A proposal in London, years of financial uncertainty and a remarkable collaboration eventually brought Richard Attenborough’s ‘Gandhi’ to the screen.
The funeral comes first. A nation moves behind the body of a man whose presence had become inseparable from its struggle for freedom. In Richard Attenborough’s ‘Gandhi’, the scale of that farewell prepares the audience for the life that follows. The story then moves backwards, towards a young lawyer in South Africa and the beginnings of a political journey.
Behind this cinematic journey was another long passage. Attenborough’s film reached audiences in 1982, two decades after Motilal Kothari first persuaded him to consider the subject. The production history is a story of conviction, but also of the practical difficulties of bringing a vast historical life within the limits of a feature film.
A proposal that survived twenty years
In 1962, Kothari approached Attenborough about a film on Gandhi and encouraged him to read Louis Fischer’s biography. The idea encountered doubts from people close to the filmmaker: could one film accommodate the life, and could such an ambitious undertaking find support? Shooting eventually began on 26 November 1980. The twenty-year period therefore runs from the original proposal to the 1982 release, rather than to the start of production.
Nehru’s advice, recalled in accounts of the project, was to avoid turning Gandhi into a deity. Its importance goes beyond one production meeting. A filmmaker undertaking this subject would have to find the human being within the national icon: the humour, the stubbornness, the relationships and the cost of public responsibility.
Much of the difficulty lay in persuading financiers that the subject could sustain a major film. Attenborough committed personal resources, including selling his interest in the successful stage production ‘The Mousetrap’. The persistence was considerable, but it should not obscure the eventual collaboration that made production possible.
The money and the collaboration
Jake Eberts of Goldcrest Films International helped assemble the financing. India’s National Film Development Corporation also made a substantial investment. These contributions placed British filmmaking resources and Indian public backing behind the same project.
The allocation of public money to a film led by a foreign director raises a legitimate question about cultural priorities. Supporting domestic filmmakers and carrying an Indian historical subject to international audiences are both important objectives. Establishing whether this particular investment struck the right balance requires financial records and contemporary evidence, rather than retrospective claims about who opposed it.
Ben Kingsley and the work of becoming Gandhi
Ben Kingsley, born Krishna Bhanji and of English and Indian parentage, brought an important personal connection to the role. More decisive for the finished film was the discipline of the performance. Preparation included losing weight, practising yoga and learning to spin cotton.
On screen, the transformation works through small physical details. The young lawyer’s clothes and bearing belong to one stage of the life; the spare figure in khadi belongs to another. Kingsley allows the audience to follow that movement without making Gandhi merely a succession of familiar photographs.
The performance also depends on listening. Gandhi watches, pauses and sometimes answers with humour. Political authority emerges through conduct and conversation as much as through public speeches. These quieter passages help sustain a film surrounded by crowds, ceremonies and historical turning points.
Three lakh people for just over two minutes
The funeral sequence was filmed in Delhi on 31 January 1981, the thirty-third anniversary of Gandhi’s funeral. Guinness World Records states that more than 300,000 extras are believed to have appeared. Its account identifies over 200,000 volunteers and 94,560 contracted performers, summoned through several forms of public announcement.
Eleven camera crews recorded 6,096 metres of film. The edited procession occupied only 125 seconds. The figures reveal an extraordinary relationship between production effort and screen time: an immense public gathering became a brief, carefully arranged passage in the finished narrative.
The crowd matters artistically because the film must establish Gandhi’s public significance before returning to his private beginnings. The funeral gives the audience the destination; the rest of the film asks how the young man became the person being mourned.
Eight Oscars, and a history still open to scrutiny
At the fifty-fifth Academy Awards on 11 April 1983, ‘Gandhi’ won eight Oscars from eleven nominations.
| Category | Recipient(s) |
|---|---|
| Best Picture | Richard Attenborough |
| Directing | Richard Attenborough |
| Actor in a Leading Role | Ben Kingsley |
| Original Screenplay | John Briley |
| Art Direction | Stuart Craig, Bob Laing and Michael Seirton |
| Cinematography | Billy Williams and Ronnie Taylor |
| Costume Design | John Mollo and Bhanu Athaiya |
| Film Editing | John Bloom |
Bhanu Athaiya’s shared Costume Design award made her India’s first Oscar winner. It also points towards the Indian expertise within a film often discussed primarily through its British director and leading actor.
‘Gandhi’ remains a remarkable cinematic achievement. Its enduring value becomes clearer when admiration for its craft stands alongside an awareness of its boundaries. The film opens a door to the history; the history continues beyond its frames.