Gandhi (1982) - Richard Attenborough on AllMovie ... It stars Ben Kingsley in the title role. The film covers Gandhi's life from a defining moment in 1893, as he is ...
Gandhi (1982)
Screenshots. Gandhi (1982, UK) In director Richard Attenborough's Best Picture-winning biopic about India's spiritual and political leader in the 20th century: the opening sequence of 79 year-old Mahatma Gandhi's (Ben Kingsley) sudden shooting assassination by bystander Nathuram Godse (Harsh Nayyar) who shot him in the chest at close range in ...
Gandhi 1982 Film Review: The Timeless Lessons In Courage And Compassion
Gandhi 1982 is a film that deals with themes of freedom, justice, and nonviolence. It shows how Gandhi's philosophy of nonviolence was able to unite the Indian people and bring about change. The film also highlights the importance of leadership, and how one person can make a difference. Gandhi's philosophy of nonviolence is still relevant ...
Gandhi (1982)
The film, Gandhi, is Richard Attenborough's tribute to Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi (1869-1948). Although it won eight Academy Awards, Including Best Director and Picture, the film has been criticized for a variety of reasons by people who did not realize that Gandhi himself was the greatness of the film. Ben Kingsley portrayed Gandhi to perfection.
How Accurate Is the Movie 'Gandhi'?
In his review of the film, Roger Ebert said Kingsley "makes the role so completely his own that there is a genuine feeling that the spirit of Gandhi is on the screen.". Though it has been ...
Gandhi (1982)
Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/thejimmycage Subscribe: http://bit.ly/JimmyCage-Subscribe Twitter: https://twitter.com/TheJimmyCage Instagram: https://...
Gandhi
The movie opens with the 1948 assassination of Gandhi (played by Ben Kingsley) by Nathuram Godse (Harsh Nayyar) and Gandhi's funeral.The movie then takes up Gandhi's story in 1893, when he is a young lawyer in South Africa and is thrown off a train for being in the first-class section (where Indians are not permitted) although he has a first-class ticket.
Gandhi (1982)
90. Slate. Yes, Gandhi is a hagiography and not a nuanced, darkly shaded, or even very convincing portrait of an ambitious and deeply strange man. And as an account of the muddled, messy origins of Indian independence, the film is guilty of historical malpractice. But taken as a black-and-white morality play, Gandhi is unmatched.

Roger Ebert

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Eye For Film >> Movies >> Gandhi (1982) Film Review

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Gandhi (UK/India, 1982)