Adela Quested (Judy Davis) and Mrs. Moore (Oscar winner Peggy Ashcroft) travel to India to visit Ronny Heaslop (Nigel Havers), a local magistrate who is Moore’s son and Adela’s fiancé. Heaslop attempts to shield them from any contact with the natives beyond that which is absolutely necessary, but Adela and his mother fervently wish to see, as they call it, the real India.

A local doctor named Aziz (Victor Banerjee) invites them to accompany him to the mysterious Marabar Caves; despite Ronny’s pleas, they accept. Adela wanders into one of the caves alone, and some time later she emerges, disheveled and in shock. She accuses Aziz of attempting to rape her, and the resulting investigation and trial brings to the fore the tensions between the British rulers and their Indian subjects.

CRITIQUE

A Passage to India marked the return of David Lean to feature filmmaking after nearly fifteen years. Following the disastrous critical reception for Ryan’s Daughter in 1970, Lean went into a more or less self-imposed exile, working on various unrealized projects (including briefly flirting with both Out of Africa and Empire of the Sun) and shooting a documentary for New Zealand television. He also spent several years trying to mount a film on the life of Gandhi and struggling to conquer the scripts and logistics of a planned pair of films based on the story of the HMS Bounty for producer Dino de Laurentiis. (The thought of Lean and de Laurentiis, each notoriously stubborn and difficult, working together boggles the mind.)

David Attenborough’s 1982 Oscar-winning film ended the Gandhi project, and the other project eventually ended up being compressed into one film and directed by Roger Donaldson, leaving Lean to seek fulfillment elsewhere. It finally arrived when, after many years of trying, producer John Brabourne at last succeeded in securing the film rights to E.M. Forster’s 1924 novel A Passage to India. It would prove to be Lean’s final film, and somewhat of a melding of the small intimates works of the first half of his career and the later epics for which he is best known. And while it doesn’t match the best of either phase of Lean’s cinematic life, it’s nevertheless a worthy end to the career of one of the best craftsmen the medium has ever known.

Forster’s novel (which I have to admit bored me to no end) is about as non-cinematic as it could possibly be, with so much of what is important to the plot internalized or hinging on small incidents or bits of dialogue. Lean, who also edited the film and wrote the screenplay (which also incorporates material from a stage adaptation penned by Santha Rama Rau), remains largely faithful to the plot while adapting it to his own needs; it’s clear that the trip to the caves is the focal point for Lean, as it allowed him to stage human interactions on an expansive canvas.

It’s also the most naturally paced section of the film; the opening third at times borders on the tedious, while the courtroom scenes and final twenty minutes are a bit rushed, as if Lean had had his say and wanted to get out as soon as possible. And while there’s no real greatness inherent in the written material (I always thought Forster’s attempts at being cerebral came off as muddled, and Lean’s really no better at it), Lean’s command of the medium injects it with greatness, or at the very least something approaching greatness. Evidence of his mastery is evident in virtually every frame; despite my problems with the opening and closing acts, it’s still a pleasure to watch Lean operate on two vastly different scales in one film.

Although he sticks to the text for much of the film, Lean invented two new scenes for his script. The first is a scene in which Adela discovers an ancient shrine adorned with erotic Indian statuary. Lean, who believed Forster wasn’t able to convincingly contrive a sense of heterosexual longing in the story (some elements of the book are inspired by Forster’s relationship with a man he met while traveling in India), obviously intends the scene to illustrate Adela’s repressed sexuality, thereby providing further motive for her later actions.

The second addition is a new coda for the story (the final scene in the book is nowhere to be found), one which seems to entirely change the thrust of the novel. Forster’s ending is pessimistic, while Lean’s is anything but. I always assumed Lean’s alterations were a result of a modern perspective, and my assumption has since been confirmed, as Lean has been quoted as saying that while Forster wrote the novel at the height of tensions between Britain and India, the world had changed in the sixty years between the book’s publication and the film’s release.

I’m more aligned with Forster’s pessimism than I am Lean’s optimism, but acknowledging the thought behind Lean’s decision makes his ending easier to take. I also understand that the novel is about England and India more than it the characters, while Lean’s film is the opposite; individual change is more believable than sweeping change, which further adds to Lean’s argument. (I also admire Lean for caring not one whit what the stuffy academics who railed against the changes thought; most of them weren’t angry with the changes per se, but were mad that Lean had the audacity to change what they considered a masterpiece.)

THE VIDEO

The 1.66:1/1080p transfer provides a solid recreation of the film’s often stunning visuals. The Indian exteriors are gorgeously reproduced here, giving the dominant earth tones a very pleasing richness. Clarity and detail (particularly in close-ups) are leaps and bounds above what was found on the old standard-def disc, which at times serves to make the studio-shot portions look even more artificial.

Digital noise is visible on occasion, and contrast wavers a bit in some scenes, most noticeably in a few of the brighter exteriors. (Note: The ratio in which the film is presented here represents how it was exhibited in European theaters; it was matted to 1.85:1 for American showings. Viewers with widescreen sets will see a pillarboxed image, with black bars on the left and right sides.)

THE AUDIO

The Dolby TrueHD 5.1 track (available in English or French) is seriously compromised by the dated fidelity of the original stereo mix. Dialogue and effects creak, and the low end is virtually nonexistent; what likely wasn’t a very weighty mix to begin with has been stretched almost to the breaking point. Maurice Jarre’s score (which, despite being far from his best work, took home the film’s second Oscar) has been ridiculously pumped up, too often swelling to the point of distraction.

For purposes of comparison I had my receiver down-mix the signal to stereo, which actually sounded much better, leading me to wish Sony had either not remixed the audio or had provided a 2-channel option. No other audio tracks are included; English, English SDH, French, and Spanish subtitles are available.

THE EXTRAS

The commentary by producer Richard Goodwin is a bit too dry and sedate for my tastes, but the production was arduous enough to supply Goodwin with some good tales of behind-the-scenes woe.

The following five featurettes essentially constitute a documentary on the film. They were undoubtedly chopped up in order to avoid having to pay the participants, but they play much better as one long piece.   

E.M. Forster: Profile of an Author (7 minutes) offers a biographical sketch of the writer and an overview of his literary career.

An Epic Takes Shape (11 minutes) looks at Lean’s struggles in adapting the script and finding investors.

An Indian Affair (14 minutes) covers the location work in India.

Only Connect: A Vision of India (10 minutes) covers the Shepperton Studios half of the shoot and the postproduction phase. 

Casting a Classic (11 minutes) is a series of retrospective interviews with several members of the cast. (Davis, who once complained Lean spent more time with the elephants than he did the actors, is conspicuously absent.)

David Lean: Shooting with the Master (13 minutes) offers several Lean associates (both actors and crew personnel) to discusses their working relationships with the director.

Reflections of David Lean (8 minutes) is footage from an interview with Lean conducted at the time of the film’s release.

Beyond the Passage: Picture-in-Picture Graphics Track is a misleadingly-named feature that provides text-based info on the film. At various points along the way the film will pause, the film frame will shrink to the right side of the screen, and a text box will then occupy the left portion of the screen (why this wasn’t designed with simple text overlays or pop-up boxes is beyond me). Considering the sheer length of the film, the amount of information included in the track is quite sparse.

FINAL THOUGHTS

Lesser Lean is still Lean, and lesser Lean is still more than most filmmakers can ever hope to accomplish. This disc is also a nice way to tide everyone over until the director’s masterpieces hit high-def.