Films of Francis Ford Coppola:
- The Conversation - Francis Ford Coppola (1974)
Devoted to the discussion of film expression
Mahatma Gandhi. Incredibly, this man of humble origin, with neither significant financial, nor familial, nor institutional backing, managed to unite the vast Indian subcontinent in order to achieve independence from one of the most powerful empires in history.
In general, the film’s production values are outstanding, particularly the cinematography (for which Billy Williams and Ronnie Taylor won Oscars) and the film editing (for which John Bloom won an Oscar). In addition, the acting in the film is gripping throughout, especially, of course, the magnetic performance of Ben Kingsley in the lead role. They all contribute to making what Gandhi ultimately is – an evocative and colourful pageant that displays the evolution of a remarkable man’s social consciousness and spirituality.“It is perhaps clear from the foregoing, that without ahimsa it is not possible to seek and find Truth [Satyagraha]. Ahimsa and Truth are so intertwined that it is practically impossible to disentangle and separate them. They are like the two sides of a coin, or rather of a smooth unstamped metallic disk. Nevertheless, ahimsa is the means; Truth is the end. Means to be means must always be within our reach, and so ahimsa is our supreme duty.”
Initially, we see Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi (he would later, on his return to India, be given the honorific title ‘Mahatma’, which means “Great Soul” in Sanskrit) in 1893 as a 23-year-old London-educated lawyer who had recently arrived in South Africa and is riding in a first-class compartment on a train in South Africa. Judging by his clean-shaven and Western-groomed appearance, it appears that Gandhi has absorbed many of the ideas and customs associated with British culture. However, he is soon confronted by a racist passenger and a similarly-minded train conductor who inform him that “coloured people” (Indians and native blacks) are not allowed to ride first-class in South Africa. When Gandhi protests that he has legally purchased a first-class train ticket, he is rudely thrown off the train. This is Gandhi’s personal confrontation with the fact that the English rule-of-law that he had learned in his legal studies did not apply equally to all residents of South Africa.
In 1915 Gandhi is invited by his sometime mentor Gopal Krishna Gokhale (Shreeram Lagoo) to return to India, and he is now given a hero’s welcome. Whereas Gandhi has been shown up to now wearing Western (British) clothing, he is now seen looking more like a working-class Indian and wearing a traditional Hindu turban and tunic. He soon meets other Indian activists, who are mostly members of the Indian Congress Party:
Gokhale now urges Gandhi to reacquaint himself with India by travelling about the country for a number of months, which Gandhi proceeds to do. As he travels about, Gandhi is troubled to see how impoverished the people have become under British rule. Upon his return, he agrees to take up the cause of India’s independence (Swaraj), and eventually he becomes the leader of the Congress Party.
subcontinent. Nevertheless, Gandhi, incessantly keeping to his themes of satyagraha and ahimsa, was extraordinarily successful in achieving a mass following. There were, however, some painful setbacks along the way. When Gandhi organized a national strike, he was quickly imprisoned. And many of his peaceful protests of non-cooperation were met with violence.
where he demonstrated how the people could make their own salt by evaporation of seawater. This was a perfect demonstration of Gandhi’s peaceful satyagraha. Afterwards, Gandhi intended to lead a protest at the nearby Dharasana salt works, but he was quickly arrested before that was scheduled to take place. A peaceful protest was held there anyway, but it was brutally crushed.
To appease Jinnah’s lust for power, Gandhi even offers to Jinnah the position of Prime Minister of a united India, but to no avail. Jinnah is adamant about having a separate country for Muslims. The partition of India into two separate states, India and Pakistan (which will consist of two separate regions, West Pakistan and East Pakistan), is ordered to go ahead in 1947.
So what the viewer has been treated to over the course of this three-hour panoply of splendour is a display of the life of an almost otherworldly saint. This humble and unshakably principled man managed to inspire an entire national populace to unite with him in joint non-cooperation towards their foreign oppressors and thereby restore their independence and national dignity. “The ideal of a well-rounded civilization is not a chimerical one. For milleniums India was a land of both spiritual light and widespread material prosperity. The poverty of the last 200 years [the period of British domination] is, in India’s long history, only a passing karmic phase. A byword in the world, century after century, was ‘the riches of the Indies’. . . “
“The records of history present India, up until the 18th century, as the world’s wealthiest nation. . . . The Bible refers to the riches of India. . . . Megasthenes, the Greek ambassador (4th century B.C.), has left us a detailed account of India’s prosperity. Pliny (1st century A.D.) tells us the Romans annually spent fifty million sesterces ($5,000,000) on imports from India, which was then a vast marine power. . . . Chinese travellers wrote vividly of the opulent Indian civilization, its widespread education, and excellent government. . . . Columbus, discovering the New World in the 15th century, was in reality seeking a shorter route to India. For centuries Europe was eager to possess the Indian exports . . . Portuguese and Italian merchants have recorded their awe at the fabulous magnificence throughout the empire of Vijayanagar (1336-1565). . . .”
"Generations to come will scarce believe that such a one as this ever in flesh and blood walked upon this earth."
of a multiply-linked whodunit, concerns a blind piano player who finds himself suspected of knowing too much about an unsolved murder. As the story unfolds, the plot becomes progressively more complicated with a succession of threats and lies, and this has led some people (but not me) to view the film as a black comedy.
However, noone else knows that Akash is not really blind. When he goes out on the street, he wears dark sunglasses and uses a blindman’s cane to tap his way around.
Akash quickly goes to the police to report what he has seen. But at the police station he notices that Manohar is a police officer, so he is again forced to withdraw from taking any action. Later Akash happens to see Simi murdering her suspicious neighbour by pushing the elderly woman out of her upper-floor window. Again Akash is the unwitting witness to foul play, and again he feels compelled to remain silent.
Though I won’t go over the details of the remaining two parts of the film, I think it is still appropriate to remind the reader that the people in the two ruthless groups out to kill Akash are all unconscionably self-absorbed and exclusively out for their own material gain. Therefore they are all in competition with each and liable to become mutual enemies. This is what can make things complicated, and you will not be surprised that there are more deaths in the offing.
In particular there is a climactic sequence of events near the end of the story that, to the careful viewer, seem to be told in two conflicting versions. The sequence of events at issue concerns a scene showing Dr. Swami driving, with Akash seated next to him in the front seat, down a country road. One of the versions of this scene is presented as part of the normal, top-level narrative of the film. And the other, slightly different, version is presented as a flashback reflection on the part of Akash that he shares with Sophie when she runs into him in Europe two years later. Since both versions are told by Akash (remember the whole film is supposedly narrated by Akash), at least one of these versions of this late sequence must be a lie. How to resolve this question, and indeed how to come to a clear understanding of the ending of Andhadhun, has been a matter of considerable discussion among people who have seen the film. You can check out some of these speculations by looking at a few of the discussions on the Internet discussion site Quora [6,7].
That is not the case in Andhadhun. The only sympathetic character in this story is Sophie, and although she has potential, she is here basically only an observer who has minimal impact on the other characters and what ultimately happens.