#A Passage to India (1984)

[adaptations-polls]

Which version of this do you prefer?

[cinemaocd]

When are they going to bring back being a companion to a rich lady who travels as a career?

[erstwhile-punk-guerito]

[theoscarsproject]

A Passage to India (1984). Cultural mistrust and false accusations doom a friendship in British colonial India between an Indian doctor, an Englishwoman engaged to marry a city magistrate, and an English educator.

Slowly paced and beautifully shot, this has all the hallmarks of David Lean's directorial style. He's a master of epics, and this is a richly told one, albeit one that's very flawed. I wish it was a little more critical of British imperialism, and I wish too it hadn't used brownface for critical Indian characters, but the central story between Dr Aziz and Adela is compelling, and Victor Banerjee and Judy Davis' performances are pretty terrific. 7.5/10.

[danu2203]

LAST NIGHT’S VIEWING...A PASSAGE TO INDIA...1984

[astonishinglysane]

Movies I’ve Watched - 2024

185/?: A Passage to India (1984) - watched 6/29/24

The 80s were a weird time in movie history. This movie offers a lot of pointed criticism of the attitudes of British colonials toward native Indians, yet it also thought it was acceptable for Alec Guinness to perform a role in brownface. Overall, this was much better than I expected. I appreciated that the British were the undisputed villains, and it was interesting throughout, fully justifying the long runtime.

A PASSAGE TO INDIA (1984) - Directed by David Lean

[orlaite]

A PASSAGE TO INDIA (1984) dir. David Lean

[verypersonalscreencaps]

TOP 5 FIRST-TIME WATCHES OF JULY 2024 1. A PASSAGE TO INDIA (1984, dir. David Lean) 2. JANET PLANET (2023, dir. Annie Baker) 3. LES VOLEURS (1996, dir. André Téchiné) 4. EMPRESS MICHIKO, THE STRENGTH OF THE REED (2021, dir. Anne-Sophie Chaumier Le Conte) 5. BABES (2024, dir. Pamela Adlon)

[13eyond13]

How many of these "Top 100 Books to Read" have you read?

(633) 1984 - George Orwell

(616) The Great Gatsby - F. Scott Fitzgerald

(613) The Catcher In The Rye - J.D. Salinger

(573) Crime And Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky

(550) Catch-22 - Joseph Heller

(549) The Adventures Of Tom And Huck - Series - Mark Twain

(538) Moby-Dick - Herman Melville

(534) One Hundred Years Of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez

(527) To Kill A Mockingbird - Harper Lee

(521) The Grapes Of Wrath - John Steinbeck

(521) Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov

(492) Pride And Prejudice - Jane Austen

(489) The Lord Of The Rings - Series - J.R.R. Tolkien

(488) Brave New World - Aldous Huxley

(480) Ulysses - James Joyce

(471) Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte

(459) Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte

(398) The Brothers Karamazov - Fyodor Dostoyevsky

(396) Great Expectations - Charles Dickens

(395) To The Lighthouse - Virginia Woolf

(382) War And Peace - Leo Tolstoy

(382) The Sun Also Rises - Ernest Hemingway

(380) The Sound And The Fury - William Faulkner

(378) Alice's Adventures In Wonderland - Series - Lewis Carroll

(359) Frankenstein - Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley

(353) Heart Of Darkness - Joseph Conrad

(352) Middlemarch - George Eliot

(348) Animal Farm - George Orwell

(346) Don Quixote - Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra

(334) Slaughterhouse-Five - Kurt Vonnegut

(325) Les Misérables - Victor Hugo

(320) Harry Potter - Series - J.K. Rowling

(320) The Chronicles Of Narnia - Series - C.S. Lewis

(317) Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy

(308) Lord Of The Flies - William Golding

(306) Invisible Man - Ralph Ellison

(289) The Golden Bowl - Henry James

(276) Pale Fire - Vladimir Nabokov

(266) Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell

(260) The Count Of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas

(255) The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy - Series - Douglas Adams

(252) The Life And Opinions Of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman - Laurence Sterne

(244) Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert

(237) Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackery

(235) The Trial - Franz Kafka

(233) Absalom, Absalom! - William Faulkner

(232) The Call Of The Wild - Jack London

(232) Emma - Jane Austen

(229) Beloved - Toni Morrison

(228) Little Women - Louisa May Alcott

(224) A Passage To India - E.M. Forster

(215) Dune - Frank Herbert

(215) A Portrait Of The Artist As A Young Man - James Joyce

(212) The Stranger - Albert Camus

(209) One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest - Ken Kesey

(209) The Idiot - Fyodor Dostoyevsky

(206) Dracula - Bram Stoker

(205) The Picture Of Dorian Gray - Oscar Wilde

(197) A Confederacy Of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole

(193) Mrs. Dalloway - Virginia Woolf

(193) The Age Of Innocence - Edith Wharton

(193) The History Of Tom Jones, A Foundling - Henry Fielding

(192) Under The Volcano - Malcolm Lowry

(190) The Odyssey - Homer

(189) Gulliver's Travels - Jonathan Swift

(188) In Search Of Lost Time - Marcel Proust

(186) Midnight's Children - Salman Rushdie

(185) An American Tragedy - Theodore Dreiser

(182) The Book Thief - Markus Zusak

(180) Siddhartha - Hermann Hesse

(179) The Magic Mountain - Thomas Mann

(178) Things Fall Apart - Chinua Achebe

(178) Tropic Of Cancer - Henry Miller

(176) The Outsiders - S.E. Hinton

(176) On The Road - Jack Kerouac

(175) The Little Prince - Antoine de Saint-Exupery

(173) The Giver - Lois Lowry

(172) Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh

(172) A Clockwork Orange - Anthony Burgess

(171) Charlotte's Web - E.B. White

(171) The Ambassadors - Henry James

(170) Infinite Jest - David Foster Wallace

(167) The Complete Stories And Poems - Edgar Allen Poe

(166) Ender's Saga - Series - Orson Scott Card

(165) In Cold Blood - Truman Capote

(164) The Wings Of The Dove - Henry James

(163) The Adventures Of Augie March - Saul Bellow

(162) As I Lay Dying - William Faulkner

(161) The Hunger Games - Series - Suzanne Collins

(158) Anne Of Greene Gables - L.M. Montgomery

(157) Atlas Shrugged - Ayn Rand

(157) Neuromancer - William Gibson

(156) The Help - Kathryn Stockett

(156) A Song Of Ice And Fire - George R.R. Martin

(155) The Good Soldier - Ford Madox Ford

(154) The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown

(153) I, Claudius - Robert Graves

(152) Wide Sargasso Sea - Jean Rhys

(151) The Portrait Of A Lady - Henry James

(150) The Death Of The Heart - Elizabeth Bowen

[filmografie]

Favorite films watched in February 2024:

Unrest (2022), dir. Cyril Schäublin

A Passage to India (1984), dir. David Lean

Perfect Days (2023), dir Wim Wenders

Chronicle of a Summer (1961), dir. Jean Rouch & Edgar Morin

Aurora (2010), dir. Cristi Puiu

Sullivan's Travels (1941), dir. Preston Sturges

The Zone of Interest (2023), dir. Jonathan Glazer

[severe-intense-gaze]

Hobson’s Choice (1954）

Lawrence of Arabia (1962)

A Passage to India (1984)

[devosopmaandag]

Met vrijheid getooid

Ergens in de jaren zeventig las ik George Orwells roman '1984'. Ik meen me te kunnen herinneren hoe gevangen ik mezelf voelde in de wurgende sfeer van de totalitaire staat waarin hoofdpersoon Winston Smith leeft. Op de witte gevels van het Ministerie van Waarheid, waar hij werkt, staat in sierlijke letters: OORLOG IS VREDE – VRIJHEID IS SLAVERNIJ – ONWETENDHEID IS KRACHT. Ik moest toen tijdens het lezen toch ergens mijn hoop vandaan halen. Was het niet in de natuur, ver weg van de hermetisch gecontroleerde stad, dat de laatste resten vrijheid te vinden waren? Het zou toch onmogelijk zijn om onder elke boom, in elke bergspleet of verscholen in het riet gedetecteerd te kunnen worden. Ieder jaar komt die gedachte wel een keer naar boven, als ik ergens langs een water loop, of midden door een bos.

Ik bladerde in het boek dat decennia dicht was gebleven, op zoek naar een passage die dat vermoeden zou bevestigen, en vond het op pagina 103. Een onbekende vrouw heeft Winston op slinkse wijze haar streng verboden liefde aan hem kenbaar gemaakt. Ze ontsnappen aan de ogen van Big Brother ergens ver buiten de stad. “Het zonlicht zeefde door bladeren zonder tal en was nog heet op hun gezichten. Winston keek uit naar het veld daarachter en had een eigenaardige, trage schok van herkenning. Hij kende het van gezicht. Een oude, kort afgegraasde weide, met een voetpad er dwars doorheen en hier en daar een molshoop. In de ongelijke heg aan de overkant deinden de takken der olmbomen nauw merkbaar in het koeltje, en hun bladeren bewogen zwakjes in dichte opeenhopingen, als vrouwenhaar. “ En dan raken ze samen betoverd door het zingen van een lijster, en vervolgens door elkaars lichamen.

Ik dwaalde in Breda langs enorme foto's die verspreid opgesteld stonden in een braakliggende gebied waar de natuur langzaam terrein wint. Het was Breda Photo. Ik werd onmiddellijk getroffen door een foto van een jonge vrouw. Ze heeft een krans van bladeren om haar haar gedaan. Ze draagt een mouwloze jurk met zonnebloemen en aan een lange, kleurige ketting hangt een halve maan. Haar blik is verstild en naar binnen gekeerd. Ze zou een Zuid-Amerikaanse kunnen zijn, of iemand uit India, maar ze is een Iraanse. Ik las dat de Iraans-Canadese fotografe Parisa Azadi, jonge Iraniërs fotografeert die in de woestijnen en bossen een gevoel van vrijheid zoeken, ver weg van het stedelijk islamitische regime.

Ik was vergeten hoe Orwells roman eindigt en zocht het op. Ellendiger kan het niet: gebroken door het systeem geeft Winston Smith zich over aan het systeem. In de foto van de Iraanse lees ik hoop: haar gezicht verraadt de realiteit van het leven dat ze voor even achter laat en dat weer op haar wacht, maar daar, in dat donker bos, tooit ze zich met symbolen van vrijheid. Misschien is die maan aan haar ketting, niet wassend maar afnemend, een teken van hoop of stil verzet.

[cinemaocd]

If I had a nickle for every time David Lean used a brass band playing at a train station as a scene transition I'd have two nickles, which isn't a lot but it's weird that it happened twice...

[bookquest2024]

100 Books to Read Before I Die: Quest Order

The Lord Of The Rings by J. R. R. Tolkien

In Search of Lost Time by Marcel Proust

The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald

A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L’Engle

Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë

Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen

Frankenstein by Mary Shelley

The Good Soldier by Ford Madox Ford

Under The Net by Iris Murdoch

American Pastoral by Philip Roth

The Unbearable Lightness of Being by Milan Kundera

Animal Farm by George Orwell

Housekeeping by Marilynne Robinson

Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy

Atonement by Ian McEwan

Crime And Punishment by Fyodor Dostoyevsky

The Grapes Of Wrath by John Steinbeck

Midnight’s Children by Salman Rushdie

Lucky Jim by Kingsley Amis

Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut

The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway

Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison

A Passage to India by EM Forster

Of Human Bondage by W. Somerset Maugham

The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie by Muriel Spark

The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay by Michael Chabon

If on a Winter’s Night a Traveller by Italo Calvino

The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams

1984 by George Orwell

White Noise by Don DeLillo

The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas

The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner

The Stranger by Albert Camus

Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov

Oscar And Lucinda by Peter Carey

The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle by Haruki Murakami

Gulliver’s Travels by Jonathan Swift

Brave New World by Aldous Huxley

As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner

To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee

Lord of the Flies by William Golding

The Portrait of a Lady by Henry James

The Call of the Wild by Jack London

Pale Fire by Vladimir Nabokov

Beloved by Toni Morrison

Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy by John Le Carré

Austerlitz by W. G. Sebald

The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne

Brideshead Revisited by Evelyn Waugh

Tropic of Cancer by Henry Miller

The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton

Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf

The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter by Carson McCullers

The Phantom Tollbooth by Norton Juster

Ulysses by James Joyce

Scoop by Evelyn Waugh

Haroun and the Sea of Stories by Salman Rushdie

Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe

Middlemarch by George Eliot

Are You There, God? It’s me, Margaret by Judy Blume

Clarissa by Samuel Richardson

Moby-Dick by Herman Melville

The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood

Herzog by Saul Bellow

The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz

Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë

Don Quixote by Miguel De Cervantes

A Bend in the River by V. S. Naipaul

A Dance to The Music of Time by Anthony Powell

The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson

Go Tell It On The Mountain by James Baldwin

Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys

Catch-22 by Joseph Heller

The Rainbow by D. H. Lawrence

Song of Solomon by Toni Morrison

I, Claudius by Robert Graves

Nostromo by Joseph Conrad

The Tin Drum by Gunter Grass

Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert

The Catcher in the Rye by JD Salinger

Charlotte’s Web by E. B. White

Tom Jones by Henry Fielding

His Dark Materials by Philip Pullman

Alice’s Adventures In Wonderland by Lewis Carroll

Little Women by Louisa M Alcott

Great Expectations by Charles Dickens

Portnoy’s Complaint by Philip Roth

Watchmen by Alan Moore

One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel García Márquez

Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe

Tristram Shandy by Laurence Sterne

On the Road by Jack Kerouac

The Big Sleep by Raymond Chandler

The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame

To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf

The Corrections by Jonathan Franzen

The Trial by Franz Kafka

Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston

Money by Martin Amis

David Copperfield by Charles Dickens

[sharpened--edges]

[Orwell discusses], in The Road to Wigan Pier, […] how his hatred for imperialism built up in Burma: “All over India there are Englishmen who secretly loathe the system of which they are part; and just occasionally, when they are quite certain of being in the right company, their hidden bitterness overflows”. This passage conjoins contingency (“just occasionally”) and excess (the bitterness that “overflows”) and soon shifts to a more overt depiction of political intimacy: of politics as intimacy, and intimacy through politics. Orwell continues: “I remember a night I spent on the train with a man in the Educational Service, a stranger to myself whose name I never discovered. It was too hot to sleep and we spent the night in talking. Half an hour’s cautious questioning decided each of us that the other was ‘safe’; and then for hours, while the train jolted slowly through the pitch-black night ... we damned the British Empire—damned it from the inside, intelligently and intimately.... [I]n the haggard morning light when the train crawled into Mandalay, we parted as guiltily as any adulterous couple”. As much as anywhere in Orwell’s work, this passage makes the affective nature of political commitment explicit. This passage also anticipates the furtive, outlawed relationship of Winston and Julia in 1984. Orwell’s stress on this intimacy with someone who remains a stranger (“whose name I never discovered”) also resembles the focus on his brief but “utter intimacy” with the Italian militiaman at the opening of Homage to Catalonia. Here, too, such intimacy is built on contingency (we might even think of the oxymoronic description of how the train, in Wigan Pier, “jolted slowly”): “But I also knew that to retain my first impression of him I must not see him again; and needless to say I never did see him again. One was always making contacts of that kind in Spain”.

Alex Woloch, Or Orwell: Writing and Democratic Socialism (Harvard University Press, 2016), p. 337 n. 31.