Gandhi

Rating:
Summary: BEN KINGSLEY'S FINEST HOUR ON DVD
Review: Richard Attenborough's "Gandhi" is a masterfully told, massively mounted epic motion picture, depicting the life and times of Gandhi, a benevolant crusader for peace, whose shocking assassination rocked the world. Ben Kingsley rightfully took home the Oscar for his subtle but stunning transformation into the title role. WARNING: This is a slow paced movie but well worth the three hour plus investment of your time.
Columbia Tristar has given us a very beautiful print of the film. Colors are rich, bold and vibrant. Contrast levels are good. Although black levels are not always at their darkest, this is relatively forgivable, since most of the film takes place during the day. Shimmering, aliasing and edge enhancement are all present but in extremely minute amounts, leaving one with nothing to do but admire the visual presentation in all of its breathtaking cinematography. The soundtrack is 2.0 surround but well represented. Some of the audio has a tendancy to appear thin or strident but, again, considering its dated fidelity and the source material, it is remarkably well represented. No extras - disappointing for a big time Oscar winner like this. Perhaps we'll get a special edition eventually.

Rating:
Summary: Ben Kingsley - shows us the ART of acting
Review: If you want to learn about this Great man THIS DVD is the best
choice you could possibly make.
The movie was made so vivid,even though all the movies should have been as vivid as this one. While you watch this movie you forget completely that you are watching it from your TV.
YOU are inside the TV thanks to DVD.
Seated right beside Gandhi, walking and traveling all over with him.
You'll take and make with him, the very first steps towards freedom starting in South Africa and then heading to India.
You'll get to learn everything you wanted about Gandhi and I've proven that.
One day as I was talking to one Indian person I didn't even mentioned Gandhi when surprisingly I have astounded him with "my great understanding" of Indian History.I was flattered and you bet,I have admitted where it all came from.
Special Features = GREAT...PERFECT especially when you see the
real footage of GANDHI when he visited UK with his rather funny clothing. People all around him and he's a bit shy in front of the cameras.
And a lot more...

Rating:
Summary: A wonderful movie - a cartoon, but still a wonderful movie
Review: I really love this movie -- for its cinematic effects, its terrific acting, even the editing which has sometimes been called too slow. I love it that India is recognizable in the movie, even seen through an Anglicized lens. And I'm also partial to the portrait of the Mahatma that Attenborough painted (and Ben Kingsley brought so inimitably to life). One can hardly escape being deeply moved by the story. In short, it's a masterpiece.

But the reviewers who claim this movie is a history lesson would maybe do well to read a little Indian history: this movie, beloved as it is, is a cartoon. Gandhi comes across as much more appealingly ecumenical here than he was in real life; it's obviously a movie made by and primarily for Christians, who might have felt alienated having to learn about the complicated Hindu principles of self-discipline and virtue that Gandhi's politics were built on. Jinnah is rendered as a vampire (which, depending on the viewer's politics, may well be a plausible caricature -- I found it thrilling, and unusual given the British & American alliance with Pakistan against India for most of the duration of the Cold War (and the enduring Western eagerness to buy Jinnah's contradictory argument, both in the Subcontinent and elsewhere, that minorities must be provided with states in which they are majorities if their rights are to be protected under democratic regimes)). Nearly all the British characters are extreme archetypes, not at all whole believable people (even Mountbatten, who might have been so interesting, here comes across as a dashing diplomatic cypher); and the Mahatma's enemies are all really deliciously evil and ugly. Any sane person can hardly escape feeling at the end that Gandhi was a saint, and while this is a really pleasant feeling to nurture I'm not sure it's entirely historically fair.

Still -- I give it 5 stars. How could I not?

I recommend the DVD over the VHS version, too, for the benefit of the intermission music, which one loses in the two-tape VHS format. The chapter headings are a little weird, but this is minor.

Rating:
Summary: Incredible Perspective on Film!!
Review: Okay, so Ben Kingsley is not "Gandhi," but after you get into the film, you may be convinced that he is. The make-up and the shots of India are so incredible, and his performance as the Indian holy man are uncanny. Richard Attenborough has put together such an astounding resemblance to the man who shaped our world that it is close to being real on its own.

Then there are the performances of John Gieglud as the "authority" figures, and the supporting cast of "thousands," literally, is phenomenal. Gandhi's family, of course, don't want him to push things, but the film chronicles his early rise to that of his stature, and the scenes of his starvation diets to press home his political points are so appropriate for the time in which we live, and we can see how Martin Luther King Jr. was so taken with him.

This may not be exactly the history books, but it is a nice addition to whatever history you may have or remember. For the novice who knows nothing about Gandhi, this is a nice place to start. Recommended!!

Rating:
Summary: Ben Kingsley's greatest role.
Review: "Gandhi" is one of the best movies ever made. Ben Kingsley is in his perfect role as Mohandas K. "Mahatma" Gandhi, who was originally a lawyer, and later an Indian political leader, who was into non-violent beliefs. This movie is the winner of 8 well-deserved Academy Awards including Best Picture, Best Actor (Kingsley), and Best Director (Richard Attenborough). The DVD is a must.

Rating:
Summary: A Great Soul's Life.
Review: It all began simple enough - with the purchase of a first class train ticket by Mr. Mohandas Gandhi, Esq., recently arrived in South Africa, and unaware that as an Indian, he was required to travel third class and not entitled to such a ticket. Literally thrown off the train for his transgression, the young attorney, embodied to perfection by Ben Kingsley, spent a full night sitting on the platform, musing how best to respond to such discrimination. Shortly thereafter, and after consultations with established members of his community, he wrote his first treatises and organized his first demonstrations. And when participants of a protest assembly stood up and proclaimed their willingness to die in the fight against suppression, Gandhi once and for all formulated his doctrine of nonviolent protest: "They may torture my body, break my bones; even kill me. Then they will have my dead body - not my obedience."

Shot largely on four Indian locations, Richard Attenborough's nine-time Oscar-winning biography of Gandhi is a sweeping epic that takes the viewer back to Britain's colonial past, covering all major events of Gandhi's political career from its beginnings in South Africa to the March to the Sea and India's independence, and contrasting the luxurious lifestyle of the foreign rulers with the poverty of those they governed; that India which, as Gandhi soon realized, not only the British didn't understand, but whose population also could not have cared less about the activities of the Indian Congress Party, at the time little more than a group of well-to-do city dwellers mentally and socially almost as far removed from the rest of their country as the British. Twenty years in the making, the movie is clearly reverential of Gandhi's genius, and of the man whose symbolic growth was reverse parallel to his retreat into simplicity, and who for that very reason, and because of his unfaltering commitment to nonviolence on the one hand and India's independence on the other hand, accomplished what only few people would otherwise have thought possible: to convince the world's biggest colonial power to give up the crown jewel among its colonies; and to do so in a gesture of friendship and without civil war. The one aspect of Gandhi's life that falls a bit short here is the effect that his overbearing symbolic status had on his family life, which necessarily had to suffer as a result (unable to cope with his father's fame and chosen lifestyle, Gandhi's eldest son, for example, threw himself into a life of alcoholism and prostitution). But Gandhi is not depicted as a saint, and particularly during his early years, we learn about the struggle that went into the formation of the man who later earned the title "Great Soul" (Mahatma). Even anticipating that he might be killed by an assassin's bullet, Gandhi once said that he would only deserve that title if he could accept that bullet with Rama's (God's) name on his lips: fittingly, the movie begins with his assassination and comes full circle at the end, affirming that Gandhi truly was a Great Soul throughout.

Attenborough found his perfect Gandhi in Ben Kingsley, who not so much plays but truly *is* the Mahatma; from his appearance to the inflection of his voice, attitudes and gestures. Over the year-long struggles to finance the movie, Attenborough's first choices for the role had grown too old to convincingly play the young Gandhi in South Africa, but eventually Michael Attenborough pointed his father to Kingsley, then with the Royal Shakespeare Company, who reportedly won the role by meeting Attenborough in full Gandhi makeup at their first get-together, thus instantly convincing him that he had found his man. Yet, despite his gift for mimicry and his part-Indian heritage, Kingsley nevertheless turned to his Indian costars, particularly Rohini Hattangadi, who plays Gandhi's wife Kasturba, to fine-tune his portrayal; and he recalls in an interview for the movie's DVD release that the skill he found the most difficult to master was to spin and to talk at the same time. The use of the actual British newsreels covering Gandhi's visit to England adds to the movie's sense of authenticity - and emphasizes yet again Ben Kingsley's achievement in transforming himself into the Mahatma.

In fact, his awardwinning performance so overshadows every other actor in the movie that it would be easy to overlook the fine performances of his costars, all of whom contributed to the movie's unique quality - to name but a few, Sir John Gielgud, whom Kingsley praises as "a national treasure" (British viceroy Lord Irwin), Roshan Seth (Pandit Nehru), Martin Sheen (NY Times reporter Vincent Walker), Candice Bergen (People Magazine's Margaret Bourke-White), Ian Charleson (Gandhi's early friend and colaborator Reverend Andrews), Edward Fox (General Dyer, the man responsible for the massacre at Amritsar, who testified at his court-martial that his intention had been to "teach a lesson that would be heard throughout India"); and Trevor Howard as Judge Broomfield, who had to sentence Gandhi to prison for his outright admission that he was guilty of the charge of advocating sedition because of his belief "that non-cooperation with evil is a duty and British rule in India is evil," and who nevertheless rose at Gandhi's entrance into the courtroom instead of making the prisoner rise for him, and commented on the sentence he had to impose that "if ... his Majesty's government should, at some later date, see fit to reduce the term, no one will be better pleased than I."

The movie ends with Gandhi's affirmation that when he despaired, he remembered that "all through history, the way of truth and love has always won. There have been tyrants and murderers; for a time they can seem invincible, but in the end they always fall. Think of this: Always." Such a belief may be difficult to hold on to, particularly for us who are so much more fallible than the Mahatma. Yet, this movie eloquently pleads that it is, at least, worth our very best effort.

Rating:
Summary: This epic classic is even better on DVD. Don't miss it!
Review: This magnificent film has a cast of thousands as it was was produced before digitizing later became common practice. It was filmed on location in India and starred Ben Kingsley as Gandhi. Of course he had to lose weight, and he did have to maintain a suntan. But in spite of being English and not Indian, he sure did look like Gandhi. And during the course of the film, he just melted right into the character of this very special man he was portraying. The supporting cast was wonderful too and included Candice Bergen, John Gielgud, Trevor Howard, Martin Sheen and Om Puri.

The film covers more half a century, beginning in 1893 in South Africa when Gandhi, an attorney educated in England, is treated like a second-class citizen. Always, he yearned for freedom for his people from British rule. And always, he preached non-violence. It worked. Eventually India did become independent. And, later, when the tension mounted between Muslims and Hindus, and blood began to be shed, Mahatma Gandhi's hunger strike was able to stop the fighting.

Watching the film on DVD is a special treat because it included some original newsreel footage of Gandhi himself as well as a recent interview with Ben Kingsley, who is now in his late fifties. I love all those behind-the-scene stories, such as how he had to learn to spin fabric as part of his role and how difficult it was for him to spin and say his lines at the same time. Also, in the funeral scene, which included 400,000 people, he actually played the part of the corpse instead of using a wax dummy.

I definitely recommend this DVD. See it for the great performances. See it for a sense of history. And see it as a moral lesson in what is possible.

Rating:
Summary: Can't imagine a better biography!
Review: .
You probably already have a basic idea of who Gandhi was, and that this film won scads of awards. You may even have seen the movie when it came out in the theatres. Well, it is time you saw it again! It's an appreciative script, wonderfully shot, and excellently portrayed. It conveys the basic tenets of Gandhi's philosphy, and demonstrates the roots of the political schisms that exist today. (Not just re India & Pakistan, but also the imapct of hardliners and what they can cause - - very relevant to Northern Ireland & Israel.)

The scope, given its three hours, is broad enough to start well before India, with Gandhi's early efforts against racist regulations in South Africa and the sacrifices implied by peaceful resistance. The film brings in Gandhi's failures, successes, idealism, and compromises. It also shows his human weaknesses. (I don't agree with others that the portrait is completely saintly.)

The performances are wonderfully understated, not just from Ben Kingsley, but also form the entire cast. And casting was wonderful, not just for the major parts but also the minor ones - - there is a scene late in the movie where a bereaving father visits Gandhi, and the actor who plays him (in even this small role) is just terrific.

One small complaint regarding the DVD. They haven't indexed the scenes as well as they could have. The scene index directly after the "intermission" is after a subsequent, important scene. Thus, if you split your viewing across two nights (it's a three hour movie, so you might), it's not easy to pick up just after the intermission (you either skip the following scene, or have to watch all of the scene before the intermission). It would have been just as easy for them to cut the index so that an index appears -immediately- after the intermission.

Rating:
Summary: Outstanding historical piece, wonderfully filmed
Review: I own both VHS and DVD versions of this and it is a movie I recommend often. 99% of the time it is returned with enthusiastic appreciation and comments like "I didn't know that about Indian history. What a story." The only criticism I've heard was "it was too long" but it's a big story and I told those friends to invest their time. They didn't regret it. Richard Attenborough's direction is outstanding, it is beautifully filmed, and you'd swear Ben Kingsley had a special tie with Gandhi to so portray him so well. I believe this is an important movie, particularly for people who haven't had time to read about the history of one of the key parts of our world. The world is a small place and great movies like this serve an important educational role in making us aware of other cultures as well as providing tremendous entertainment. Movie making at it's finest!!

Rating:
Summary: Gandhi - the man?
Review: A sprawling, powerful epic about one of the noblest men in history, it ranks alongside Lawrence of Arabia and Patton as one of the most impact-laden biopics ever made. In my humble opinion, it is director Richard Attenborough's most compelling work. The movie traces Gandhi's rise, from humble lawyer in South Africa to the benevolent father of an independent India. It is not the best rendition but it is by far the most inflencial. The movie does seem to have a few flaws - it does try to romanticize and essentialize Gandhi - but what can you expect if you try to encapsulate a man's life in a two to three hour movie. One does, however, have to be self reflective of this process and I think Attenborough is. There is a risk of elevating a man to sainthood - yet I think that in Gandhi's case it would be difficult to downplay his strengths. The movie does go into some detail about how, ironically - India was not the "united" India that Gandhi had in mind. Partitioned into "Hindu" India and "Muslim" Pakistan deadly clashes between Hindus and Muslims cost both groups thousands of lives in 1947. The conflict had its greates casualty as a Hindu extremist killed Gandhi on January 30, 1948. The movie had its work cut out for itself as it tried to bring a "man" into the movie - that has a tendency to make images "larger than life." To give everyone credit, the movie does have a sense of tact to it and Kingsley does well in a career-defining role. If you watch the movie with a sense of cynicism, you might be rewarded - it is full of wonderful images and colors that India is but it will not allow you "break through the veil" - the veil that separates western viewers from flesh and blood discourses around the world. Despite all that, I strongly feel that it should be watched along with other masterpieces like Lawrence of Arabia and Patton (both also available on Amazon.com).

Miguel Llora