Patron Saint of Boomers: Gandhi (1982) | Criteria: The Catholic Film Podcast

There are a few films on the Vatican film list James and Thomas haven't been looking forward to watching. Among them is Richard Attenborough's Gandhi, and our dread was due to the suspicion that this film, certainly negligible in its historical importance as a work of cinema, was included mainly because Vatican bureaucrats of a certain age are apt to confuse Mohandas K. Gandhi with a Catholic saint. (Though to be fair, the film was included under the heading of Values, not Religion.) The reasons for its inclusion aside, our suspicion was confirmed at least in that this enjoyable and well-crafted biopic in no way deserves a place on the Vatican's list of 45 important films. Gandhi, driven by Ben Kingsley's outstanding performance as the title character, is in many ways an inspiring picture of nonviolent resistance. However, it has been pointed out that this film presents a Gandhi sanitized (and we mean that quite literally) for Western consumption, leaving out his essential Hinduism, as well as his many inconsistencies, eccentricities and flaws. It is a work of boomer hagiography, from a secularized Western Christian perspective. LINKS Subscribe to Criteria: The Catholic Film Podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast... RSS feed: https://criteria.libsyn.com/rss This podcast is a production of CatholicCulture.org. If you like the show, please consider supporting us! http://catholicculture.org/donate/audio Find all our podcasts here: https://www.catholicculture.org/podcast/ Music is The Duskwhales, “Take It Back”, used with permission. https://theduskwhales.bandcamp.com/ SOCIAL   / catholicpods     / formtheculture     / catholicculture