When I despair, I remember that all through history the way of truth and love has always won. There have been tyrants and murderers and for a time they seem invincible but in the end, they always fall - think of it, always.
- Mohandas Gandhi
Some scenes in Richard Attenborough's Gandhi forever remain etched in memory. The one of the raging fire of British-spun clothing, with bare-backed and calm Gandhi looking on. The Salt March sequence. The chilling Jallianwala Bagh sequence (I would think, the first-ever depiction of this incident in international cinema), and the court martial of Dyer afterwards where Gielgud asks Dyer, "how did you ever expect an orphaned young child to apply for help?". Even the stark shocking numbers (1516 victimes with 1620 bullets) are characters themselves, that shriek in agony of their existence.
And of course, the funeral scene in the beginning - which is still held in the Guinness Book of World Records as the highest number of extras ever used in a movie scene. 300,000 of them! 200,000 were volunteers, and about 100,000 were paid. The scene was shot on the anniversary of Gandhi's assassination (Jan 31) in 1981 (the year I was born).
Ben Kingsley's portrayal was one of the closest any human being has gotten to an icon on celluloid. Can't even imagine that Anthony Hopkins and Alec Guinness were offered the role, and one is so glad they turned it down. Although, you must catch Daniel Day Lewis in his cameo as the thug in South Africa who threatens Gandhi as the young lawyer, in the streets of Cape Town.
Everytime I watch Gandhi, it makes me think that the passion that he exhibited, the principles that he stood for and the lifelong determination that he exuded, will never ever return to our planet. This thought resounds Einstein's words about Gandhi, "Generations to come will scarce believe that such a one as [Gandhi] ever in flesh and blood walked upon this earth".
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