1. Gandhi (Attenborough, 1982) [LE]

That's right. Motherfuckin' Gandhi.

The skinny brown guy in the loincloth. Oh yeah.

This is not a particularly hip choice for best movie of the '80s. It may not even be that exciting of a choice for best movie of the '80s. But the truth is that, for me, this movie is pretty much the only movie of the '80s that manages to feel like so much more than a movie. It has a reality all its own. I do not watch this movie and think, "Wow, Ben Kingsley is really good." I think, "Man, Gandhi was kind of a self-righteous freak, but I guess somebody had to be." Some movies simply transcend the medium, and I think this is one of them.

The critical line against Gandhi is that it's essentially a hagiography, a nice piece of Oscar bait. You know, "Let's all pat ourselves on the back for having the good sense to recognize how great Gandhi was, because it's easier than actually going out and doing something meaningful." Sort of like the college kid who puts up a poster of Bob Marley on his dorm room wall and thinks he's done his part for peace and justice. You know what I say? If you want to grind that axe, you can grind it all you want to. But it's not Gandhi's fault that it happened to be about a relatively "sympathetic" historical figure. In other words, I don't think it's fair to hold its Oscars against it.

Then there's another line, relating to the movie, against Gandhi the actual person - often spouted by jaded intellectuals with an innate distrust of figures who are worshipped by the general public as if they were saints. Apparently Gandhi did and said some things that prove he was actually a jerk and not a saint, and thus he's not an admirable figure at all. To be honest, none of the things these Gandhi haters have ever said about Gandhi actually sounded all that bad to me. Let me tell you something. Nobody is a saint. But sometimes, at certain moments in certain societies, a person can get a lot done and have a positive effect if he or she tries to act the part of a saint. I think Gandhi understood this.

Besides, I don't think it was this movie's responsibility to rake the sacred Indian leader over the coals with some kind of withering post-modern analysis. Like Martin Luther King, Jr., or like John Lennon, I'm sure there were two Gandhis: the public Gandhi and the private Gandhi. This is a movie about the public Gandhi. Besides, you can't cover everything. Like the text that opens the movie says:

"No man's life can be encompassed in one telling. There is no way to give each year its alloted weight, to include each event, each person who helped to shape a lifetime. What can be done is to be faithful in spirit to the record and try to find one's way to the heart of the man."

Of course, if you come into the film feeling that the heart of the man was sick and disgusting, then you're probably not going to like the movie. But I came into this film without any baggage and I have yet to be convinced that what I've seen is somehow misleading or dishonest. You also have to keep in mind that Richard Attenborough could not have made this movie, in 1982, in India, with the gigantic budget he wanted to have, if he'd taken a more critical view of Gandhi. Is this movie worse than no Gandhi movie at all? I seriously doubt it.

But you know, all this assumes that Gandhi is a hagiography, which I don't think it is anyway. Let's take a look at a couple of scenes:

Scene 1) Gandhi's priest friend visits him in jail. Gandhi is dressed in a loincloth and that's it.

Priest: Did they take your clothes?
Gandhi: These are my clothes now.
Priest: You always had a puritanical streak Mohan.
Gandhi: If I want to be one with them, I have to live like them.
Priest: Yes I think you do but...thank God we all don't.

So here we have Gandhi: manipulative imagemaker.

Scene 2) Having been finally granted its freedom by Britain, India is now splintering into two factions along Hindu and Muslim lines. All the leaders meet.

Gandhi: My dear Jinnah, you and I are brothers born of the same India, if you have fears I want to put them at rest. Begging the understanding of my friends, I am asking Panditji to stand down. I want you to be the first prime minister of India, to name your entire cabinet, to make the head of every government department a Muslim.
Nehru: Bapu, for me and the rest, if that is what you want, we will accept it. But out there, already there is rioting, because Hindus fear you are going to give too much away.
Patel: If you did this, no one would control it. No one.
Jinnah: It is your choice. Do you want an independent India and an independent Pakistan, or do you want civil war?
Gandhi: [clutches chest, has no answer].

So here we have Gandhi, naive idealist.

In fact, the most interesting part of Gandhi is the end, because it shows the limits of Gandhi's philosophy, and Gandhi's power. He has freed India but he can't have his India. Suddenly he's out of his depth. Like a petulant child, he decides he would rather fast to death than live in a world where the fate of an entire nation hasn't spun the way he'd planned. And yet, when news of the fasting spreads, his pouting gets results. This leads to one of the movie's most moving scenes:

Narahi: Here, eat! Eat! I'm going to hell, but not with your death on my soul.
Gandhi: Only God decides who goes to hell.
Nahari: I killed a child! I smashed his head against a wall.
Gandhi: Why?
Nahari: Because they killed my son! My boy. The Muslims killed my son!
Gandhi: I know a way out of Hell. Find a child, a child whose mother and father have been killed, a little boy about this high, and raise him as your own.
Gandhi: Only be sure that he is a Muslim and that you raise him as one.

Suddenly, a few mornings later, Gandhi is shocked to discover that the fighting has stopped throughout India. Not shrunken. Not reduced. Stopped. Everywhere. Now, did Gandhi end the civil war between India and Pakistan forever? No. But did he end it for at least a moment, just by sheer force of will? Yes.

Ultimately, Gandhi isn't really about the man anyway, it's about an idea. Now what if you had an idea that would just blow the world away? What if this idea went completely against the grain? Would you have the self-discipline to follow through with it? Would you have the debating skills to sell the skeptics on it? Here's a pivotal early scene in the film:

Nehru: Mr. Gandhi, I'd like you to meet Mr. Jinnah, our joint host, member of Congress and leader of the Muslim league...
Gandhi: How do you do?
Nehru: ...and Mr. Prakash, who I fear is awaiting trial for sedition and inducement to murder.
Prakash: I have not actually pulled the trigger, Mr. Gandhi, I have simply written that if an Englishman kills an Indian for disobeying his law, then it is an Indian's duty to kill an Englishman for enforcing his law in a land that is not his.
Gandhi: It's a clever argument. I'm not sure it'll produce the end you desire.

I've heard this tone before. I've heard it within myself. It's the tone of frustration with other people for not being able to see the whole picture. It's like, "Hey, listen, I know it sounds counterintuitive - somebody hits you and you hit him back, right? But just hear me out for five seconds and I'll explain the limitations of that age-old philosophy." Gandhi's idea is the exception. The rule is that if someone punches you, you have every right to punch them back. But Gandhi forced people to ask themselves, "Well, what does that really do?"

Critics of Gandhi love to quote his statements about using non-violence against Hitler. Obviously I don't think some amazing statement from Gandhi would have meant jack shit at that point. When a situation progresses that far down the road, I think the time to act has passed; it's the time to clean up and learn from your mistakes. Besides, was Gandhi supposed to have the answer to everything? Cut the guy some slack, for crying out loud.

Anyway, all that's just philosophy; Gandhi the movie is a vibrant photographic creation. One reason why Gandhi may not get too much critical respect is that its style is not progressive. To put it bluntly, Attenborough ripped off David Lean. But I can think of worse people to rip off, frankly. Besides, he ripped off David Lean better than David Lean did; Lean's A Passage to India came out two years after Gandhi, and while it's pleasant, I find the basic story simply not as powerful. In a small twist of irony, Lean was originally going to make a movie about Gandhi before he decided to make Lawrence of Arabia, so in a way Attenborough finished the job for him. To say that Gandhi is not as good as Lawrence of Arabia is in no way to knock it; no movie is as good as Lawrence of Arabia. But the Lean tricks are powerful tricks, and I only wished more movies tried to employ them. It's all here: intimately silent scenes followed immediately by shots of noisy crowds, a narrative that begins at the end, well-chosen dialogue that compacts the action, etc., etc. Maybe you could just call it good filmmaking. Indeed, the movie might get more respect if Attenborough had gone on to create a more distinguished filmography (instead, he showed up in bit parts like the fat old scientist guy in Jurassic Park). As it is, it's simply the last of a certain style of movie rather than an influential work in its own right.

Which leads me to my final point: a film like Gandhi would never be made today. Because the studios would just insist on using CGI and saving the money. Well you know what? I can tell the difference. When you see a shot in Gandhi of a crowd of 300,000 people, you know why it looks real? Because it is. Apparently people will settle for a fake shot of 300,000 people, but I won't. Gandhi had the good fortune to be made at a time before special effects became remotely passable. I may sound like an old fart, but the truth is, they sure don't make 'em like this anymore. They didn't even make 'em like this in 1982. In fact, there's not a single trace of the '80s in Gandhi.

Which is probably why I'm calling it the best movie of the '80s.