Tag: Ian Charleson

Gandhi (1982)

Ben Kingsley excels as Gandhi in Richard Attenborough’s Oscar winning epic

Director: Richard Attenborough

Cast: Ben Kingsley (Mahatma Gandhi), Rohini Hattaggadi (Kasturba Gandhi), Roshan Seth (Jawaharlal Nehru), Pradeep Kumar (VK Krishna Menon), Saeed Jaffrey (Vallabhbhai Patel), Alyque Padamsee (Muhammad Ali Jinnah), Virendra Razdan (Maulana Azad), Candice Bergen (Margaret Bourke-White), Edward Fox (Brigadier General Reginald Dyer), John Gielgud (Lord Irwin), Trevor Howard (Judge Broomfield), John Mills (Lord Chelmsford), Martin Sheen (Vince Walker), Ian Charleson (Reverend Charles Andrews), Arthul Fugard (General Jan Smuts), Geraldine James (Mirabehn), Amrish Puri (Khan), Ian Bannan (Senior Officer Fields), Richard Griffiths (Collins), Nigel Hawthorne (Kinnoch), Michael Hordern (Sir George Hodge), Om Puri (Nahari)

In 1962, Richard Attenborough was approached by Motilal Kothari, an Indian civil servant, who believed Attenborough was the man to bring the life of Mahatma Gandhi to film. All this despite Attenborough having never directed a film. But the life of one of history’s greatest men, and passionate advocate of peace and non-violence, spoke deeply to the socially-engaged Attenborough who dedicated 20 years of his life to bringing the film to the screen, immersing himself in Indian culture along the way and winning the support of Nehru (until his death delayed the project again) and Gandhi’s family. The eventual film was a huge success, cementing the public perception of Gandhi and beautifully capturing both the importance of the story, and its emotional heart.

Opening with Gandhi’s assassination in 1948, the film covers in flashback his life from combatting anti-Indian prejudice in South Africa as a young, British-trained, lawyer to his return to India and long involvement in the campaign to win India its independence from the British Empire, stressing non-co-operation, his eventual success but also his failure to hold the Hindu and Muslim parts of the country together and his attempt as “father of the nation” to put an end to religious violence, a failure that will eventually lead to his assassination. 

Attenborough’s grand, epic film marshals thousands of extras to bring to life pages of history. At times events fly by with speed, but Attenborough never loses sight of the emotional heart of the story – both Gandhi and the status of Indians as not being masters in their own home. Attenborough directs scenes of real power, most strikingly a heart-rending peaceful march on a salt works (the tax on salt use being a major burden on many poor Indians) that culminates in line after line of peaceful Indian protestors walking calmly forward to be beaten down by soldiers. Despite being the grandest and largest of films, it allows questions of pure morality and decency to lie at its heart and, supported by a parade of British acting greats, keeps the Indians at the heart of their own story and the masters of their own destinies.

The film’s impact though may be directly connected to the gloriously transcendent performance of Ben Kingsley in the title role. For years it was believed the film could only work with a British actor in the title role – imagine how it would be received today if Gandhi had been played by (as it nearly was) a browned-up Anthony Hopkins or John Hurt (who famously told Attenborough he looked absurd). Instead half-Indian unknown RSC actor Ben Kingsley took the role. Kingsley so completely and utterly immersed himself in Gandhi – everything, the physicality, the morality, the voice, the intellectualism – that not only has he become so completely associated with the role but it’s hard to imagine anyone else playing it.

Ageing almost 50 years over the course of the film, Kingsley’s Gandhi is above-all moral, softly-spoken, observant and considerate – the very spirit of the original man seems to be up on the screen. Far from the sort of histrionics you might expect from a subject of an epic movie, Kingsley is not afraid to be quiet, gentle even underplayed. He completely understands that the charisma and power in Gandhi laid in his moral authority, not his speech-making, but his careful example-setting of even-handedness, patience and desire for peace. 

But Kingsley is also willing to show Gandhi as shrewd and stubborn, even while mixing it with both a deep pain at the loss of life. Kingsley is superbly good at the smaller quieter moments – he wrings heart-rending force from the loss of his wife (a similarly impressive and quietly authoritative performance from Rohini Hattaggadi), which partly works because the film quietly centres the truth and faith in their marriage. This is extraordinary work from Ben Kingsley, that seems to carry not just the entire film but the sense of a nation.

Attenborough though was a director who was at his best when working with actors, and his ability to coax truthful and heartfelt moments from quiet scenes are what gives the other sequences the emotional force to make them work. Attenborough seemingly called in every favour to assemble the supporting cast that backs up Kingsley, many of them juggling only a few scenes. Among the stand-outs we have a martially certain Edward Fox as General Dyer, an archly arrogant John Gielgud and a frustrated John Mills as viceroys, Trevor Howard representing decent British rule as an honest Judge and Martin Sheen as a reformist minded journalist. That’s to overlook dozens of others in small roles, all of them clearly committed to the intention of the project.

The film though allows the Indians themselves to take centre stage, even if it is easy to criticise some of the simplifications of many of the issues that would eventually culminate in partition. The film has a clear hostility towards the idea of religion, seeing it as the root of much of the violence that erupted in India in the last years of Gandhi’s life. While Roshan Seth is excellent as Nehru, the character is portrayed more as the faithful follower of Gandhi than the shrewd politician in his own right (it’s a role most of the other leading members of congress are also placed in). Alyque Padamsee carries a high level of charisma as Jinnah, founder of Pakistan – but the film can’t quite resist painting him into the corner as a semi-villain, ignoring Gandhi’s desperation to get Jinnah to invest in a united India.

It’s part of what has been seen since as the film’s more hagiographic stance towards Gandhi. Certainly later historiography has outlined a few shades of grey in Gandhi – although I would argue that seeing him as a man and not a saint only heightens (similar to Mandela) the awe at what he went on to achieve. The film’s whistle stop tour of Indian history – taking in every major event and personality, some in a matter of moments – looks particularly old-fashioned now with our current trend being biographical films that focus only on crucial moments, not the whole life. It adds a slight air of schoolboy history to the project, an unfortunate side-effect of the passionate earnestness with which the story is told.

But then even in 1982 – when it lifted 8 Oscars including Best Picture, Director and Actor and most of the technicals – it was seen as slightly old-fashioned. Attenborough has generously repeatedly said that he believed Steven Spielberg was more deserving of Best Director for ET. And it’s true that Attenborough was in many ways a producer at heart with these epics than an inspired director like Lean. His marshalling of crowds, finances and simply forcing the will together to make the picture – and to allow it to focus on Indians rather than Westerners – is a tribute to his organisational skills. His strengths as a director were more in performances, and as with many of his epic films the most memorable moments are smaller, intimate ones. The larger moments are shot with an assured professionalism rather than inspiration, but Attenborough understands how to wring emotion from moments and how to let character drive action.

Gandhi works above all because even today you can see it is a passionate labour of love, that everyone involved in clearly believed in passionately. It may well be that at times it is workmanlike or simplistic – and covers the sweep of history with an earnest completeness, even while it is unafraid to be critical certainly of the British – but it still invests it crucial moments with humanity, life and deep emotion. You can’t help but be moved by it – and you are instantly stunned by the sheer brilliance of Kingsley as Gandhi, one of those performances like George C Scott as Patton which seems more like the man than the real thing. Gandhi may be old fashioned, but that’s not a crime when the quality is still there.

Greystoke: The Legend of Tarzan, Lord of the Apes (1984)

Christopher Lambert is the lord of the apes in dull Tarzan epic Greystoke

Director: Hugh Hudson

Cast: Christopher Lambert (John Clayton), Ralph Richardson (Earl of Greystroke), Ian Holm (Capitaine Fyllieppe d’Arnot), James Fox (Lord Charles Esker), Andie MacDowell (Jane Porter), Cheryl Campbell (Lady Clayton), Ian Charleson (Jeffson Brown), Nigel Davenport (Major Jack Downing), Nicholas Farrell (Sir Hugh Belcher), Paul Geoffrey (John Clayton Snr), Richard Griffiths (Captain Billings), Hilton McRae (Willy), David Suchet (Buller), John Wells (Sir Evelyn Blount)

For his follow-up to Chariots of Fire, Hugh Hudson settled on this curious mess: part heavy-handed exploration of class and the brutality of man, part picturesque jungle picture with people in ape costumes. If anyone remembers Greystroke today, it’s for an interesting bit of trivia: original director and writer Robert Towne was so annoyed at being removed from the project, he used his dog’s name as his screenwriting credit. When the Oscar nominations were announced, this pooch became the first four-legged Oscar nominee. Strangely fitting for a film about the nobility of animals.

The film is a “real life” version of the Tarzan story. What this basically means is that it is dry and boring with a ponderous self-important message about how the real animal is in man (or something like that). It also of course means that the word “Tarzan” isn’t used except in the title (presumably so that audiences could be lured into the cinema). Anyway, after his parents are shipwrecked off the jungle coast, and die after young John Clayton’s (Christopher Lambert) birth, he is raised by gorillas and becomes one of the leaders of the pack. When a troupe of gung-ho explorers are slaughtered by natives, the only survivor is Belgian Fyllieppe d’Arnot (Ian Holm). Rescued by John, d’Arnot teaches him language and takes him home to the estate of his grandfather the Earl of Greystoke (Ralph Richardson), who is desperate for an heir. But can John adjust to the jungle of the modern world?

So Greystoke is well filmed, looks good and has a couple of decent performances in it. But it’s a dull mess as a film. Watching it you suspect a lot of the runtime ended up on the cutting room floor. There are sudden time jumps. Characters appear and disappear, many serving no real purpose. The film drifts towards a conclusion that neither seems enlightening nor serves any real cathartic summation of what the film might be about. There are many, many lovely shots of the jungle and Scottish countryside, but we never really end up caring about any of the characters within it.

The film is thematically a mess from start to finish. It seems to be making a point about John being totally unsuited, by his upbringing, to adjusting to the world of man. But it never really gives a proper voice to John himself. Of course he’s only just learning language, but even without that you never really feel like you begin to understand him, or get a sense of half-remembered human traits emerging from his ape upbringing. Basically you don’t get a sense of conflict within him as to whether he should stay or go. Without that conflict, there isn’t really much interest in watching him work out the answer.

This is despite the fact the Christopher Lambert is actually pretty good as John Clayton. The role plays to his strengths: it’s highly physical (not just in the acts of athleticism but also in its half-man, half-ape physicality). Lambert also has this rather fine other-worldly quality that constantly leaves him looking a bit lost and vulnerable. The part may be underwritten but he is certainly doing his very best here, and he really does a brilliant job of playing an ape trapped in man’s body.

It’s a shame that the film takes so long to get going that he doesn’t really appear for the first half an hour or so. Instead we get a lot of ape-based action in the forest – and probably too much of his parents. Later in the film, the camera makes a point of returning two or three times to a large painting of Cheryl Campbell as John’s mother – but the film never suggests any link at all between these two characters. A lot of time is wasted setting up the parents’ voyage, while at the same time no time is spent on establishing any emotional link between the Claytons and their son.

Far more time is spent on the apes – which I suppose is the point of a film that wants to celebrate the purity of the world of animals over the corruption of man. Rick Baker’s ape make-up is pretty impressive for the time – and works really well in longshot – but in close-up is all too obviously a series of performers in masks. There is a sense of their natures, but not of them as dangerous or wild animals. In fact the film goes overboard in humanising them – even to the extent of giving them their own language of grunts and groans.

The ape stuff goes on too long – and then means the return to civilisation seems rushed and unclear. Ian Holm is excellent as d’Arnot, the bridge between the two worlds, and his fatherly love for John works extremely well. But the film makes no attempt to tackle the questions it raises of John dealing with his split animal-human relationship. Instead the film loads the decks by making almost every human character – epitomised by James Fox’s flat performance as Jane’s toff fiancée – a heartless uncaring moron.

Ah yes Jane. Played with an openness by Andie MacDowell, she’s dubbed in a painfully obvious way by an uncredited Glenn Close. This is another underwhelming relationship that seems skimmed over – one moment they have just met, the next they seem on the verge of a great love. It’s as rushed and slapdash as the introduction of a mentally handicapped servant – of course, with his childish outlook, he is closer to John than anyone could be – who literally appears out of nowhere.

The film was also Ralph Richardson’s final role – he died shortly after completing it – and his barmy Earl of Greystroke (part lonely old man, part semi-senile eccentric) does lift the film with a certain energy (he was posthumously Oscar nominated). But it’s an easy role for Richardson – and in fact his eccentric, hard-to-define energy kind of sums up the whole messy film pretty well. His character’s death is the final nail in its interest, his eccentric energy sorely missed.

The most damaging thing about Greystoke is it is dull and obvious. Pretty scenery and decent performances can only cover so much when the plot is empty and predictable. The film feels cut down absurdly – half the cast of Chariots appear in roles so tiny you wonder why they bothered – and by the time the film drifts towards its conclusion you’ll probably have stopped caring about what it was all about in the first place. It tries to ask questions about man’s nature, but it doesn’t even seem to notice it never answers them. A poor film.

Chariots of Fire (1981)


Celebrations abound in triumphant running flick Chariots of Fire

Director: Hugh Hudson

Cast: Ben Cross (Harold Abrahams), Ian Charleson (Eric Liddell), Nicholas Farrell (Aubrey Montague), Nigel Havers (Lord Andrew Linsley), Ian Holm (Sam Mussabini), John Gielgud (Master of Trinity), Lindsay Anderson (Master of Caius), Cheryl Campbell (Jennie Liddell), Alice Krige (Sybil Gordon), Struan Rodger (Sandy McGrath), Nigel Davenpot (Lord Birkenhead), Patrick Magee (Lord Carogan), David Yelland (Prince of Wales), Peter Egan (Duke of Sutherland), Daniel Gerroll (Henry Stallard), Dennis Christopher (Charley Paddock), Brad Davis (Jackson Scholz)

Dun-da-da-da da-da dun-da-da-Da-Da DA. Hum that theme tune and you know straight away what film it is: you can’t resist the temptation to mime out running (in slow motion of course), arms swinging gracefully from side-to-side. There aren’t many more movies with more iconic, instantly recognisable themes than Chariots of Fire. 

If there is one thing everyone remembers, it’s the young athletes running along the beaches of St. Andrews, spray flying up from their bare feet. Nicholas Farrell sprinting with upper-class determination. Nigel Havers wiping spray from his face with glee. Ian Charleson full of serene joy. Ben Cross with fixed, rigid focus. The opening of Chariots is a master-class in quickly established character, tone, mood and era. The cross-fade from the funeral oration from an ageing Nigel Havers into this slow-motion, halcyon-days reflection tells you we are in the land of memory – and sets right up for the feel-good triumph the film becomes.

The film follows the key athletes of the British 1924 Olympics team. Harold Abrahams (Ben Cross) is a second-generation Jewish grammar-school boy who runs to prove he belongs and can excel. Eric Liddell (Ian Charleson) is a Presbyterian Scot, who runs to celebrate God and whose religion prevents him running in a vital Sunday qualifying heat. Both characters are, in their own ways, outsiders – and their underdog status makes them perfect to root for in this extremely well-made crowd pleaser.

Chariots is often seen as a slightly undeserving Oscar-winner. But that’s to overlook the panache it’s made with and how emotionally uplifting and engaging it is. Hugh Hudson had never directed a film before this one. His background was in commercials and he brings many of the strengths of that background to Chariots. The film is wonderfully assembled, a perfect combination of montage, cross-cutting, longer tracking shots and cross-fading. 

That opening scene tells you a lot with its swift economy. But he handles others just as well: Abrahams’ 100m winning race is played first in real time, then again, cross-cut with Abrahams’ reaction to victory. The first moment is one of triumph, but the immediate repeat allows an opportunity for the viewer to understand the mixed feelings that achieving everything you aimed for can bring. Abrahams’ slightly shocked, underpowered reaction gives the slow-motion repeat of the race a hazy, post-match analysis feel – as if Abrahams is still running the race in his mind. As if he knows that his whole life was building to that one moment, and now he needs to find a new focus.

Hudson’s mastery of moments like this is impressive. Sequences are fabulously assembled. The famous “one minute” dash around the Trinity court (actually Eton) is brilliant, and a great example of how the film sells tent-pole moments. It also masters quieter character moments. One of its stand-out moments simply allows Abrahams’ coach Mussabini (a scene-stealing Ian Holm) to react to Abrahams win (a victory he has not seen due to being banned from the stadium) by quietly rising to attention, then sitting on his bed, gleefully punching through his hat and quietly whispering “my son”. Other scenes – such as those where Abrahams confronts quiet anti-Semitism from Cambridge scholars (nice bitchy cameos from John Gielgud and famed director Lindsay Anderson), or Liddell is quietly pressured into running on Sunday – simmer with good acting and restrained direction.

It’s these scenes that really make the film work. Ben Cross is superb as a chippy, frustrated Abrahams who feels he must justify his place in England’s oppressive class system. He’s constantly glowering, tense and uncertain – but Cross mixes this with a boyish charm, a gentleness (most notably in his shy romance with an unrecognisable Alice Krige) – and a warmth and genuineness that he shows with friends. Nicholas Farrell’s boyish Aubrey Montague (a love-struck best friend if ever I saw one!) helps a lot here – if someone as obviously nice as him likes Abrahams, then gosh darn it we should as well.

Ian Charleson is equally impressive as the devout, charming but coolly determined Eric Liddell who has decided his course in life and nothing is going to shake him from it. The film has a refreshingly considerate view of Liddell’s Christianity – and, furthermore, praises him for sticking to his devout principles. Charleson wrote many of his speeches himself, and he brings a charming honesty to his character. How can you not love this guy? He’s the perfect ambassador for the Church.

The film tackles plenty of clashes for Liddell which sizzle in a quiet way. Cheryl Campbell is very good as his partly proud, partly concerned sister, worried that his missionary work is being sacrificed for his running. His confrontation with the Olympic committee over his crucial decision not to run – is there any other film where not working on a Sunday is the dramatic centre piece? – is nicely underplayed. It’s clear that they (including a very good Nigel Davenport as an understanding Chair) want him to run, and it’s equally clear Liddell is determined he won’t.

It’s the moments like this that make the film so triumphantly feel-good. Both Abrahams and Liddell are at heart immensely likeable, the upper classes and elites who frown at them in their way rather boo-able. The running scenes are great (despite the sweetly dated lack of grace!), the film really capturing the exhilarating energy of pushing yourself to the limit. Watching Abrahams training under the expert eyes of Mussabini (worth repeating again that Holm is the heart of this film, as the fatherly, wise trainer struggling against prejudice against both Italians and professionalism), or Liddell winning from behind after being pushed over in a race are simply hugely uplifting.

Strangely the one thing that does seem a little odd today is the Vangelis score. Yes the Chariots march is outstanding – but the 80s electronic beat to the rest of the score now sounds very dated. Yes it is interesting to overlay (then) modern music over a period piece – but nothing dates quicker than music (except perhaps haircuts) and that is the case here. It sounds odd and jarring with the action at times – but then that main theme is so brilliant (but also the most classical of Vangelis’ compositions) that it still sort of works.

The sad thing is that Chariots didn’t lead to great new things for most involved. When he won the Oscar for best original screenplay, Colin Welland famously cried “the British are coming!”. Sadly he wasn’t really right. Within four years two flop films had all but ended Hudson’s career. Producer David Puttnam took over Columbia Pictures, only to be dismissed within a year after disastrous results. Many of the stars of the film never got the breaks this film promised (Charleson died tragically young – the first major star in England to openly acknowledge his cause of death as AIDS). Even the star Americans introduced to play the yank athletes (Brad Davis and Dennis Christopher) never had a hit film again. As David Thomson put it, within ten years of all the major players only Ian Holm “had any professional credibility left”.

But Chariots is still a bit of lightening caught in a bottle. A strange idea to spin an entire film out of an event lasting less than 10 seconds, but which married up so well with universal themes of class and struggle. It knows exactly what it is, and exactly what it is doing. It really worked then and it really works now. It’s not pretending to be high art, or to really make profound statements – just to entertain. And it really does. Fetch your running shoes and start that Vangelis theme!