Gandhi is a different kind of epic than the films like Ben-Hur and Lawrence of Arabia and The Bridge on the River Kwai that won Best Picture in previous decades. Gandhi is a bio-pic/historical drama that follows a man who preached and lived peace as a means of defeating his oppressors. After a long, difficult struggle, he finally saw his dream realized, but it came with several heavy price tags along every step of the way, and his final dream realized wasn’t what he had dreamed it would be.

As we all know, Mahatma Gandhi was the leader of the peaceful movement of non-compliance against the English occupation of India during the first half of the twentieth Century. This film portrays his life as a young lawyer speaking out against racial inequality in South Africa to his decades-long struggle to peacefully achieve independence for India from British rule. This we know, but what I thought the film did so effectively was that it showed Gandhi’s motivation behind doing this in peaceful ways rather than inciting violence. The easy answer is that he was a man of peace, and that is true. However, there was also a very practical reason behind achieving independence through peaceful means that went much deeper than simply being against violence. Gandhi believed that they had to show the world that they were worthy of independence. He felt that the Indian people needed to demonstrate that they had to the tolerance and capacity to lead their own civil society by acting civilly in the face of oppression. Not only that, he knew that reacting to the violence with non-violence would garner sympathy for their cause around the world and apply political pressure to the British to withdraw. He preached these ideas over the protestations of even his closest supporters, famously proclaiming, “An eye for an eye only ends up making the whole world blind.”

Personally, I felt that showing Gandhi’s motivation and determination for peaceful means to the resolution of this conflict was the driving force behind this film, and one of the reasons it came away with the Oscar. Otherwise, I wasn’t really blown away by it. At 192 minutes, it’s one of the longest films to ever win Best Picture, but the length of the film didn’t bother me too much. Gandhi was truly a great man and the events of his early life impacted the way he lived his later years, so it was important to show as much of that as possible. I did feel, however, that the first half of the film dragged. It was never quite boring, but it wasn’t terribly exiting filmmaking due to the fact that a lot of it was exposition. I understand that it was all important, because it does lay the foundation for the man he would become. For example, there is a scene when he’s living in South Africa where he’s leading a peaceful protest against a new policy requiring all Indians to carry work permits. He burns several permits, even as he’s being beaten by police officers, until he’s beaten to the point where he can’t continue, and he’s arrested. What the scene does is it shows his discomfort in being a leader of a cause and speaking to large groups. After getting out of jail, he speaks to another group of people decrying another unjust law stating that the government will only recognize Christian marriages under the law. By now Gandhi has a charisma that is more of a leadership quality than magnetism, and he’s able to simplify complex issues in ways that the masses can understand, especially when it comes to non-violent protest.

So yes, this exposition was very necessary for what would happen later in the film, and I don’t know how they could have made the film without it. That I suppose is the crux of the problem, and something that film makers and screenwriters have to wrestle with every day. How do we get in as much story development and character development as possible without stalling the story? And the thing about this particular story is that I don’t think there is much that could have been cut in order to streamline it. It feels like every scene in this film was necessary to the progression of the story or to the development of the characters. It’s just a film that has to be long, and if you like films like that then you will like Gandhi. If you don’t, then you won’t.

I think what they did very effectively in Gandhi was that Director Richard Attenborough and screenwriter John Briley gave Gandhi a very effective Hero’s Journey point of view. In fact, from the Hero’s Journey point of view, Gandhi’s time in South Africa is his Ordinary World, and ironically, when he returns home to India is when he Crosses the First Threshold in to the Special World of the Adventure. A careful analysis shows that all of the stages are represented especially well in this film. We are presented with his Ordinary World of South Africa, and his first Call to Adventure is when he’s kicked out of first class on his train, and actually kicked off the train entirely because Indians aren’t allowed in Frist Class, and no one believes he’s a lawyer. The Refusal of the Call is when Gandhi refuses to accept a violent response to the injustices that his people are experiencing. There are several Mentors that Gandhi Meets over the course of the film, but the one that sets him on his main path, is Khan, a kindly man who would teach him about getting his message to the masses. An interesting note is that Khan was played by Amish Puri, who is perhaps best known to American audiences as Mola Ram, the kidnapping, heart-harvesting villain from Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom.

In fact another of Gandhi’s allies, Roshan Seth, played Pandit Nehru, India’s first Prime Minister. He was also in The Temple of Doom as Chattar Lal, the head servant at Pankot Palace. Pandit is introduced after Gandhi Crosses the First Threshold into India during the Tests, Allies and Enemies section of the script, along with several characters who will serve those roles, and some will shapeshift between allies and enemies. The Approach is Gandhi spreading the word of non-violence and non-compliance. The Supreme Ordeal doesn’t actually involve Gandhi directly, but happens when more than 1,500 people are massacred at Amristar. The Reward is Gandhi meeting with the British high command and telling them that it is time for them to leave India. However, some of the protests turn violent and Gandhi goes on a hunger strike until the protests come to a complete end. The Road Back has Gandhi finally achieving his dream of an independent India when the British finally leave.

The final act begins with the Resurrection, and India rises, but all is not well. Hindus are the majority in India and there is fear within the Muslim community that they’ve merely exchanged British oppressors for Hindu ones. The prospect of civil war hangs over everything that Gandhi has accomplished as the separate nations of Pakistan and India are created, but there is little peace as the two cultures clash. What’s great about this story point is that even though the British ruled and oppressed over the Hindus and Muslims, they kept the peace between them, and this creates an interesting dynamic. Is it better to have an uneasy peace at the expense of your freedom, or is freedom worth the violence that it can sometimes cause. The film proposes that question, and answers the latter emphatically. The film ends with the Return with the Elixir, as peace is declared between the two religions, a peace that was brokered by Gandhi going on yet another hunger strike. Gandhi then resolves to go to Pakistan to help secure the peace, but he is gunned down before he can get there.

This is a very strong Hero’s Journey dynamic that helps to move the film along and keep it from feeling as long as it really is.

The other thing that I like about Gandhi from a story telling perspective is that Gandhi is on an internal journey more than anything. It seems on the surface that Gandhi goes through very little growth or change, at least from an internal perspective. He starts out the film peaceful and wise and carries that through to the end. But what happens over the course of the story is that Gandhi grows from oppressed to free. This is both internal and external growth that you might miss entirely, at least consciously, and not even know it. In fact, I missed it initially until thinking about it just now.

I guess that’s where the strength in this film really lies. It’s a film, like so many other Best Picture winners before it, that requires participation on the part of the viewer. It requires you to think about what you’re watching, as well as the ramifications of each event and/or scene in the film. It’s interesting, but after reflecting on it for a little while, I actually like the film better than I did when it ended.

Now is this one of my favorite Best Picture winners? It is not. In fact, I actually feel like this is a film that is less than the sum of its parts. There are a lot of terrific scenes that are engaging and dramatic, but the scope of the story is so broad and sweeping, and the film is so long, that it was difficult for me to become fully engaged. I do like this film, but I don’t love it in its entirety.

One aspect of this film that I did love, however, was the performance of Ben Kingsley. He deservedly won the Oscar for Best Actor over Paul Newman in The Verdict, which is one of Newman’s great, yet underrated roles, and he transformed himself into this seminal figure. Indeed, the role of Gandhi was the signature role for Kingsley and made him a household name. Gandhi was his first major film role, as he had been a fixture on British television previous to that. Gandhi introduced Ben Kingsley to American audiences and made him a star, and he has become one of the most respected actors in the industry. His portrayal of Gandhi is nothing short of masterful, as we watch him age over decades and watch him become the sage guru of an entire population. This was a transcendent performance that really carried the entire film.

Did the Academy get it right?

I will give a reluctant yes to that question; however Gandhi is not my favorite film that was nominated that year. In fact, I would say that I like all but one of the nominees better that Gandhi and I can’t include Missing in that group because I’ve never seen it. E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial was nominated that year, and I might put Gandhi ahead of it, but there is some really great stuff going on in E.T. It is a film that has tension, emotion, humor, and great (for the day) special effects. The acting isn’t close to Gandhi, but it became the all-time box office leader that year and it’s also rated #25 on the original list of the Top 100 Films of all time by AFI. Gandhi was not on the list. Another terrific film that was nominated that year was the previously mentioned The Verdict starring Paul Newman as a washed up attorney who is trying to get his life and career back on track by taking on an impossible case. As mentioned, Newman is spectacular in it, and any screenwriter who wants to see an instructive film on character arcs should see that film. However, as I’ve said before and I will say again, courtroom dramas don’t win Best Picture. My personal favorite film from 1982, however, is Tootsie. Ranked #62 on AFI’s original Top 100, this is another great film with a tight story and a main character who experiences an exceptional character arc. All that said, I understand why Gandhi won, and I even agree with it to a certain degree. It is an epic film about important things. It’s the type of film that requires a certain amount of thought to really understand it, and it fits the eyeball test as a film that should win Best Picture in a way that the other nominees in 1982 really did not. To me Gandhi is a very good, though not great film that is less than the sum of its parts, and probably not the Best Picture of 1982, but still somehow worthy of winning.