To commemorate the birthday of Sir David Lean on this date, writer JOE ELLIOTT examines his last feature film, "A Passage to India"
“Excuse my mistakes, realize my
limitations. Life is not easy as we know it on the earth.†― E.M. Forster, A
Passage to India
Revisiting A Passage to India (1984)
on Turner Classics the other night, I was struck in a way that I had never been
before by how incredibly beautiful and powerful Judy Davis’s performance is in
this movie. The plot of the film, based loosely on a 1924 novel by English
writer E.M. Forster, revolves around the adventures of two Victorian English
women in early 20th century India. The younger woman, Adela Quested, played by Davis, has come to that
country with the likely intention of marrying a local British magistrate named
Ronny Heaslop (Nigel Havers). She is accompanied on her sea voyage by Heaslop’s
mother, known in the film simply as Mrs. Moore, played exquisitely by Peggy
Ashcroft. The two women become good friends during the trip and share a disdain
for the kind of English class snobbery they encounter upon their arrival. One
hot afternoon they decide to take a day trip from the city, known as
Chandrapore in the novel, where they have lodgings to visit the fictional Marabar
Caves, a site reportedly based on the Barabar Caves in the Makhdumpur region of Jehanabad
district, Bihar. Note: David Lean, the film’s director and writer, decided against
shooting these scenes at Barabar because he felt the location lacked the scenic
grandeur he so loved to showcase in his pictures.
During the outing, Mrs.
Moore has an attack of severe claustrophobia while visiting the first cave -- a
foreshadowing of her own death within a few short days. She insists that Adela
and Dr. Aziz (Victor Banerjee), a young Indian physician whose idea it was to
visit the caverns, continue their sightseeing without her. Shortly after this an incident occurs (or does it?)
involving the couple. We see a frantic Adela running down a steep
ravine in a state of great agitation, as if being chased by someone. (In an
important earlier linking scene we saw her riding her bicycle alone on the
outskirts of town where she encountered a number of highly erotic Indian
statues abandoned in the tall grass; an experience which clearly left her
emotionally shaken.)Upon returning to Chandrapore, Aziz is shocked to find himself accused of
attempted rape. He is immediately arrested and jailed to await trial. All this
is prelude to the moment when Adela takes the witness stand for the prosecution
Among my favorite classic American film is Alice Adams (1935), the early Katherine Hepburn
vehicle. There is a moment in that movie when director George Stevens puts the
young actress’s face fully in frame (just as David Lean does in Passage with
Davis, but with less tenderness) holding it there as she muses on small-town
social snobbery. “People do talk about you, oh yes they do…,†Alice says in her
silly, heartbreaking manner. There is something of this same unsparing,
introspective quality in the climatic courtroom scene with Adela: there is much
more, too. Two lives hang in the balance here, the life of the accused and that
of his accuser. What Adela says or doesn’t say at that moment will forever
determine not only Aziz’s fate, but hers as well. She can either choose to save face by
remaining silent on the matter, or risk destroying everything by speaking up. Everything hinges on her decision. I am reminded
of those famous lines from T.S. Eliot: Do I dare/ Disturb the universe? / In a minute there is time / For
decisions and revisions which a minute will reverse… So how should I presume?
There is for me something both revelatory and mysterious about
this pivotal moment. In the witness stand, socially isolated and entirely
alone, the weight of the world on her slender shoulders, we look on as an
extraordinary transformation takes place in this somewhat drab, sexually
repressed young woman. Adela becomes self-aware – awake -- before our
very eyes. In turn, we catch a glimpse of an appealing and intelligent woman
just emerging, one who at that very instant discovers her real voice. The sympathetic
way Davis presents Adela’s struggle to us, the startling, entirely translucent
and naked way she makes the ordeal piercingly visible to us, is nothing less
than astonishing and deeply affecting. Placing her in the positon he does, the
director essentially leaves the actress to stand or fall on her own. She will
either pull it off or she will fail, either way the challenge is entirely hers.
In a way, it’s the very same positon that Adela herself finds herself in.
Add to this the fact Passage
was the last film in David Lean’s storied career and the significance of
the moment grows. Lean showed great faith in the young Australian actress’s
ability to pull it off; as it turned out, he was more than justified in that
faith. Looking back on it now after all these many years, Judy Davis’s
performance is, at least for me, one of the most memorable screen portrayals in
modern cinema. It isn’t spectacular or showy, it isn’t Hollywood tour-de-force
or “big†in any way. Rather, it is simply acting of surpassing skill and beauty.
When critic Pauline Kael called her performance “close to perfection,†she damn
well meant it. Davis was nominated but did not win the Academy Award for lead
actress in 1984. A pity given that had she done so, hers would have bookended
Peggy Ashcroft’s own Oscar-winning performance perfectly.
It was reported that tensions arose between Davis and Lean during
the film shoot. In the two disc DVD collector's edition, released in 2008, the
movie’s executive producer Richard Goodwin spoke admiringly of Davis’s “ballsyâ€
personality on set. Lean, on the other hand, was known for his somewhat
highhanded way of treating actors. He wasn’t accustomed to having them question
his decisions, especially one as young and new to films as Davis was at the
time. However, regardless of what on-set creative differences of opinion may
have existed between these two forceful, gifted personalities, they found a way
of transmuting them into something nothing short of movie magic. In the end,
that’s all that matters.