It was one of those fateful days in retrospect, as Richard Attenborough received a call from Motilal Kothari on a summer morning in 1962. The Gandhi-trailer tried to convince the British actor from making a film about his idol, the charismatic leader of the Indian independence movement. Attenborough had never even made a movie, and apart from the name he knew next to nothing about Gandhi. Nevertheless, he was interested and was inspired by Kothari move to at least read a book about the “great soul”.
The reading of Gandhi’s biography of the American Louis Fischer, Attenborough said in 1982, had “without exaggeration changed my life and influenced my career decisions every 20 years”. Its 191 minutes long movie epic “Gandhi” with Ben Kingsley in the lead role then enthusiastic an audience of millions and won eight Academy Awards, including the Oscar for best film and best director. It was Attenborough’s greatest triumph and is now considered soulful gesture of employment England with its former colony India. For Attenborough meekness Gandhi became the ideal of life.
Back in the early eighties, the minds over Attenborough’s film, however, were excited for another reason. That is just a Briton dared to make a film about the National Shrine of Gandhi and, moreover, to occupy the main role also with a British, the then unknown Shakespearean actor Kingsley, conceived many Indians as an affront, in advance of the scheduled in New Delhi premiere was formed in the media and on the street bitter protest. Gandhi, was shot by a Hindu fanatic in 1948, would be “crucified a second time” by the film, wrote the paper “The Patriot”.All this had Attenborough course unintended. His concern was with great gesture to banish his own respect for non-violence preaching and practicing freedom fighters Gandhi on the canvas, like his role model, monumental filmmaker David Lean, historical subjects such as “Lawrence of Arabia” or “The Bridge on the River Kwai” was filmed had.
In 1980, when Attenborough was finally able to start shooting, the Gandhi film had long since become an obsession. For years, the British had tried to funding, was repeatedly failed due to the ignorance of Hollywood and non-compliance with commitments from Indian and British authorities. Screenwriters, producers and actors, including Alec Guinness, held the job for intractable and too large. Only the goodwill of the then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi was the breakthrough: India participated to one third of the production costs of $ 22 million.
“A round, happy face”
“Gandhi” was the culmination of a career that was initially very focused on acting. Richard Attenborough was born in 1923 in an old Scottish officer’s family in Cambridge. After several years as a successful theater actor, he took over in 1941 the role of the ship’s stoker in the war film “In Which We Serve”. A little later he experienced in the role of Pinkie in Graham Greene adaptation “Brighton Rock” his breakthrough as a movie star. Overall, Attenborough appeared in over 50 films, but had to realize early on that his physiognomy predestined him for roles that do not always pleased him: “Since fate has given me a round, happy face, I usually had to embody characters that are not my corresponded everyday, “he said in 1987 of the” world “. He played all his life, until his last major appearance in Steven Spielberg’s “Jurassic Park” (1993) despondent and soft, sympathetic villains and all kinds of cuddly secondary characters, although he might have gladly given the dashing hero.
In order to realize his Gandhi-film and raise money, Attenborough played the mid-sixties in three Hollywood productions, “The Flight of the Phoenix”, “Gunboat on the Yangtze Kiang” and “Dr. Doolittle “. In 1968 he tried for the first time as a director and earned good reviews for his verfilmtes war musical “Oh, What A Lovely War” in 1972 was followed by the Churchill biography “Young Winston”, 1977, the monumental World War II epic “A Bridge Too Far,” in which he learned to conduct a huge budget and a great star ensemble among others Sean Connery, Laurence Olivier and Michael Caine. The critic Andreas Kilb called “A Bridge Too Far”, Attenborough’s most successful film to date, the “gentleman among war movies”.
From the study of Gandhi, who had committed at the beginning of the 20th century against apartheid in South Africa, probably originated Attenborough also plan to film the story of the resistance fighter Steve Biko. “Cry Freedom”, started in 1987 under strict conditions in South Africa, was his attempt to transfer the globally effective message of his “Gandhi” film on a different subject, what him in the lead role also succeeded with Denzel Washington. Attenborough stated credo to achieve with his films, especially the heart and soul, less the mind, it did not protect against that his portrayal of the life of blacks in the MIRROR it was designed as a “pedagogical Sightseeing Tour”: Nevertheless stirred resentment among critics .
In 1992, Attenborough tried again at a great biopic. But “Chaplin” with Robert Downey Jr. in the title role of the great silent movie comedian and Hollywood pioneer, flopped with critics and audiences. It was quiet around the director and actor.
Since 1976, Attenborough was the nobility title of Lord of Richmond on Thames. He worked among others as Chairman of the UK-Gandhi Foundation and as a Unicef ambassador. From 1987 to 1992 he held the chair of the TV station Channel 4. His younger brother is former BBC chief and popular nature documentary filmmaker David Attenborough. Sir Richard Attenborough died on Sunday afternoon at the age of 90 years in a retirement home where he lived with his wife Sheila for a stroke and a fall in 2008. The two were married in 1945.
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