Gandhi is a 1982 biographical film directed and produced by Richard Attenborough and written by John Briley. It is based on the life of Mahatma Gandhi (portrayed by Ben Kingsley), a major leader in the Indian independence movement against the British Empire during the 20th century. It covers Gandhi's life from a defining moment in 1893, as he is thrown off a train in the Colony of Natal 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. Over 300,000 extras appeared in the film, believed to be the most in any film made.
Gandhi was released by Columbia Pictures in India on 30 November 1982, in the United Kingdom on 3 December, and in the United States on 8 December. It was praised for its portrayal of the life of Gandhi, the Indian independence movement, and the deleterious results of British colonisation on India.
It was considered to have maintained a reasonable level of historical accuracy, although many separate events were amalgamated, such as historical meetings with individual people being combined into single fictionalized scenes for narrative pacing. Several events were exaggerated or invented, such as being beaten by police while burning registration certificates. The chronology of Gandhi's early activism was altered, and certain historical figures (such as Christian missionary and independence activist C.F. Andrews and founder of Pakistan Mohammad Ali Jinnah) were considered to have been portrayed inaccurately. The film was praised for conveying Gandhi's core principles of nonviolence and human dignity effectively, providing an accessible introduction to his life and message.
Its production values, costume design, and Kingsley's performance received worldwide critical acclaim. It became a commercial success, grossing $127.8 million on a $22 million budget. It received a leading eleven nominations at the 55th Academy Awards, winning eight, including Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Actor (for Kingsley). The British Film Institute ranked it as the 34th greatest British film of the 20th century. The American Film Institute ranked the film 29th on its list of most inspiring movies.
Contents
Plot
While heading to afternoon prayers in New Delhi on January 30, 1948, Gandhi is fatally shot.
On 7 June 1893, in the Colony of Natal, young lawyer Mohandas Gandhi is forcibly expelled from a whites-only train carriage in Pietermaritzburg despite possessing a valid ticket, subsequently campaigning for racial equality among whites and Indians in both the Colony of Natal and the Cape Colony. Dada Abdullah, president of the Natal Indian Congress, notices his campaign and invites him to a demonstration where he burns his pass. After the Second Boer War, the British colonial government attempts to have Indians fingerprinted like criminals. Gandhi responds with peaceful demonstrations, but is arrested. The government releases Gandhi and relents by granting some rights to Indians, fulfilling his short-term goal. Anglican clergyman Charles Freer Andrews joins his mission, and American journalist Vince Walker takes special interest in him. Gandhi works at his ashram alongside associates such as Andrews, Hermann Kallenbuch, and later Mirabehn.
Gandhi returns to India in 1915 where he is invited to the Indian National Congress (INC), led by Sardar Patel, Jawaharlal Nehru, Maulana Azad, Muhammad Ali Jinnah, who is advocating India's self-rule, and Gopal Krishna Gokhale, who becomes his mentor. Jinnah supports Gandhi's involvement but opposes his unconventional approach. At a meeting of the Congress, Gandhi's speech captivates the ensemble, especially Patel.
Gandhi pledges allegiance to the British Empire in World War I, but simultaneously demands self-rule. His satyagrahas at Champaran and Kheda are brutally curtailed by the British. Despite India's wartime involvement, the administration passes the Rowlatt Act in 1919, which the movement sees as betrayal. While a crowd listens to speeches about freedom, Colonel Reginald Dyer orders his Nepalese soldiers (Gurkhas) and Indian soldiers (sepoys) to fire upon them in what becomes the Jallianwala Bagh massacre.
Jinnah suggests non-cooperation to protesting British rule, and Gandhi surprisingly agrees. Its immediate success causes protesters to kill and burn police officers in what becomes the Chauri Chaura incident. Disgusted, Gandhi calls off the non-cooperation movement, enraging Jinnah, quelling the masses by fasting.
Cast
Ben Kingsley as Mahatma Gandhi
Rohini Hattangadi as Kasturba Gandhi
Roshan Seth as Jawaharlal Nehru
Saeed Jaffrey as Vallabhbhai Patel
Virendra Razdan as Maulana Azad
Candice Bergen as Margaret Bourke-White
Jane Myerson as Lady Mountbatten
Edward Fox as Brigadier General Reginald Dyer
Habib Tanvir as Sir Chimanlal Harilal Setalvad, an Indian barrister
John Gielgud as Viceroy Lord Irwin
Trevor Howard as Justice Robert Stonehouse Broomfield
John Mills as Viceroy Lord Chelmsford
Shane Rimmer as Edward R. Murrow
Martin Sheen as Vince Walker, a fictional journalist based partially on Webb Miller
Ian Charleson as Charles Freer Andrews, an Anglican priest
Athol Fugard as General Jan Smuts
David Gant as Daniels
Gareth Forwood as secretary
Geraldine James as Mirabehn (Madeleine Slade)
Alyque Padamsee as Muhammad Ali Jinnah
Production
This film had been Richard Attenborough's dream project, although two previous attempts at filming had failed. In 1952, Gabriel Pascal secured an agreement with the Prime Minister of India (Jawaharlal Nehru) to produce a film of Gandhi's life. However, Pascal died in 1954 before preparations were completed.
In 1962, Attenborough was contacted by Motilal Kothari, an Indian-born civil servant working with the Indian High Commission in London and a devout follower of Gandhi. Kothari insisted that Attenborough meet him to discuss a film about Gandhi. Attenborough agreed, after reading Louis Fischer's biography of Gandhi and spent the next 18 years attempting to get the film made. He was able to meet prime minister Nehru and his daughter Indira Gandhi through a connection with Lord Louis Mountbatten, the last Viceroy of India. Nehru approved of the film and promised to help support its production, but his death in 1964 was one of the film's many setbacks. Attenborough would dedicate the film to the memory of Kothari, Mountbatten, and Nehru.
David Lean and Sam Spiegel had planned to make a film about Gandhi after completing The Bridge on the River Kwai, reportedly with Alec Guinness as Gandhi. Ultimately, the project was abandoned in favour of Lawrence of Arabia (1962). Attenborough reluctantly approached Lean with his own Gandhi project in the late 1960s, and Lean agreed to direct the film and offered Attenborough the lead role. Instead Lean began filming Ryan's Daughter, during which time Motilai Kothari had died and the project fell apart.
Attenborough again attempted to resurrect the project in 1976 with backing from Warner Bros. Then prime minister Indira Gandhi declared a state of emergency in India and filming would be impossible. Co-producer Rani Dube persuaded prime minister Indira Gandhi to provide the first $10 million from the National Film Development Corporation of India, chaired by D. V. S. Raju at that time, on the back of which the remainder of the funding was finally raised. Finally, in 1980 Attenborough was able to secure the remainder of the funding needed to make the film. Screenwriter John Briley had introduced him to Jake Eberts, the chief executive at the new Goldcrest production company that raised approximately two-thirds of the film's budget.
Filming began on 26 November 1980 and ended on 10 May 1981. Some scenes were shot near Koilwar Bridge, in Bihar. Over 300,000 extras were used in the funeral scene, the most for any film, according to Guinness World Records.
Casting
During pre-production, there was much speculation as to who would play the role of Gandhi. The choice was Ben Kingsley, who is partly of Indian heritage (his father was Gujarati and his birth name is Krishna Bhanji).
Release
Gandhi premiered in New Delhi, India, on 30 November 1982. Two days later, on 2 December, it had a Royal Premiere at the Odeon Leicester Square in London in the presence of Prince Charles and Princess Diana before opening to the public the following day. The film had a limited release in the US starting on Wednesday, 8 December 1982, followed by a wider release in January 1983. In February 1983, it opened on two screens in India, nationwide in the UK, and in other countries.
Reception
Critical response
Review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes retrospectively collected 111 reviews and judged 89% of them to be positive, with an average rating of 8.30/10. The website's critical consensus reads: "Director Richard Attenborough is typically sympathetic and sure-handed, but it's Ben Kingsley's magnetic performance that acts as the linchpin for this sprawling, lengthy biopic." Metacritic gave the film a score of 79 out of 100 based on 16 critical reviews, indicating "generally favorable reviews". CinemaScore reported that audiences gave the film a rare "A+" grade. In 2010, the Independent Film & Television Alliance selected the film as one of the 30 Most Significant Independent Films of the last 30 years.
Reviews were broadly positive worldwide. The film was discussed or reviewed in Newsweek, Time, the Washington Post, The Public Historian, Cross Currents, The Journal of Asian Studies, Film Quarterly, The Progressive, The Christian Century and elsewhere. Ben Kingsley's performance was especially praised. Among the few who took a more negative view of the film, historian Lawrence James called it "pure hagiography" while anthropologist Akhil Gupta said it "suffers from tepid direction and a superficial and misleading interpretation of history." Also Indian novelist Makarand R. Paranjape has written that "Gandhi, though hagiographical, follow a mimetic style of film-making in which cinema, the visual image itself, is supposed to portray or reflect 'reality'". The film was also criticised by some right-wing commentators who objected to the film's advocacy of nonviolence, including Pat Buchanan, Emmett Tyrrell and Richard Grenier. In Time, Richard Schickel wrote that in portraying Gandhi's "spiritual presence... Kingsley is nothing short of astonishing." A "singular virtue" of the film is that "its title figure is also a character in the usual dramatic sense of the term." Schickel viewed Attenborough's directorial style as having "a conventional handsomeness that is more predictable than enlivening", but this "stylistic self-denial serves to keep one's attention fastened where it belongs: on a persuasive, if perhaps debatable vision of Gandhi's spirit, and on the remarkable actor who has caught its light in all its seasons." Roger Ebert gave the film four stars and called it a "remarkable experience", and placed it fifth on his 10 best films of 1983.
In Newsweek, Jack Kroll stated that "There are very few movies that absolutely must be seen. Sir Richard Attenborough's Gandhi is one of them." The movie "deals with a subject of great importance... with a mixture of high intelligence and immediate emotional impact... [and] Ben Kingsley... gives what is possibly the most astonishing biographical performance in screen history." Kroll stated that the screenplay's "least persuasive characters are Gandhi's Western allies and acolytes" such as an English cleric and an American journalist, but that "Attenborough's 'old-fashioned' style is exactly right for the no-tricks, no-phony-psychologizing quality he wants." Furthermore, Attenborough
Box office
The film grossed $81,917 in its first 6 days at the Odeon Leicester Square in London. In the United States and Canada, it grossed $183,583 in its first 5 days from 4 theatres (Ziegfeld Theatre in New York City; Uptown Theater in Washington D.C.; Century Plaza in Los Angeles; and the York in Toronto). Due to the running time, it could be shown only three times a day. It went on to gross US$52,767,889 in the United States and Canada, the 12th highest-grossing film of 1982.
Outside of the United States and Canada, the film grossed US$75 million in the rest of the world, the third highest for the year.
In the United Kingdom, the film grossed £7.7 million (£22.3 million adjusted for inflation). It is one of the top ten highest-grossing British independent films of all time adjusted for inflation.
In India, it was one of the highest-grossing films of all-time (and the highest for a foreign film) during the time of its release by earning over ₹100 crore or 1 billion rupees. At today's exchange rate, that amounts to US$14.9 million, still making it one of the highest-grossing imported films in the country. It was shown tax free in Bombay (known as Mumbai since 1995) and Delhi.
The film grossed a total of $127.8 million worldwide. Goldcrest Films invested £5,076,000 in the film and received £11,461,000 in return, earning them a profit of £6,385,000.
The film was successful on home video, with over 50,000 copies sold in the United States in 1983 at a US$79.95 (equivalent to $300 in 2025) retail price.
Accolades
American Film Institute
AFI's 100 years... 100 Cheers – number 29
AFI's 100 Years... 100 Heroes & Villains
Mahatma Gandhi – number 21 Hero
