About the British film Journey to India

Text/Ma Jiajun

"Journey to India" was originally the masterpiece of the same name by the British novelist Love Foster. The novel was written in 1924. It was adapted into a stage play in 1960. The famous British director David Lane adapted it himself into a film script and made it in 1948. The film Journey to India won two Academy Awards (supporting actress, composition) in 1985.

When david Lane is mentioned, people think of his masterpieces "Meet and Hate The Night", "Lone Star Blood and Tears", "Orphan of the Mist" (the latter two are based on Dickens's novels "Great Prospects" and "Oliver Retreat") and others. At the age of seventy-six, he traveled to India, Pakistan, Nepal, Kashmir and other places to wade through the mountains and rivers to shoot "Journey to India"; at a time when the Guandai method was rampant, he used traditional methods (single-line sequence, long shot, strict narration) to complete this masterpiece, which is not a simple thing.

This two-hour-long film, with only six characters, wrote an unpleasant trip, why did it attract hundreds of millions of viewers?

First of all, the intuitive thing is that it portrays six characters, each of which is lifelike, with outstanding personalities, and gives people a deep impression. Mrs. Moore's kindness and kindness, Miss Adela Quilted's naïveté and curiosity, Lonnie's arrogance as colonial magistrate, Principal Fielding's justice and kindness to the people of India. The sincere zeal of the Islamic physician Aziz and the timid superstitions of the Hindu Professor Godbor constitute the core of different classes of colonial society, different social environments and scenes, and are also the soil on which the story takes place.

Secondly, it is the ideological content of the film that makes people think. It seems that it exhibits three levels of contradiction. At the top of the spectrum, everyone can understand at first sight is the conflict between the colonialists and the colonial peoples. The imperialists represented by the mayor, the chief justice, the police chief discriminated against the Indian people and practiced apartheid. Subjectively, indian doctors must have committed rape of British women. The protests of the Indian people were not only for the doctor's unjust case, but also for the outbreak of resentment against the British colonialists. The film promotes the spirit of national friendship between Fielding and Aziz and anti-colonialism, which is where it progresses. The second layer is the cornerstone of the inner contradiction, that is, the cultural differences and gaps between the East and the West. Westerners cannot understand the mysterious temples, ancient caves, and humanistic scenes in Eastern culture. Indians have a natural dislike for Westerners and their culture. Spiritual incompatibility leads to misunderstandings, hostility and unexpected events. The third layer is the unspoken psychological motive. Miss England evokes lust from the stone statues of the Buddha of Joy (the naked hugging elephants of "Desire for Heaven" and "Eros"), and is shocked by the echoes of monkeys and caves. She goes hand in hand with the doctor, from asking the doctor about her marital love to the upset waiting, causing her hallucinations; coupled with hysterical encouragement from the mayor's wife, she thinks that the doctor is going to rape her, which becomes the focus of the film's mystery and contradiction. The triple contradictions are twisted together, causing ups and downs, and gradually leading the audience to the victory.

The film's artistic subtlety, nature, delicate depiction, concentration, coupled with exotic scenes, elusive plots, exciting conflict arrangements, poetry of mountains and waters, mysterious moonlight and sounds, make the film an intriguing and exquisite artistic treasure.

(Published in Xi'an Evening News on June 30, 1986)

(Note: The author of this article has authorized this headline)

(Ma Jiajun, a native of Qingyuan, Hebei, born on October 5, 1929, is currently a professor at the College of Literature of Shaanxi Normal University, a member of the Chinese Writers Association, a member of the Chinese Dramatists Association, a member of the Chinese Filmmakers Association, an honorary president (former president) of the Shaanxi Foreign Literature Society, a principle of the Chinese Foreign Literature Society, a principle of the Chinese Russian Literature Research Society, a former president of the Shaanxi Provincial Higher Education Drama Research Society, a former consultant of the Shaanxi Poetry Society, and a former executive director of the Shaanxi Provincial Federation of Social Science Societies. Shaanxi Province to build socialist spiritual civilization advanced individuals, Shaanxi Province to teach and educate advanced teachers, etc., enjoy special allowances from the State Council.

He is the author of 12 kinds of "Nineteenth Century Russian Literature", "The New Stage of Aesthetic History", "Poetry Exploration", "Exploration of World Literature", etc.; 4 kinds of "The Essence of World Literature" and "History of Western Drama" co-authored with his daughter Ma Xiaoyi; 9 kinds of "History of World Literature" (3 volumes) and "Research on Gorky's Creation"; edited 4 kinds of "30 Lectures on European and American Modernist Literature"; co-edited and co-authored "100 Topics of Marxism-Leninism", "Cultural Research Methods", "50 Lectures on Oriental Literature", "Western Literature in the Twentieth Century", etc. and more than 40 kinds.

It has been listed in more than 40 kinds, such as the Dictionary of Chinese Writers, the Dictionary of Chinese Poets, the Dictionary of Chinese Social Science Scholars, the Cambridge Dictionary of International Biographies (27th Edition in English), the Directory of Experts in Russian Studies Abroad (Russian Edition) of the Institute of World Literature of the Russian Academy of Sciences, and the Classics of Shaanxi Century of Literature and Art. ）