Gandhi Movie Screenplay – Questions to Consider

You are going to write a screenplay for part of Chapter Nine of "The Wheel of Surya". Before doing so, it is important to learn the conventions (agreed rules) of screenplay writing. These are very similar to the conventions of writing a playscript for the stage.

Refer to the extracts from the "Gandhi" screenplay (see below) in order to answer the following questions:

1. How are locations indicated? How is the text formatted? What information always accompanies the location?

 

2. What kind of information is presented in italics and separate from the dialogue? (What alternative to italics could be used, for example if you were writing the screenplay by hand?) What verb tense is used?

 

 

3. How are directions about tone of voice and the actions/reactions of speakers presented in the middle of a dialogue?

 

4. How do we know who is speaking? How is this information formatted? How is it laid out on the page?

 

5. Which two camera shots are mentioned in the screenplay? Add them to the following list:

• ___________________ ( )
  close-up shot (CU)
• close-medium shot (CMS)
• medium close up shot (MCU)
• medium shot (MS)
• medium long shot (MLS)
• ___________________ ( )
  very long shot (VLS)

Close medium shot is where the subject is cut below the waist.

Medium close up is cutting the subject just above the waist.

In mid-shot, the frame cuts across the subject at the knees.

Medium long shot is a tight full-length figure.

In long shot, the subject is relatively small in the frame, relatively far away.

Most standard production is in close-up to mid-shot.

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GANDHI (1982 movie) – extracts from the screenplay

THE GREAT PORTICO. VICE-REGAL PALACE. EXTERIOR. DAY.

Jinnah stands by one of the great pillars of the immense portico. It is a break in their Independence Conference, and as he lights a cigarette, a weary Gandhi approaches him with Azad. Jinnah's anger is clearly too deep to be left at the conference table. He slaps his lighter shut and addresses Gandhi in hushed but fiercely felt words.

JINNAH:

I don't give a damn for the independence of India! I am concerned about the slavery of Muslims!

Nehru and Patel are approaching from the conference room, both of them looking worn and angry too. Jinnah raises his voice deliberately so Nehru will hear.

JINNAH:

I will not sit by to see the mastery of the British replaced by the mastery of the Hindus!

GANDHI (patiently, not yet believing it can't be settled):

Muslim and Hindu are the right and left eye of India. No one will be slave, no one master. Jinnah sneers at the idea, though he cools a little.

JINNAH:

The world is not made of Mahatma Gandhis. (He looks at Nehru and Patel.) I am talking about the real world.

NEHRU:

The "real India" has Muslims and Hindus in every village and every city! How do you propose to separate them?

JINNAH:

Where there is a Muslim majority - that will be Pakistan. The rest is your India.

PATEL (a forced patience):

Mohammed - the Muslims are in a majority on two different sides of the country.

JINNAH (acidly):

Let us worry about Pakistan - you worry about India.

Gandhi is staring at Jinnah trying to fathom the source of his anger and fear. He turns to see that Mountbatten has been standing in the open door to the conference room, as torn as Gandhi by the conflict, feeling it best controlled in formal discussion.

MOUNTBATTEN:

Gentlemen, perhaps we should recommence.

* * * * [section omitted]* * * * *

JINNAH'S DRAWING ROOM. INTERIOR. NIGHT.

Jinnah is on the small balcony of this elaborate room. He is looking down in a slightly supercilious manner. As usual he is impeccably dressed.

JINNAH:

Now, please, if you've finished your prayers, could we begin with business.

He has been looking at Gandhi, who sits on the floor of the large room some distance from him, just lifting his head from prayers. Nehru, Patel and Azad are on the same side of the room as Gandhi. They rise from prayer as Jinnah comes down the steps to them. Gandhi hesitates, then begins.

GANDHI:

My dear Jinnah, you and I are brothers born of the same Mother India. If you have fears, I want to put them to rest. (Jinnah listens impatiently, sceptically. Gandhi just glances in Nehru's direction.) I am asking Panditji to stand down. I want you to be the first Prime Minister of India (Jinnah raises an eyebrow of interest.) - to name your entire cabinet, to make the head of every government department a Muslim.

And Jinnah has drawn himself up. His vanity is too great not to be touched by that prospect. He measures Gandhi for a moment to see that he is sincere, and when he is satisfied with that, he turns slowly to Nehru, Patel and Azad. Nehru glances at Patel. They have all been taken by surprise by the offer - and do not feel what Gandhi feels. Nehru looks hesitantly at Gandhi.

NEHRU:

Bapu, for me, and the rest (his hand gestures to Patel and Azad), if that is what you want, we will accept it. But out there (he indicates the streets) already there is rioting because Hindus fear you are going to give too much away.

PATEL:

If you did this, no one could control it. No one.

It bears the stamp of undeniable truth. Gandhi's eyes sag with the despair of a man whose last hope, whose faith, has crumbled around him. Jinnah smiles cynically, he spreads his hands "See?"

JINNAH:

It is your choice. Do you want an independent India and an independent Pakistan? Or do you want civil war?

Gandhi stares at him numbly.

 

THE RED FORT. NEW DELHI. EXTERIOR. DAY.

On a platform in the foreground Mountbatten and Nehru. A band plays the Indian National Anthem loudly and there is the roar of a tremendous crowd as the green, white and saffron flag of India is raised on the flagpole.

GOVERNMENT BUILDING. KARACHI. EXTERIOR. DAY.

On a platform in the foreground Jinnah and a British plenipotentiary. A band plays the new Pakistani National Anthem loudly and there is the roar of a tremendous crowd as the white, green with white crescent, flag of Pakistan is raised on the flagpole.

THE ASHRAM. EXTERIOR. DAY.

Silence. The little flagpole is empty, the rope dangling, flapping loosely down the pole. Gandhi sits on the porch of his bungalow, spinning. The hum of the spinning wheel. Inside we can just see Mirabehn, spinning too. But apart from that, he is alone; the whole ashram seems deserted. We hear the sound of a bell on one of the goats, fairly distant.

 

OPEN TERRAIN AND RAILROAD. EXTERIOR. DAY.

The camera is high (helicopter) and moving and from its position we meet and then pass over an immense column of refugees - ten, twenty abreast - moving down one side of the railroad track toward camera. Women, children, the sick, the aged, all burdened with bedding, utensils, household treasures, useless bric-a-brac and trudging with them every type of cart, wagon, rickshaw, pulled by donkey, camel, bike, oxen. It stretches endlessly to the horizon. Tiny green, white and saffron flags here and there indicate that it is a Hindu column and spotted through it we see people in fresh bandages, some on stretchers, sticking out like radioactive tracers in the huge artery of frightened humanity. And the camera lifts and tilts, slowly swinging to the opposite direction, and as it does, reveals another vast column across the track, several yards away, moving in the opposite direction: veiled women in purdah, the crescent flag of Muslim Pakistan here and there. As the camera levels and speeds along it, we see that this column too reaches to the horizon, that it too carries its wounded. An unbelievable flood of desperate humanity.

EXTREME CLOSE SHOT.

The sound of the vast refugee column. A woman's arms cradle a baby in swaddling. Blood has seeped through the swaddling in three or four places, some of it dried. Flies buzz around it. And suddenly we hear the woman's sobs and she rocks the baby and we know it has stopped moving, stopped breathing, and a male hand gently touches the back of the baby, checking, and the camera pans up to the face of a man. Again in extreme close shot so we cannot tell whether they are Hindu or Muslim. And the man's eyes knot, and he swings out of shot as he runs in fury and rage at the other column.

 

LONG SHOT. HIGH.

The two columns - and a howl of hate and grief! And the camera sweeps to where men are running at each other across the track, some already fighting. Knives, pangas, hatchets; women screaming and running; a beseiged wagon tipped. Another angle. And as the fighting grows more fierce streams of men from each column run back to partake, but the bulk of the two columns hurries off, scrambling, running, some leaving their bundles, fleeing the melee‚ in terror.

* * * * [section omitted]* * * * *

TAHIB'S ROOF. EXTERIOR. NIGHT.

Featuring the Muslim leader Suhrawardy, leaning against a wall, watching an action out of shot with evident tension. We hear a little clank of metal. Another angle. There are five men facing Gandhi. They wear black trousers and black knit vests. There are thongs around their arms that make their bulging muscles seem even more powerful. They are Hindu thugs (Goondas). Their clothes are dirty - and they are too - but they are laying knives and guns at Gandhi's feet. Mirabehn, Azad, Pyarelal, the doctor and others on the roof watch fascinated, a little frightened.

GOONDA LEADER:

It is our promise. We stop. It is a promise.

Gandhi is looking at him, testing, not giving or accepting anything that is mere gesture.

GANDHI:

Go - try - God by with you.

The Goondas stand. They glance at Suhrawardy; he smiles tautly and they start to leave, but one (Nahari) lingers. Suddenly he moves violently toward Gandhi, taking a flat piece of Indian bread (chapati) from his trousers and tossing it forcefully on Gandhi. NAHARI: Eat. Mirabehn and Azad start to move toward him - the man looks immensely strong and immensely unstable. But Gandhi holds up a shaking hand, stopping them. Nahari's face is knotted in emotion, half anger, half almost a child's fear - but there is a wild menace in that instability.

NAHARI:

Eat! I am going to hell - but not with your death on my soul.

GANDHI: Only God decides who goes to hell . . .

NAHARI (stiffening, aggressive):

I - I killed a child . . . (Then an anguished defiance) I smashed his head against a wall. Gandhi stares at him, breathless.

GANDHI (in a fearful whisper): Why? Why? It is as though the man has told him of some terrible self- inflicted wound.

NAHARI (tears now - and wrath):

They killed my son - my boy!

Almost reflexively he holds his hand out to indicate the height of his son. He glares at Suhrawardy and then back at Gandhi.

NAHARI:

The Muslims killed my son . . . they killed him.

He is sobbing, but in his anger it seems almost as though he means to kill Gandhi in retaliation. A long moment, as Gandhi meets his pain and wrath. Then

GANDHI:

I know a way out of hell.

Nahari sneers, but there is just a flicker of desperate curiosity.

GANDHI:

Find a child - a child whose mother and father have been killed. A little boy - about this high.

He raises his hand to the height Nahari has indicated as his son's.

GANDHI:

. . . and raise him - as your own.

Nahari has listened. His face almost cracks - it is a chink of light, but it does not illumine his darkness.

GANDHI:

Only be sure . . . that he is a Muslim. And that you raise him as one.

And now the light falls on Nahari. His face stiffens, he swallows, fighting any show of emotion; then he turns to go. But he takes only a step and he turns back, going to his knees, the sobs breaking again and again from his heaving body as he holds his head to Gandhi's feet in the traditional greeting of Hindu son to Hindu father. A second, and Gandhi reaches out and touches the top of his head.

Mirabehn watches. The Goondas watch. Suhrawardy watches. Finally

GANDHI (gently, exhaustedly):

Go - go. God bless you . . .

 

Frankie Meehan