n the romance and action-filled cinema coming from India, there are not very many movies based on Mahatma Gandhi But there is a surprisingly long list of actors who’ve played Gandhi in small roles or brief appearances in movies about other freedom fighters or political dramas.
Nevertheless, few actors have played Gandhi with the finesse to win awards for it. Rajit Kapoor won the National Award for his portrayal of Gandhi in Shyam Benegal’s The Making Of The Mahatma, and now, Darshan Jariwala’s won it for his Gandhi act in Feroz Abbas Khan’s Gandhi My Father. Of course, many sterling actors have played Gandhi on stage, which is a tough act to pull off, literally. But it seems that actors on the big screen have been more than equal to the task.
We asked some actors and directors to rate the most memorable Gandhi acts in cinema in order of merit, but they begged off. They did choose three of the best, though.
Shyam Benegal, director, The Making Of The Mahatma
“It’s not possible to compare the many Gandhi performances in cinema. The ages and facets are so different that they aren’t comparable. My Gandhi (played by Rajit Kapoor) is Gandhi as he was from the age of 24 to 45. The rest are much older, so it’s hard to say which is better. If you’re asking me about the definitive Gandhi, that would have to be Ben Kingsley. That’s the image of Gandhi we all have, that’s how most people think of him. My Gandhi is the Gandhi whom nobody knew much about. The Gandhi we know best is toothless, staff in hand, the Gandhi of many satyagrahas. Each performance is a fine one, and brings out different facets of Gandhi. Ben Kingsley is the public face of Gandhi, Darshan is the private one, and my Gandhi is the younger, unknown Gandhi. I wouldn’t include Dilip Prabhavalkar in the great Gandhi acts because he plays a symbolic Gandhi.”
Anupam Kher, actor, Maine Gandhi Ko Nahin Maara
“Ben Kingsley’s performance in Gandhi is unmatched and beyond compare. The way he portrayed Gandhi in his youth till his demise is unparalleled. The role played by Dilip in Lage Raho Munna Bhai was just a ploy in the script. It is nowhere close to the real Gandhi, and we are talking about ‘unbelievable superior performance’, hence it can be only Ben Kingsley. Naseeruddin Shah (who played Gandhi in Hey Ram) is a great actor, but I don’t know about his performance as Gandhi for I haven’t seen Hey Ram.”
Feroz Abbas Khan, director, Gandhi, My Father
“There is something more that differentiates my film from not just other films, but other Gandhi films as well. Richard Attenborough’s Gandhi was the political Gandhi, Shyam Benegal’s was the Gandhi of South Africa. And this film is an attempt to humanise Gandhi, a subject that has not been dealt with so far. It was about how that person met challenges, sacrificed things, took actions in his pursuit of whatever he did, the things that he did. Gandhi is too grand and encompassing to fit in one film.”
(With inputs from Diksha Kamra, Medha Shri and Chandna Arora)
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