Reeling Backward: "Gandhi" (1982)

"Gandhi" may just be the most resented Best Picture Oscar winner of all time. Which is ironic for a biopic about the iconic advocate of peaceful resistance to oppression. The "little brown man in a loincloth" stole hearts and minds all across the globe, and also the Academy Award from the rightful winner.

At least, that was the standard saw at the time. "E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial" was (then) the top-grossing movie of all time, beloved by American audiences of all ages, made by the Baby Boomers' wunderkind filmmaker, Steven Spielberg. "Gandhi," meanwhile," was very British, very long (3 hours, 11 minutes), and (to many) felt more like a history lesson than a movie.

I don't think I'd seen the film since it came out 32 years ago. Now having watched it again with the improved perspective that comes with the passage of time, I've analyzed my feelings about both movies and come to the considered conclusion that ... "E.T." really did get hosed.

Which isn't to say that "Gandhi" isn't a good film. Actually, it's very good. The acting is splendid, anchored by a then-unknown Ben Kingsley in the title role. It's beautiful to look at and epic in scope, with director Richard Attenborough's camera sweeping across landscapes and seas of people, and then settling in close for intimate moments with Gandhi puttering around his ashram, dispensing wisdom in between spinnings of looms and milkings of goats.

I don't mind lengthy pictures that fill that time with important and engaging events, but you could easily lop a half-hour out of "Gandhi" without losing much of the narrative momentum. For me, the first half is best, as we watch young lawyer Mohandas Gandhi agitating for the rights of Indian immigrants in South Africa, and later returning to his homeland as a middle-aged man and spending a year or two assimilating himself back into his native culture before taking a stand on independence for India.

It's a period of self-discovery, as Gandhi morphs from a standard-issue activist to quasi-holy man.

The second half becomes a bit repetitive, as Gandhi is now a revered international figure and official Great Man. Now going alternately by the names Mahatma ("great soul"), Bapu ("father") or Gandhiji (a familiarization), he ceases to speak to other people as individuals but makes pronouncements for the masses -- even if there is only one other person in the room.

Largely drawn from the real Gandhi's utterances ("an eye for an eye leaves the whole world blind"), they nonetheless add to the stilted nature of the film's latter portion.

I was struck by the depiction of Gandhi's reliance on the media to spread his message. It seems he always has an entourage of Western journalists following him around (Martin Sheen and Candice Bergen among them). He cajoles and charms them, extending his friendship -- offers that, at least in the depiction of the movie, reporters are more than happy to turn into an exchange.

There is relatively little depiction of Gandhi's personal life. His four sons are barely seen, and there are essentially two scenes exploring his relationship with his wife, Kasturba (Rohini Hattangadi), whom he married in an arranged ceremony when they were both just 13.

The most notable is when Gandhi first organizes an ashram -- essentially a farming commune -- and insists that everyone share all the work, including cleaning out the latrine. Kasturba objects that this is the work of "untouchables," the lowest caste of Indians relegated to the dregs of society. Gandhi becomes angry and even physically violent with her, but quickly finds his peaceful center.

The primary relationships are with Gandhi's fellow Indian National Congress activists: Pandit Nehru (Roshan Seth), a moderate Hindu who would later become India's first prime minster; Maulana Azad (Virendra Razdan), a younger scholar who doesn't say much; Vallabhbhai Patel (Saeed Jaffrey), an exuberant man of the people; and Muhammad Ali Jinnah (Alyque Padamsee), the peevish and aristocratic chief of India's Muslim faction, who would eventually splinter away from the group and become the founding father of Pakistan.

The best parts of the latter portion of the movie are these men holes up in various rooms, discussing how they will best gain their independence from the British Empire and map out the beginnings of their own country. There's a sense of grandiosity in the moment, but also that these were human beings who could be petty and flawed.

I enjoyed the tight little smile that Kingsley gives Gandhi, who uses it as a sort of imperturbable mask he presented to the world. He employs the same expression both in greeting old friends and in surrendering to the various military or police authorities who come to arrest him from time to time.

Perhaps the most harrowing sequence in the movie is the depiction of the Amritsar massacre, in which British forces fired open a crowd of completely peaceful demonstrators, resulting in more than 1,200 casualties, with something like 370 killed, including women and children.

Edward Fox plays the steely general who ordered his troops to fire for 10 minutes straight into the thickest parts of the crowd as they tried to escape. At the inquest hearing, asked if he would have used machine guns if the armored cars carrying them had been able to fit into the square, he tersely replies, "I think probably, yes."

A great number of actors enjoy small roles in the film, most of them British: Nigel Hawhthorne, Bernard Hill, Richard Griffiths, Trevor Howard, Ian Bannen, John Gielgud, even a very young Daniel Day-Lewis as a South African street punk who threatens Gandhi. John Ratzenberger even turns up as a jeep driver, though I swear his distinctive nasal honk has been dubbed.

"Gandhi" was nominated for 11 Oscars and won eight, including Best Picture, Actor, Director, Original Screenplay (by John Briley) and Original Score.

I don't really begrudge "Gandhi" its Best Picture win all that much. The Academy has a predilection toward certain pedigrees of filmmaking: historical, biographical costume dramas with a sense of profundity and gravitas. (This was part of the reason "12 Years a Slave" was such an easy pick to make earlier this year.) 

"E.T.," for all its wondrous magic, is still seen as a children's picture, and Oscars tend not to go the way of feel-good family pictures (or comedies).

The one Oscar I do think was a serious injustice was Best Costumes, which won over "TRON." Whatever you want to say about the video game adventure, it had a lot of groundbreaking special effects combined with elaborate, vividly original costumes.

For years I had made light of the Gandhi vs. TRON costume donnybrook by saying of the former film, "It was a guy in a white sheet!" Now that I've seen the movie again, I confess that there was much more to the costumes in "Gandhi" than the little man's simple homespun wrap. Gandhi wears natty period suits in the early period, and some of the other notable Indian figures are quite snappy dressers. Nehru, of course, even had a classic mid-century style of suit named after him, faithfully replicated in the film.

Still, I place more value on doing something differently from the way anyone has done it before than executing a familiar thing well. So even upon further reflection, I still think "TRON" got robbed in the costume award.

Actually, this sums up well my feelings about "Gandhi" as a whole. It's overall a pretty marvelous film, but in the end it's a fairly standard "great man" biopic. Perhaps that's why the movie's reputation has waned rather than waxed with the passing of years, and it is mainly remembered only as the film that "E.T." lost to.

 

Reeling Backward: "Lion of the Desert" (1981)

So here is a curious thing: an almost three-hour epic starring a lot of big-name Western actors, set against the backdrop of a looming World War as it played out in the wind-blown dunes of North Africa. "Lion of the Desert" is a big-budget spectacle with massive action scenes and a sprawling story.

The similarities to "Lawrence of Arabia" are hard to ignore, and indeed Anthony Quinn is the star and Maurice Jarre supplied the lyrical musical score.

So why have few people even heard of it? Mainly because this historical biopic was shot in Libya and financed by dictator Muammar Gaddafi. It's essentially a love poem to Omar Mukhtar, an early Libyan freedom fighter, who waged guerrilla warfare on the Italians for 22 years before being captured and hanged in 1931. A lot of military history was made during the conflict, including the first use of tanks in the desert -- presaging Rommel's deployment of the metal beasts later on.

The film is rather uneven, directed by Syrian filmmaker Moustapha Akkad, best known for producing the early "Halloween" films. The battle scenes seem to go on and on, lacking a great deal of visceral impact. The quieter scenes with Mukhtar imparting his wisdom to younger men and children hold the movie's true power.

Mukhtar was a simple Islamic teacher who nevertheless had a brilliant mind for military tactics. He fought the Italians until well into his 70s, and Quinn expresses the grace and intelligence of the man in an understated, subtle performance.

Perhaps the film's high point is when some of his fellow Bedouins express a desire to wreak the same sort of vengeance upon the Italians as they have done to their people, including the wanton murder of women and children. "They are not our teachers," Mukhtar intones quietly, yet with iron behind his words.

Perhaps the most revelatory thing about this movie for me was the atrocities committed by the Italians in Libya, which was their colony for much of the early part of the 20th century. Even though they were part of the Axis, we tend to think of the Italians as the least bad part of an evil triad. So to see Italian soldiers gunning down kids and such is quite a thing.

Oliver Reed plays General Rodolfo Graziani, sent by Mussolini himself to quiet the rebellion in Africa. Reed is delicious as a dedicated officer who relishes defeating his enemies, but he does so out of a sense of reaching for military glory rather than malevolence.

(Incidentally, Steiger has two powerful scenes as Mussolini. Despite a total lack of physical resemblance, he captures the man's bombasity and flamboyance. He truly believed he was raising the ancient Roman Empire back to its former heights.)

The story plays out as essentially a cat-and-mouse game between the two men, with Graziani resorting to ever more extreme measures to overcome the stubborn resistance led by Mukhtar. The latter foils his foe again and again, until his time runs out.

John Gielgud has a small part as El Gariani, an Arab turncoat and old friend of Mukhtar's, who tries unsuccessfully to persuade him to accept peace. It's part of an unfortunate trend in the film for Arabs to be played by Europeans.

Quinn of course was a naturalized American of Mexican and Irish descent. Greek actress Irene Papas plays a distraught mother who watches her children die by turns. Scotsman Andrew Keir plays the palest Bedouin who ever lived.

 Raf Vallone has a meaty role as an Italian colonel who seeks to make piece with Mukhtar, but is used as a pawn by Graziani. He plays one of just a handful of sympathetic Italians in the film, who bear witness to their countrymen's barbarism and speak out against it.

"Lion of the Desert" is more interesting as a cinematic artifact than the actual movie itself. But it's engaging enough and shines a light on an important historical figure few people west of Casablanca have heard about.

Reeling Backward: "Becket" (1964)

"Becket" is a terrific example of the historical play or novel turned into a cinematic drama crackling with whip-smart dialogue. I imagine actors must go mad with delight when they read a script that has page after page of dialogue this good. This sort of film was very popular mid-century, though it's fallen out of favor with studios and audiences over the last 40 years.

Peter O'Toole is King Henry II of England, and Richard Burton is Thomas Becket, Archbishop of Canterbury. It's based on a French play by Jean Anouilh, adapted for the screen in an Oscar-winning screenplay by Edward Anhalt, and directed by Peter Glenville, who also helmed the original stage version.

Despite a nearly three-hour run time, the plot is extraordinarily straightforward and simple. Henry is the power-mad king who wants to subjugate the mighty Church of England to his will. His greatest ally in this is his friend Thomas Becket, whom he appoints Chancellor to enforce the king's will in wresting property taxes from the church.

When one of the bishops points out that this has never been done before, Henry bellows, "I've never been this poor before!!"

This exchange is typical of O'Toole's performance, whose Henry has a slithery charm that can suddenly erupt into volcanic expulsions of blind fury. Henry is a boor who loves drinking, hunting and wenching more than ruling. But he's smart enough to recognize that Becket is smarter than himself, and all of his enemies.

In one scene Henry muses that Becket, if he were on the side of his opponents, would be just as ruthless and efficient in his political maneuvering. Becket concedes the point, saying that he takes pride in performing his duties, whatever they may, to the best of his capabilities.

This proves Henry's undoing, when the Archbishop dies and he picks Becket to be his successor -- despite not even being an ordained priest. As soon as the miter is upon his head and the silver cross in his hand, Becket becomes a thorn in the king's side, opposing him on a point of principle that will lead to the verge of the entire country of England being excommunicated.

Henry loves Becket, as perhaps he adores no other human being in his life, and it hurts him to the core that Becket chooses honor over their friendship.

As played by Burton, Becket is a self-aware man who is cognizant of his own limitations. As a Saxon who serves and befriends a Norman monarch, he is man apart with no home of his own. Henry's barons dismiss him as a "Saxon dog," and a young Saxon monk tries to assassinate him for betraying his people.

He believes himself incapable of loving or being loved, which is why he throws himself with such zeal into whatever endeavors are placed before him. When Henry takes Becket's mistress, Gwendolen, as his sexual plaything, the rift between them takes root. She stabs herself through the heart rather than be separated from Becket.

Glenville directs with an ostentatious hand, and his scenes inside the grand churches and castles occasionally drag on as he lingers too much over processions in ornate costumes passing before stunning sets. But mostly he lets these two amazing actors have free rein, and the results are often glorious.

The only downside of watching "Becket" is realizing how impossible it would be to get such a movie made today.

As is often the case with historical fiction, much of the actual record is muddied or altered.

For example, the central conceit of the film -- that Becket was a Saxon who became the king's confidante -- is false. All historical evidence indicates he was a Norman. Playwright Jean Anouilh were supposedly told of his massive inaccuracy before the play opened, but essentially shrugged his shoulders and decided he liked the story the way it was.

Also, the movie portrays the previous Archbishop, Theobald, as being appalled at Becket's appointment as chancellor. In point of fact, he was Becket's mentor and the one who recommended him to the king.

Interestingly, the roles of Becket and Henry were originally played by Laurence Olivier and Anthony Quinn onstage. But when it came time for the film, the producers decided they were too old. The younger, more handsome pair of Burton and O'Toole were brought in to pretty things up. In actuality, Olivier and Quinn were much closer to the actual ages of the real men in question.

O'Toole would go on to play Henry II again in 1968's "The Lion in Winter," set years later in his life when the aging king is beset by his ambitious sons. (Anthony Hopkins and Timothy Dalton, then whippersnappers, portrayed Richard the Lionheart and King Philip, respectively.) O'Toole received Oscar nominations for both turns as Henry -- part of his pool of eight nods without ever winning (though he did receive an honorary statuette).

3.5 stars out of four

Reeling Backward: "Richard III" (1955)

Shakespeare is better read than seen.

I long ago came to this blasphemous conclusion, which no doubt will earn me the title of uncouth knave among those who cherish the immortal Bard. But if they're honest, they'll admit that anyone outside of those with an advanced degree in English literature can hardly understand the flowery poetry of his plays.

The passing of half a millennium, not to mention dialogue that was crafted for its artfulness rather than its verisimilitude, make it a baffling experience in which you sit there, listening to the words and trying to assemble their meaning in your head as they fly by at an unstopping pace. I myself will admit to grasping perhaps 40 percent of it.

Laurence Olivier's early film career was defined in part by his Shakespearean adaptations: "Hamlet," "Henry V" and "Richard III" in 1955. These films, which he also directed, breathed life into the artifice of the plays as much as the aforementioned challenges allowed.

It's interesting to me how history-based fiction seems desperate for villains, to the point of turning monarchs and other historical figures into blackhearts even when they did not earn that depiction.

For example, all the stories involving Robin Hood show Richard the Lionheart as virtuous and true, while his brother John was a depraved usurper. In actuality, Richard was a poor king who barely spent any of his life in England, and John signed the Magna Carta, the foundation upon which all of modern Western democracy was built.

King Richard III ruled for but two years, and was overthrown by a coalition of lords. Interesting footnote: He was the last British king to die in battle. Shakespeare's play depicts him as a loathsome, though cunningly charismatic figure, who will stop at nothing to secure the throne, including murdering his own brother, nephews and wife.

The historical record is much murkier. It's not even clear if the sons of Edward IV were ever murdered. Rumors that they were bastards and thus not eligible for the throne were spread, but we don't know if Richard was behind it. A mock trial held in 1997 judged by three Supreme Court justices acquitted Richard of guilt.

It's entirely likely that Richard was not even a hunchback, which is a central motif of the play. Word is that the man who overthrew him, the Earl of Richmond (later Henry VII) ordered portraits of Richard altered to make him misshapen.

So much for Richard's soliloquy about his body being "rudely stamp'd."

It's fascinating to note that Richard is almost always portrayed by middle-aged actors -- Olivier was 48, and actually comes in at the low end. In reality, Richard was only 32 when he died.

Olivier is a delight in the title role. The way he connives and plots and lies to his political opponents, and then turns to the audience to deliver a delicious observation about their failings and how he's going to best them, lends the film a comedic undertone.

If you think about it, as a storytelling device it's not terribly different from the structure of reality television, in which the participants comment on the action in interviews recorded separately and intercut with the main narrative. Even fictional shows like "The Office" and "Parks and Recreation" have come to use the device of the faux documentary to allow characters to speak directly to the audience, much as Shakespeare loved to do.

As history, "Richard III" is a load of cock and bull. As a piece of narrative, it jumps around haphazardly, has dozens of characters who get lost in the shuffle, and is often impossible to decipher because of the language barrier. As a character study, it's an often delightful mix of tragedy and humor, sometimes within the same scene.

2.5 stars out of four

Reeling Backward: "Julius Caesar"

At the risk of sounding foolish, I have never really cared for William Shakespeare.

When I say that, I'm talking about actual performances of his plays, as opposed to reading them. The Bard's work is really best experienced textually, where you can look at the words, repeat them to yourself, study them and -- as is often necessary -- research them to figure out just what the heck ol' Will was saying.

It's not just the half a millennium that has passed between us, with a changing set of historical reference points and the understandable migration of the English language over that time.

Shakespeare was writing for an extremely literate audience -- one that lived in a city large enough to support a playhouse, and populated by people rich enough to afford to go. So he wrote long, beautiful prose that no living person, now or then, could possibly conjure to their lips on the spur of the moment.

I guess that's the thing I've never been able to get past with Shakespeare: It just doesn't sound anything like real people talking. Even the very best orators are not off-the-cuff eloquent and cohesive in their speech -- just listen to the difference when President Obama doesn't have a teleprompter in front of him.

Or, to get the fully glory of "ums," "y'knows" and the general disorderliness of regular people talking, just tune in to any of the podcasts we do over at The Film Yap.

All this is a rather long wind-up to saying that although I appreciated the wonderful acting performances and production values of Joseph L. Mankiewicz' 1953 production of "Julius Caesar," I simply had too hard a time piercing the dense fog of beautiful but confounding dialogue to really appreciate the film.

The cast is magnificent. John Gielgud plays Cassius, the main instigator of the uprising against Julius Caesar, who had defeated all his enemies and been declared Rome's dictator for life. James Mason is Brutus, Caesar's good friend and "the noblest man of Rome," who leads the assassins because he feels Caesar has usurped too much power.

Caesar -- a relatively minor character in the play and film that bears his name -- is played by Louis Calhern. And Marlon Brando is Mark Antony, his best friend and right-hand man. Edmund O'Brien is Casca, Greer Garson is Caesar's wife Calpurnia, and Deborah Kerr is Brutus' wife Portia.

The story is well known, so I won't belabor describing the plot. The film's high point is Marc Antony's address to the Roman throng on the stairs of the Senate shortly after Caesar's murder, where he slyly indicts Brutus and his co-conspirators without ever coming right out and saying it.

But really, the most compelling figure of the film is Brutus, who is played by Mason as a man of pure heart struggling with inner conflict. Even Mark Antony honors Brutus, even as he maneuvers to oust him and capture power for himself.

The depiction of Caesar's murder is particularly bloody for a 1953 film, but since the play had scenes with his murderers dipping their hands in his blood and so forth, it would be hard to film a family-friendly version.

The costumes, sets and other production values are top-notch -- this film won the Academy Award for art direction.

Although I must say those Caesar haircuts are distracting -- you know the ones, where the hair is parted a the crown of the head and combed forward. No matter how handsome the actor, he always looks like he's wearing linguine with that style.

I also couldn't help but notice that both Mason and Gielgud wear Roman-style sandals, but with a high heel that adds a few inches to their height. Both actors were tallish, just under 6 feet, so the effect is to make them loom over most of the rest of the cast. I didn't notice any other actors wearing lift shoes, and if you glance at their feet when they're visible in a few scenes, it's rather comical.

I hope you won't think ill of me that I just can't get into Shakespeare -- at least rote recitations of his plays. I think the best way to experience his timeless works is with movies that recast his language and setting in modern idioms, like Baz Luhrmann's 1996 "Romeo + Juliet" or the 1995 version of "Richard III" starring Ian McKellan.

Or just under a good lamp, with reading glasses, if necessary.

2.5 stars