A Passage to India (film)
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| A Passage to India | |
|---|---|
| Image:Passage to india.jpg original movie poster | |
| Directed by | David Lean |
| Produced by | John Heyman, Edward Sands |
| Written by | E. M. Forster (novel) David Lean Santha Rama Rau (play) |
| Starring | Victor Banerjee Art Malik Saeed Jaffrey Roshan Seth Judy Davis Peggy Ashcroft Alec Guinness Nigel Havers James Fox |
| Music by | John Dalby, Maurice Jarre |
| Cinematography | Ernest Day |
| Distributed by | Columbia Pictures |
| Release date(s) | December 14, 1984 |
| Running time | 163 min. |
| Language | English |
| IMDb profile | |
A Passage to India is a 1984 film directed by David Lean, based on the novel of the same name by E. M. Forster.
Contents |
[edit] Partial cast
- Victor Banerjee - Dr. Aziz
- Art Malik - Ali
- Saeed Jaffrey - Hamidullah
- Roshan Seth - Amritrao
- Judy Davis - Adela Quested
- Peggy Ashcroft - Mrs. Moore
- Alec Guinness - Professor Godbole
- Nigel Havers - Ronny
- James Fox - Fielding
- Richard Wilson - Turton
- Antonia Pemberton - Mrs Turton
- Michael Culver - McBryde
[edit] Plot
The novel is set during the waning days of the British Raj, against a backdrop of the Indian Independence Movement. It begins with the arrival in India of a British woman, Miss Adela Quested, who is joining her fiancé, a colonial official named Ronnie Heaslop. She and Ronnie's mother, Mrs. Moore, befriend an Indian doctor, Aziz H. Ahmed. Dr. Aziz genuinely likes Mrs. Moore; however, he is also an ambitious young man anxious to ingratiate himself with the ruling class. When Mrs. Moore and Miss Quested profess an interest in seeing "the real India" (as opposed to the Anglicised environment Ronnie and his friends have constructed for themselves), Aziz offers to host an excursion to the Marabar Caves, a local geological oddity.
Miss Quested and Mrs. Moore agree readily, and the outing goes reasonably well until the two women begin exploring the caves. Mrs. Moore experiences an overwhelming sense of horror which completely quenches her good humour; worse, Miss Quested forms the delusion that Aziz is making sexual advances toward her. She flees the cave in a panic and is discovered running headlong down the hill, bloody and disheveled. Aziz is immediately jailed to await trial for attempted rape, and an uproar ensues between the Indians and the Colonials.
Miss Quested is not a vindictive or even an unusually neurotic person; rather, she is suffering from an abnormal mental state brought about by multiple factors--the remorseless heat, the strangeness of her surroundings, her growing dismay over her future husband's small, mean character, and (perhaps) her feelings of attraction, fraught with shame, for Dr. Aziz. Even as her case becomes a cause celebre among the British, her mind gradually clears and she realizes she has made a mistake.
To the consternation of her friends, she clears Dr. Aziz in open court. The Colonials are forced to make an ignominious retreat while the Indians carry Dr. Aziz out of the courtroom on their shoulders, cheering wildly. In the aftermath, Miss Quested breaks off her engagement and leaves India, while Dr. Aziz doffs his Western attire, dons traditional dress and withdraws completely from Anglo-Indian society. Although he remains angry and bitter for years, the final scene shows Miss Quested at home in England, reading a letter from Dr. Aziz conveying his thanks and forgiveness.
[edit] Altered Ending
The final scenes of Dr. Aziz losing his bitterness were not present in the book. The book ended with a bitter Aziz talking about how the British must be driven out and telling his British friend that because of their nationalities they can no longer be friends. While it is implied that someday British and Indians might be friends the book ends by concluding that day is not the present. (note the book was written in the 1920s.)
[edit] Awards
Winner:
Nominations:
- Best Actress in a Leading Role (Judy Davis)
- Best Art Direction-Set Decoration
- Best Cinematography
- Best Costume Design
- Best Director
- Best Film Editing
- Best Picture, Best Sound
- Best Writing, Screenplay Based on Material from Another Medium.
[edit] Trivia
- Salman Rushdie critiqued this film in his essay "Outside the Whale."
- According to the Museum of Broadcast Communications there was "a cycle of film and television productions which emerged during the first half of the 1980s, which seemed to indicate Britain's growing preoccupation with India, Empire and a particular aspect of British cultural history" [1]. In addition to A Passage to India, this cycle also included Gandhi (1982), Heat and Dust (1983), The Far Pavilions (1983), The Jewel in the Crown (1984) and Lord Mountbatten: The Last Viceroy (1985). This preoccupation extended to "escapist" fare like the James Bond adventure Octopussy (1983), and even the Hollywood film Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (1984), which were also primarily set in India.
- Alec Guinness's role as Godbole is a turnabout from his refusal to play Mahatma Gandhi in a proposed film by David Lean in the early '60s (a project ultimately scrapped for Lawrence of Arabia (1962)). According to Guinness's biography, Lean wanted him to play Gandhi because he felt "Hindus couldn't act". Guinness and Lean quarreled again on this film, as they had on most of their other collaborations, and most of Guinness's scenes were cut for time reasons. Guinness called it the worst role he ever did.
[edit] External links
- A Passage to India at the Internet Movie Database
- British Film Institute Review
- Roger Ebert review
- davidlean.com
- Photos of the Locations used in the Film, and the Full Script
| David Lean | |
|---|---|
| 1940s | In Which We Serve (with Noel Coward) | This Happy Breed | Blithe Spirit | Brief Encounter | Great Expectations | Oliver Twist | The Passionate Friends |
| 1950s | Madeline | The Sound Barrier | Hobson's Choice | Summertime | The Bridge on the River Kwai |
| 1960s | Lawrence of Arabia | Doctor Zhivago |
| 1970s | Ryan's Daughter |
| 1980s | A Passage to India |
| Television | Lost and Found: The Story of Cook's Anchor (1979) |
