A newspaper report described this private screening as a “historical event in Indian cinema”, and said that, at the end, “Mahatmaji seemed quite cheerful”. Abbas, writing in the 1940 issue of Filmindia, compared the documentary, Mahatma Gandhi: 20th Century Prophet, to Joris Ivens’ The Spanish Earth and Dziga Vertov’s Three Songs About Lenin, and ended by asking cheekily: “Will the first film seen by Mahatma Gandhi be ‘MAHATMA GANDHI’ starring Mahatma Gandhi?”Also Read | What might a Gandhian constitution have looked like? It remains one of the most inspired bits of casting in film history: a little-known Shakespearean actor from England playing the Mahatma. In this regard, Rajit Kapur’s South Africa-era Gandhi in The Making Of The Mahatma (1996) comes as a bracing antidote. Given his appropriation across the Indian political spectrum, a truly challenging Gandhi film doesn’t look likely in the near future.

Source: Mint January 27, 2018 04:30 UTC