British director David Lean is known for "Late Me" (1945), "Lone Star and Tears" (1946), "Oliver Twist" (1948), "Bridge on the River Kwai" (1957), "Lawrence of Arabia" (1962), "Doctor Zhivago" (1965) and other classic films shocked the film industry. After "Ryan's Daughter" (1970), he was silent for 14 years, and it was only in 1984 that he returned to the arena and directed this final work. "A Trip to India" is his last work. In April 1991, a generation of film masters passed away. Although "Journey to India" is not as classic as the above-mentioned business cards, it is also very popular. It was nominated for 11 Academy Awards by the American Academy of Film Arts that year, which is equivalent to the number of nominations for "Mozart" that year.
There's a reason why David Lean chose "India" as his first comeback. British author Foster's novel "A Journey to India" was published in 1924 and was adapted into a stage play in 1960. Many filmmakers want to put it on the screen. Indian film director Satyajit Rey wanted to make this film in the 1960s, but failed due to various reasons. In 1970, Foster agreed to British producer John Bradborn to bring "India" to the screen. Unexpectedly, Foster died before signing the contract. It took another dozen years before Bradborn bought the rights and raised enough money. Some companies are willing to invest in the rape scene in the cave, and some companies do not agree to let Peggy Ashcroft, a 77-year-old actor, play Mrs. Moore. In short, it was the 80s when everything was ready. Bradborn asks David Lean to come out. Filming started at the end of 1983 and was completed at the end of 1984.
Foster's novels are full of humanistic spirit. His novels have also been adapted to the screen, "A Room with a View" and "Howard Manor." In "A Trip to India", the British colonists are full of racial prejudice and arrogance, while the Indians are kind and sincere, but very naive. The two are full of contradictions, and this gap cannot be formed in a day, nor can it be eliminated in a day. David Lean put the novel on the screen, 80% loyal to the original, but he further strengthened the flogging of the British colonial rule in the original.
Since the publication of The Journey to India, critics and readers alike have speculated about what happened in the caves of Malabar and whether Aziz raped Aidra. The section on the Marabar Caves is the climax of the book, but the book is written in veiled language and does not spell out exactly what happened, making the question a long-standing mystery. David Lean's biggest change to the original book, which is also a more direct attack on British colonial rule than the original book, is to clearly tell the audience that the Stone Cave Incident was an injustice and the result of the racial prejudice of the colonists. The ins and outs explained in the film are as follows: (1) Before that, when Adela saw the Happy Buddha and the monkeys, she had a sexual impulse; (2) It was Adela who sent Anton away, not like Anton in court. Aziz, who testified, sent him away; (3) it was Mrs. Moore who advised Aziz and Aidra not to go into the hole with many people, not Aziz premeditatedly throwing the crowd away as the court said ; (4) It was Adela who took the initiative to ask Aziz about his love life; (5) After Adela ran down the mountain, Aziz did not know that she had gone down the mountain, and called her at the entrance of the stone caves; (6) The court It is said that Aziz used the telescope to knock down Edra and tried to commit violence. In fact, Aziz picked up the telescope at the entrance of the cave after Edella ran down the mountain. The most critical scene is that after Adela entered the cave alone, he saw Aziz's figure at the entrance of the cave in the dark, and he shouted, "Miss Quest!" The expression can feel that she is in a state of mental confusion, which is in the same line with the mental state when she saw Huanxi Buddha before. Immediately followed by a shot: a stream of water bursts into a breach at the edge of the pool (actually an elephant is splashing in the pool). This metaphor indicates the physical change in Adra at this time. Audiences have reason to believe that everything is caused by Adela's own sexual fantasies (of course, without the racist people around her fanning the flames). This provided a reasonable explanation for Aidra's sudden withdrawal of the charges in court.
Journey to India, like many of David Lean's films, is about people who travel far from their homeland to a foreign land and test their knowledge of the world and of themselves through a journey. Mrs. Moore and Adela went to India with the purpose of understanding the East, but one died of exhaustion and the other returned to England in disrepute. For Mrs Moore, it was a journey of disappointment. She had just arrived at the Chandrapur railway station and saw her son Ronny, but Ronny didn't come to pick her up specifically, he mainly came to pick up his superiors. Ronnie's arrogance to the locals and flattery to her superiors made her uncomfortable. The British Club completely retains a set of customs of the British Empire. At the beginning of each event, everyone must stand up and sing "God Save the King", which makes her feel helpless. When she talked to her compatriots about the lack of access to the locals, they replied, "It's your luck!" At the garden party, she asked the Indian lady to say a few words in Hindi to her, but all she heard was "Hyde Park", "Waterloo" and other foreign words. Fortunately, Fielding invited her and Adela to their home and introduced them to two local intellectuals, Goldbore and Aziz, but Ronnie was furious about it. Adela is bewildered when she proposes to reinstate Ronnie shortly after breaking off her engagement. After finally having the opportunity to visit the Malabar Cave, an accident happened, which deepened the contradiction between the Indians and the British. For an old man over seventy years old, this series of unpleasantness is indeed unbearable. The kind Mrs Moore paid the price with her life.
For Aidra, it was an unfortunate journey. Her own fragility could not withstand the shock of Eastern culture. She went to India to learn about the East, but unexpectedly met her fiancé up close. The trip coincided with her mental journey. She felt the distance from Lonny and proposed to dissolve the engagement, but she retracted the proposal due to the impact of oriental culture. But in fact, she didn't love Ronnie, so when she looked at Chandrapur from the Malabar cave, she thought that the Indian man around her didn't know whether to love his wife or not, so she asked the ambiguous question. She didn't mean to tease, but two ambiguous questions in a row created an awkward atmosphere. Aziz stepped aside to calm himself down. Edra herself was flustered by her own associations, and she was out of control. After she ran down the mountain, she saw scratches all over her face, and she was already in a semi-conscious state. The audience did not hear her accusing Aziz, but she was surrounded by a group of British officials and wives, and the reliability of what came out of their mouths was questionable. Lonely has become a leading figure on this issue.
The plot of Journey to India revolves around the relationships of the six characters. In addition to the above two, there are also two British. Lonnie is a typical British colonizer, while Fielding represents a righteous British who opposes colonial rule and advocates friendship with India. The two Indians in the film, Goldbore and Aziz, represent the oriental philosophical thought and democratic thought among the Indians. The old Brahmanist scholar Goldbore believes that there is reincarnation in life, good and evil have cause and effect, everything is predestined, and it is useless to resist. He had a premonition that Malabar's actions would be more auspicious, but he did not show any signs of it. He just kept himself alone and tried to prolong the morning prayer time to avoid participating; he knew that Aziz was wronged, but he did not want to fight because he believed that the outcome would be the same anyway. Perhaps it was this philosophy of forbearance that kept India under colonial rule for so long.
Aziz is a Western doctor who has been influenced by the West and has a democratic consciousness. He had no fondness for the British colonists. He once said that an English man in India for two years becomes a formidable force, while an English woman only needs six months. There's a scene in the film that amply proves this: One night, a British major invites Aziz to a doctor's office. A long way to go, Aziz hired a carriage to arrive at the major's house, but the servant told the major that he was not at home. The Major's wife and her girlfriend came out of the room talking and laughing, without even looking at Aziz, they went straight into the carriage he hired, leaving Aziz alone in the dark, because since the master went out, The servant put out the light at the gate. It is conceivable that after experiencing such a humiliation, Aziz naturally shocked Mrs. Moore who treated him as an equal. And Fielding was even more flattered when he invited him into the house—the first time he had entered a white home. Therefore, when Fielding's tie buckle suddenly broke, he did not hesitate to untie his own tie buckle and give it to Fielding (leading to Lonnie adding a racial prejudice, he saw Aziz's collar turned out because of it At the same time, he said to Adela contemptuously: "Look, this is the Indian. He is very well-dressed, but he doesn't know how to buckle his tie!"). After several contacts with Fielding, Aziz regarded him as a confidant, showed him the photos of his deceased wife without reservation, cared about his marital problems, and even revealed to him that he liked women with big breasts. Aziz was so naive that he gave him ten points for a white man's friendship. Without considering his actual conditions, he rashly offered to invite two female guests to visit the Malabar Cave. He was as excited as a child when he made the trip. While the train was moving, he actually climbed out of the car, grabbed the door of the carriage with only one hand, and shouted in a "big" shape: "I'm Douglas Fairbanks!" Sitting on the back of an elephant with two British ladies On, he was even more airy, saying that he felt like an emperor. His enthusiasm kept rising, and then suddenly fell to freezing point. He calmed down after his arrest, disappointed with all Britons. Fielding wrote him twice after returning home, but he did not reply. It was not until he saw that the daughter of Mrs. Moore, the only one he respected, became Fielding's wife, that his complex was opened.
David Lean is known for his penchant for the exotic. The Journey to India was filmed in India, Nepal and the Kashmir region of the Himalayas. Like his past masterpieces, the scenery in this film is unparalleled. Whether it is distant mountains, near water, barren fields, lush green earth, rocky peaks, temples under the moonlight, stormy nights, or snow-covered villages, they are not shot for the sake of curiosity, but are part of the story, almost It is a character, a symbol of the chaotic and unknowable outer world and the inner world of the characters that he depicts. Almost every one of his films brings a huge visual enjoyment to the audience, and it is no wonder that they are all well-received and well-received.
"Journey to India" is nearly three hours long, but the audience will never feel that it is such a long film. The whole film was done in one go, without a single extra shot. This skill is related to David Lean's background as an editor. In his early years when he was editing, he was fired by a producer for going too far, but that didn't stop him from giving up his harsh editing habits. What has been preserved through his hands must not be astonishingly beautiful and new and unique. He once said: "I can cut a shot without any hesitation, even if it is a good shot, as long as it affects the smoothness of the film." More than ten years of experience in editing work made him start the process in his mind when he was directing. clip. As a result, his film consumption rate is very low, and the film produced is both rigorous and smooth. In David Lean's films, the meaning is not mainly expressed through dialogue, but through images. "A Trip to India" was edited by him himself, which is naturally a master work.
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