A Passage to India
Short description
In 1920s British colonial India, a young Englishwoman named Adela Quested arrives with her prospective mother-in-law, Mrs. Moore, to marry Ronny Heaslop, a city magistrate in Chandrapore. Adela wants to see the country beyond the narrow expatriate society around her, and she befriends Dr. Aziz Ahmed, an Indian physician. He arranges an outing to the Marabar caves, where an incident between the two causes an uproar among the colonial community. The fallout sets Adela, Aziz and the English schoolteacher Richard Fielding against the pressures of a divided society. The film adapts E. M. Forster's novel of the same name.
David Lean directed and wrote the screenplay with Santha Rama Rau. The film followed Doctor Zhivago in his filmography and was the eleventh feature he directed. Judy Davis plays Adela, Victor Banerjee plays Aziz, and Peggy Ashcroft plays Mrs. Moore, with James Fox, Alec Guinness and Nigel Havers among the credited cast of thirty-two. Made for about 15 million dollars, it earned roughly 40 million worldwide. On IMDb it holds 7.3/10 from around 23,000 votes, close to the critics' rating of 7.3/10 from thirty reviews, while on TMDB it stands at 6.8/10 from a much smaller number of votes.
What's left behind the scenes
- Alec Guinness (1914-2000) spent several weeks learning a complex Indian dance for a scene that was ultimately cut from the film during editing.
- The film's director, David Lean (1908-1991), damaged relations with both some of the leading actors and members of the film crew during filming. The atmosphere on set deteriorated to such an extent that producer John Brabourne (1924-2005) was forced to order the cast and crew to at least greet the director at the beginning of each shooting day.
- During the production of the film, the relationship between the screenwriter and director David Lean and Sir Alec Guinness (1914-2000) deteriorated completely. During editing, Lean cut many of Guinness's scenes. After this, they never spoke to each other again.
- Sir David Lean's (1908-1991) first and last film after a 14-year break. "The Daughter of Ryan" (1970) had such modest success that Lean stopped directing until 1984.
- David Lean worked on the screenplay throughout 1982. He spent six months in New Delhi to get a feel for the country he was going to write about. He couldn't stay there longer due to taxes, so he moved to Zurich, where he spent another 3 months writing the screenplay.
Auditions in India
Casting calls in USA
Castingi w Polsce
Кастинги в Україні
