A Passage to India (1984)

Ismail Merchant really wanted to make this film and never forgave Lord John Brabourne for stealing the rights from under him.

Sydney Pollack was also fighting for the rights of this film

Poor Nigel Havers fell far from this to Coronation Street to obscurity.

Best Forster novel of them all.

It is a A Passage to India!

Is this thread started by the guy who started another thread about a first date with some Indian dude?

Mrs. Moore!!!!!

[quote] Is this thread started by the guy who started another thread about a first date with some Indian dude?

Yes.

[quote] Mrs. Moore!!!!!

Esmiss Esmoor! Esmiss Esmoor!

So, OP is using this thread to swot up on Indian history for his second date.

Dame Peggy Ashcroft, who played Mrs. Moore in A Passage to India, played Barbie Batchelor in The Jewel in the Crown with Eric Porter.

It's too bad the US didn't take on to Richard Wilson. He's a fun old crumudgeon.

Art Malik was SO hot in this.

And a 'queer' icon ^^^^

The book was published 100 years ago.

A BBC remake to mark the event would have been decent.

Maggie or Judi or Vanessa or one of the other Dames as Peggy Ashcroft and Jodie Comer as Judy Davis.

Judy Davis reminds me of an evil, cooler Katharine Hepburn in this. I love her.

James Fox wasn't bad looking either

"Jewel in the Crown" was better written and directed than the deflated-yet-bloated "Passage to India."

David Lean from 1950 usually had a flaccid voyeur's sensibility. Amid the visual brilliance, with the timeless sense of someone far on the spectrum.

Colonialist Porn

Kinda, R18, but the point of the book (and many of Forster's books) is the misfortune of British meddling in other cultures.

A brilliant film despite the casting of Alec Guinness as an Indian, which can be forgiven due to the time it came out. Judy Davis and the rest of the cast shine, especially Victor Banerjee who breaks your heart.

How is it an Indian film? Is Lawrence of Arabia an Arab film? Dr. Zhivago a Russian film?

Is 2001: A Space Odyssey an alien film?

I’m South Asian and I liked this movie. It’s long which will turn people off but I never found it boring, and of course it’s gorgeous to look at.

James Foxxxy was sooooooo hot in this. And, oh yeah, great movie.

Forster was anti-colonialist.

Op are you a law student looking for, but afraid of, Indian doctor dick?

It's been confirmed, R25.

The movie starts with us seeing things through Adela’s POV but as soon as whatever happened happens, it switched to a more objective viewpoint.

I love the score and cinematography.

R18 = limited brain capacity.

Dame Peggy was not afraid of Paul Robeson’s dick. She got IT!

A lesson for Op

I forgot Clive Swift was in this

[quote] I forgot Clive Swift was in this

Riiiiiiiichard!

Mind the Indians, Richard.

Looks like it was filmed in the early 60s.

Yes, it's timeless.

To this day I cannot see a back collar stud or button without thinking of this book and movie.

Classic Butt Crusher

Lean wanted to make this into another 70mm epic but HBO said no. They wouldn't even let him shoot in wide screen. Had he had his way, the film wouldn't have looked like an old movie, it would have resembled more one of his classics.

R18 is a great representation of what passes for insight these days. Superficial and wrong, but it sure sounds virtuous.

Judy Davis got an Oscar nomination but her reviews were mixed. People thought she was too sophisticated for the character. It does seem like someone more innocent and less worldly might have been a better fit.

R14 much more likely you'd end up with Jodie Turner Smith, than Jodie Comer in an updated remake, especially if BBC was producing.

Victor Banerjee was snubbed

A great film.

R38 Marry me.

R40 Don’t you ever get tired of making repeated racial comments about movie casts? I bet you pollute the Broadway thread, and not forgetting any political thread. Take a well-earned vacation, or just fuck off.

Judy Davis was completely miscast in this movie (because it is so hard to imagine anyone pushing her around) and yet she somehow still managed to turn in a classic performance anyway.

I've got this strange feeling--

I've fallen in love!

(She's fallen in love!)

His kiss sent me reeling.

I know it was love!

(Oh, heavens above!)

(Hooray, hooray, hooray!

It's a glorious day today!)

And I know that at this juncture

I can't afford a puncture!

Dame Peggy Ashcroft deserved her Oscar

And Angela Lansbury was just the Dame to receive it.

Lord John Brabourne and Richard Goodwin also produced Murder on the Orient Express

Is it a good book adaptation?

I had a crush on Victor Bannerjee and Art Malik.

It was then I knew….

...That you liked curry?

It's on TCM this evening.

There was a ton of on-set drama. Sir David Lean was a notorious bully of his actors, and he had never worked with Judy davis before and stupidly tried to bully her. well, if there's one human being no one can dominate, it's Judy Davis--she figured out his number right away and pushed back hard, and started undermining his confidence by telling him he didn't even understand Forster's novel (which is at some level true--as good a film as it is, he seems to think it's just a film about his favorite theme, sexual hysteria among the British ruling classes). He was apparently deeply rattled.

He was also breaking up with one of his wives during the filming--she plays Stella Moore Fielding in the final sequence set in the Himalayas.

This is the famous bicycle scene with Judy Davis exploring a ruined temple outside the city. it's not in the original book, but Lean dded it because it highlights his obsession with British sexual hysteria.

It's both beautifully filmed and incredibly overwrought and melodramatic (if Lean had only not allowed Maurice Jarre to allow that soprano ululating!). But Davis's silent performance as she's aroused by the sculptures is remarkable.

OMG! It's starting.

^^ Capote-esque writing there…

R55, I like how the music in that scene indicates a lot more monkeys than we actually see.

DAME PEGGY ASHCROFT deserved her Oscar.

She was a Dame back when the only other Dame was Edith Evans.