Richard Attenborough Talking Pictures

Few people come closer to personifying the best

of British film than Sir Richard Attenborough.

He's directed, produced and starred

in some of our finest and most enduring movies.

A true giant of British cinema.

It was, of course, as an actor that he made his name,

starring in classics like Brighton Rock, The Cruel Sea,

I'm All Right, Jack and The Great Escape.

But the early days also saw him take on the role of roving BBC reporter.

Here he is in the 1956 programme, Talk Of Many Things,

interviewing the renowned producer,

Michael Balcon, about his leaving Ealing Studios.

This must be a very sad occasion for you, Sir Michael.

Yes, of course, it's sad parting with a place

-which has been almost a home for such a long time.

-Yes.

But it's like in life, you know, you can be happy in a home,

sad in leaving it,

-but there's a great excitement in finding a new one.

-Quite so.

There must be dozens of memories that come crowding in,

perhaps of distinguished people who visited you during shooting.

Yes, over the years, of course,

we've had visits from distinguished people in all walks of life.

I suppose that on these occasions,

everyone's mind turns to Royal visits

and during the years, we were visited by the Queen

when she was Princess Elizabeth, with Princess Margaret,

the Duchess of Kent and, during the war, by King Haakon of Norway,

-and many, many distinguished guests.

-Yes.

What about the actual making of the films,

are there any memories there that stick out more than any others?

When you asked me that, I feel exactly like Mr Chips,

because so many memories crowd through one's mind.

But I suppose the most exciting time in film production

is that time when you see your films assembled for the first time.

Does this apply to any one film in particular, do you think?

Yes, I think so, I think perhaps to The Cruel Sea,

because when we saw that, for the first time,

we realised that we really had brought it all.

It seemed to just gel and be absolutely right

and sometimes you don't get that.

The Cruel Sea was an enormous success throughout the world,

but particularly so in America, for a British film, wasn't it?

Yes, it was successful and indeed it was successful in America, too.

That brings us to the burning question, sir,

of British films in America.

Do you think there's any possibility of our films getting anything like

the same sort of showing over there as the American films have here?

Well, you know, I must oversimplify my reply,

because we've enjoyed prestigious success over there,

and we've had specialised distribution of our films.

But I suppose we've not had the wider showings

and of course we'd all like that very much indeed.

Yes. You're going to America very shortly?

Yes, because The Night My Number Came Up is playing over there now

and in a few weeks' time, we're opening up with The Ladykillers.

Ah! Now, The Ladykillers, a lot of people have said

that The Ladykillers was the last film made

and coming out of these studios, but that's by no means the case.

No, indeed not, because we have, here,

The Feminine Touch with Belinda Lee,

we have "Who Done It?" with television's own comedian,

Benny Hill, and, of course, we've got The Long Arm with Jack Hawkins.

Well, thank you very much indeed for allowing us to come

and visit you here on your last day.

And I am sure I am speaking for all the artists who have worked here

and the many thousands of people who have had such joy from Ealing films

when I wish you as happy and successful a new tenancy

in your new home as you've had here.

Thank you. That's most charming of you.

-Really charming.

-Bye-bye.

-Goodbye.

-Bye-bye.

In the late '50s, Attenborough took to producing,

setting up the Beaver Films company with his friend, Bryan Forbes.

Their first project was the film The Angry Silence,

which he discusses here with David Coleman on a programme called

Richard Attenborough's Personal Cinema.

I was very intrigued as a journalist with your first film,

The Angry Silence, which seemed to me to be a piece of pure reporting.

Yes, I think it was, I don't know about PURE reporting, David...

Perhaps pure is too strong, but a piece of reporting.

Absolutely, I agree. I think that sort of attitude,

that new attitude influenced us a great deal,

certainly influenced Bryan in the writing of the script,

Bryan Forbes and the writing of the script

and I think also television had an enormous effect.

The fact that you saw...

It was, as you say, a semi-documentary story

dealing with an industrial dispute,

and the fact that you saw that actually happening on television

necessitated a realism which had never been considered

that necessary before in movies.

In the clip that we're going to see, the man, Tom,

the part I played, which isn't my scene, really -

I have chosen it for Pier Angeli - but the man has been ostracised,

he's been involved in a dispute and he was secretary of the football club

and there's now the question of there might be trouble

with the football club and the whole future of the football club,

if he remains the secretary.

You see, I'm a bit worried about fixtures an' that.

In what way?

Well, apparently, I mean, you know more about it than I do,

but a couple of the matches had to be scrubbed, didn't they?

Well, the team's got a bit anxious or something.

I see. And?

Well, the reason they picked me to tell you,

it's because I live here, I suppose.

Tell me what?

They want you to take a back-seat.

Joe has been telling me some news. Haven't you, Joe?

Really? Did he make sure all the doors were locked first?

You never know, do you, Joe, somebody might be spying on you.

They might find out that you've actually spoken to Tom Curtis.

All right, all right.

No, it's not all right, it's not all right. He can't have it both ways

and if you won't tell him, I will.

He can't talk to you at work, he can't talk to you here.

-He had something special to say.

-Like "How are you?" or "Goodbye".

-Leave it, Annie, this is between Joe and me.

-No, it's not, it's not.

This is my house, too, and I have had all I can take from Mr Wallace.

-Look, you'll wake the kids.

-I'll wake the kids, I'll wake Mr Joe bloody Wallace, too.

Look, this is a home, not a morgue, people TALK in homes,

they speak to each other.

They say good morning and good night,

they don't treat their friends like they've got a disease or something.

What was so special he had to tell you tonight,

he couldn't have told you this morning? What was so special?

Look, you'd better look at me. You went out of this house this morning,

you couldn't even bring yourself to say hello to me.

Let alone my husband.

Well, I want to tell you something, I don't work at your rotten factory

and I don't belong to your little committees and your little unions

and nobody is going to send me to Coventry!

I don't want you here, I don't want you near me or my children!

I don't want you here in this house any more!

-Look, Annie, shut up, will you?

-You know something?

I feel sorry for you, you can't even think for yourself.

Look, Annie, stop it. I'm sorry.

Yes, you're sorry, you're sorry, you deserve your friends!

SHE SPEAKS ITALIAN

Pier's a marvellous actress, isn't she? I wish she did more.

Craig wrote the original story, actually, of the picture.

-Dickie, that was your first venture as a producer, wasn't it?

-Yes.

-Or co-producer?

-Yes, with Bryan Forbes, yes.

Just before we talk about your latest one as a director,

I suppose having gone away from acting, momentarily, almost,

you have a new interest in the kind of circulation of a film?

Yes, obviously the financial success of that picture

was very important indeed to us, because it was our first time,

it was made very cheaply, we all made it for nothing in fact,

it was made for under £100,000, but nevertheless,

it was breaking new ground and its success was very important.

In fact, I remember, it was banned in South Wales, for a time.

Many of the cinemas in South Wales, are miners' halls

and the miners have a right to say what's shown in them,

quite properly so.

And, unfortunately, not having seen the film,

a number of them got the wrong idea of it

and certain members of the union executives and so on

decided the film shouldn't be shown in their cinemas.

But, so what we did, I went down to Aberdare and we took a cinema

and showed the film and invited all the miners' union people

and it resulted, in fact, not only in them showing the film

throughout South Wales, but also presenting me with a miner's lamp!

Ten years later, we find your first piece of direction now,

and if I may say so, a very brave piece of direction,

and a brave choice, in "Oh! What A Lovely War".

How did this come about? How did you get the script in the first place?

Well, I got it... The script was set up

and the purchase from Joan Littlewood by Len Deighton and Brian Duffy

and they worked with Johnny Mills,

who was going to produce it at one time.

And it was Johnny who suggested that I might like to direct it.

He knew that I had been toying with the idea for some time, and when

he rang me up and said he had got a script that he thought

I might be interested in and told me what it was, I thought he was barmy,

because, if anything was a theatrical conception,

"Oh! What A Lovely War" was.

But they had this marvellous idea of shifting it from a charade,

from a Pierrot show, to a seaside pier

and it really stands or falls on the songs

that were sung by the men of those times, the accepted songs,

but with the words that the men sang.

And so in this little clip that we're going to see,

which is part of a church service,

you'll get the idea of the reality and fantasy.

Let us pray.

Oh, God, show Thy face to us,

as Thou didst with Thy Angel at Mons.

The choir will now sing What A Friend We Have In Jesus

as we offer a silent prayer for success in tomorrow's onslaught.

ALL: Amen.

# When this lousy war is over

# (What a friend we have in Jesus)

# No more soldiering for me

# (All our sins and griefs to bear)

# When I get my civvy clothes on

# (What a privilege to carry)

# Oh, how happy I shall be

# (Everything to God in prayer)

# No more church parades on Sunday

# (Oh, what peace we often forfeit)

# No more putting in for leave

# (Oh, what needless pain we bear)

# I shall kiss the sergeant major

# (All because we do not carry)

# How I'll miss him, how he'll grieve

# Amen. #

I think, as you may know, a month ago in this series,

Lord Soper had one or two comments about this.

He said he found it an absorbing presentation,

I am quoting him here, full of wit,

full of cinematic comprehension. He thought was exceptionally well done.

He also criticised the cynicism of it,

particularly in relation to the military commanders.

What was your attitude towards it, was it an anti-war film?

Did you set out to do that?

Or what?

Anti-war is an enormous statement, isn't it?

I don't have Lord Soper's courage as a total pacifist,

I admire pacifists very much indeed, I admire him

and I think to try and down him on what he had to say

without him being here to answer would be a little unfair.

I do think it's very difficult to try and say

that a film should have something which it never set out to have.

I mean, I didn't intend to make a film

which tried to answer the problems of international relations

and war and so on.

We made a film which was an expose, a comment upon the First World War

and upon the attitudes that applied at that particular time.

And, certainly, we do pillory the commanders,

but we also pillory the international statesmen,

we also pillory the public,

who at the mere SOUND of the offer of a truce,

howled it down, and were screaming for German blood

and so on, but I think the film applies very particularly

to the 1914-18 war, I don't think you could have made the same sort of film

about the Second World War and I think cynicism in its attitude,

although it applied then also, is very much something of our time.

It's a way in which we're dealing with certain problems

and although I think obviously you've got to supply something

to take its place, you can't necessarily do both at the same time.

You've grown up with the film industry, really, nearly 30 years.

Yes, 1941, 28 years, 29 years.

There has been a change of course in that time,

the old ballyhoo of the individual stars has disappeared,

-the old gloss and so on, do you approve of this?

-Yes, very much so.

I mean, I think the film has grown up.

Far be it that we shouldn't have escapist entertainment,

which is an enormous part of the film industry's job,

but I do think also that if it's to be worthy

of the genius of its invention, then it must also make

some further contribution and I believe now

that it's beginning to do so. I am very excited by movies, I adore them.

-You still get real pleasure in them?

-Oh, yes, oh, yes.

Oh, colossal, absolutely tremendous.

I mean, there are so many new things happening all the time,

the excitement of merely going on to new subjects,

but there are so many new developments coming

and exciting new talents and to be involved in that...

I wake up every day a supremely happy and excited and joyful man,

and to be paid into the bargain and have a lovely house and home,

wife and children, marvellous.

You don't find directing overlapping with acting? Getting in the way?

It's a problem, David, and when you go back to acting,

it's a damn sight more difficult than I thought it was, I tell you!

Richard Attenborough was by now a key figure

in the British film industry. Away from the film set,

he indulged in a lifetime passion for football

and, in particular, Chelsea.

Something he discussed with Frank Bough on Grandstand in 1969.

Let me ask you first of all what it means to you

to be at Stamford Bridge watching Chelsea on a Saturday afternoon?

Well, more than a week in the Bahamas, certainly, I mean...

I find it the most extraordinary...

Well, if I have had a terrible week,

if I have been working every day in the studios

and there are a vast number of problems,

particularly since I have been in production,

I can go to a game at the Bridge on Saturday afternoon

with maybe a thumping headache and the cares of the world

on my shoulder, supposedly, and at the end of the game, they've gone.

I find it the most extraordinary period of relaxation.

It has all its own tensions, of course,

but I would give up anything to watch a marvellous football game,

obviously particularly if Chelsea are playing.

I was listening recently to a television speech

by Sir Laurence Olivier, a member of your profession,

a man who's also a Chelsea supporter,

and he was rhapsodising about Bobby Tambling,

actually mentioned his name in the same breath as Margo Fonteyn.

Do you think there's really some connection and some relationship

between the theatre and films and football?

Yes, when somebody asked me,

when I was first paid the honour of being asked

to go onto the Chelsea board, somebody said,

"What do you think you've got to contribute?" And I said,

"I really don't know what I have to contribute,

"I know what I would LIKE to contribute

"and I have obviously certain views about the game and about the club

"and about the way we should handle paying customers and so on,"

but I also said that I think if I have anything to contribute

as far as the team is concerned, as far as the boys are concerned,

is that playing a game...

And when you're in this particular group of teams

at the top of the First Division, it applies particularly,

playing a game is like a first night.

You have all the nerves, all the tensions, all the apprehensions,

and you're going out to give a performance, to give a show,

to display your skills.

And in exactly the same way

that all those fears crowd in on an actor just before he goes on stage,

those same fears and nervousness'

must apply as far as a player is concerned

and therefore I would understand, I think,

a degree of temperament which perhaps seems a little strange to somebody

who has not experienced that...

reaction to appearing before hundreds or thousands of people.

Do you think Chelsea will break the Northern monopoly

and win something this season?

Gosh, wouldn't it be marvellous? I'm not sure

whether it would as far as you're concerned, but for all of us

down south here, it certainly would. I think,

too many times... It's 1955 since we won the league, the championship,

we've been in more semifinals in the last three or four years

than any other team, one final, and I really do think...

I sort of smell that something is going to happen this season.

-You'll be there, will you?

-Oh, boy, will I be there!

In 1976, Attenborough was knighted for his services to British cinema.

One has to say, one feels very honoured.

I mean, I have to say that I think the predominant feeling

is one of surprise, astonishment even.

I don't think it was in my mind at all.

I suppose, rather strange, when I came in just now when you said,

"Good afternoon, Sir Richard," I mean,

it does sound very strange indeed. I suppose one will get used to it.

In 1982, Sir Richard completed work on Gandhi,

a film he had spent 18 years trying to make.

Starring Ben Kingsley as the man who led India to independence,

it wasn't obvious Hollywood material,

but Attenborough's passion for the project

and his instinct for a good story

ultimately lead to it winning eight Oscars,

including Best Picture and Director.

A month before that triumph, Attenborough was discussing the film

and his life in front of an audience in London's Southbank.

-Thank you, David, very much.

-You're very welcome.

So, Gandhi, finally on the screen after all those years.

It's had terrific box office receipts, it had marvellous notices,

foreign press awards, Academy Award nominations,

is there one single response

that's particularly thrilled you to the whole film?

Well, yes, I suppose the Martin Luther King Peace Award,

which I was given in Atlanta a few weeks ago

by Martin Luther King's widow, Coretta Scott King,

which is an award given by the trustees

of the Martin Luther King Centre for Nonviolent...

the whole research of nonviolence.

It isn't given automatically to a film?

No, no, no, it's...

..it's the first time that a European or a movie

has been given that award, and I think

since the whole basis of the Gandhi film is that of nonviolence,

one could scarcely wish for a better seal of approval, as it were.

You mentioned there that Gandhi as a project had been bubbling along

underneath what you've been doing since 1962.

Is it fair to say that you might have thought of

virtually all the films that you had directed before then

as a preparation for Gandhi, as a kind of tryout?

Well, they certainly turned out to be.

I'm not sure that it's fair to say,

either with, erm,

Lovely War or indeed with Bridge Too Far,

that they were conscious tryouts, maybe subconsciously they were.

I mean, they turned out to be. I mean, I am absolutely certain...

I would have been in a terrible mess with Gandhi

if I had not done A Bridge Too Far, for instance.

-The experience of that and the problems...

-Handling huge scenes.

Handling huge crowds, etc, etc...

TRAIN WHISTLES

The agents got a telegram and it just said, "He is coming."

And then the time of the train.

Who the hell is he?

I don't know, sir.

Make way for the officer. Get back, you.

Get back there. Move away.

Out of the way, come on you!

Who the devil are you?

My name is Gandhi. Mohandas K Gandhi.

Well, whoever you are, we don't want you here.

I suggest you get back on that train before it leaves.

They seem to want me.

Now, look here, I will put you under arrest if you prefer.

On what charge?

I do not want any trouble.

I am an Indian travelling in my own country,

I see no reason for trouble.

I know it was an Indian who brought the project to you originally,

what were the first steps you took to try and set the film up,

as someone who, then, in 1962, had no experience of directing?

How did you go and TRY and get this thing off the ground?

Well, the person who brought it to me was a marvellous...

I say "little man" because he was a little man called Motilal Kothari,

who had a burning desire to tell the world about Gandhi.

He had left India

shortly after Gandhi had been assassinated in '48,

and he'd come to England because he married an English school teacher.

And he worked at the High Commission in London

and the whole concept, the whole idea of Gandhi was not mine, it was HIS.

But, of course, he had nothing to do with the film industry,

he didn't know anybody in the film industry

and the various people he had gone to

in the hope of setting the picture up

hadn't seemed to be interested and therefore,

he had come to me, not because I had ever directed a movie,

but because people told him I might be interested in the content.

But, obviously, since he knew nothing and he had no money,

no backing, and I had no backing,

I had no experience at all as a director,

and I didn't quite know where to go, but it did seem to me

that the one thing I HAD to obtain

was the approval of the Indian government.

And so because of the way in which we serve,

having met Lord Louis,

the obvious person to go to, being the last Viceroy of India

and a close friend of Gandhi's

and a close friend of Pandit Nehru's, was Lord Louis.

And, I went to him and asked him if he could help me

and it was through him that I went to New Delhi

and I met Pandit Nehru.

Erm... The most charismatic, I think, man, that I've ever met in my life.

I mean, I remember going in to see him at 8.30 on a Monday morning

and he had marvellous ability which some people have, to persuade you,

immediately, that you were the one person on Earth

that he wanted to meet at 8.30 on a Monday morning.

Marvellous. I mean, a wonderful gift!

And, er, before I went in, I remember...

a marvellous man called SP Kanna,

who was his secretary, and Mr Kanna said to me,

"Mr Attenborough, you won't take longer, will you?

"We've only allowed you 30 minutes.

"So you won't spend more time than that in the Prime Minister's office, will you?

"Because it's the beginning of the day

"and if you get behind, everybody'll be behind."

So I said, "No, of course not."

And I went in, as I say, and met this extraordinary man

in his Ghandi cap,

and I sat opposite him at the desk

and we started to talk about the project.

After what I swear was no more than two and a half minutes,

I looked at my watch and it was nine o'clock.

So I started to get up.

"Where are you going?" he said.

I said, "It's nine o'clock."

"No, no, no. Sit down, we haven't finished. Sit down."

So I sat back down in my chair.

In what I suppose was about half an hour later,

a note came in with the Secretary and the Prime Minister looked at it.

"Yes, yes, yes." But we went on talking.

And after about three hours, we were literally sitting on the floor -

he most gracefully and me most inelegantly -

looking through picture albums.

And he was telling me this anecdote and that anecdote and so on,

and, erm, finally he said, "Well, of course, you must...

"you must meet the Cabinet. You must meet everybody involved.

"We'll give you every help you...you want,

"and you must have total facilities,

"and research facilities," and so on.

"Oh, and, of course, you must meet my daughter!"

And he picks up the phone and he says "Indira?

"I'm sending an English actor up to have lunch.

"Give him lunch, and then send them back to me."

So I met Mrs Gandhi.

At that time, she was no more than Pandit Nehru's daughter.

She hadn't any political aspirations at all.

And I met her, and I met the Cabinet members, and so on.

And what was glorious, of course, was

at the end of this little session, when I was to go to see Mrs Gandhi -

he opened the door of his outer office

where Mr Kanna was in a state. I mean...

the place was like Piccadilly Circus!

Like one of those terrible tube trains had opened

and people sort of poured out on top of us.

But it was a marvellous time.

And, as I say, the film, really...

Well, we've dedicated film to Moti Kothari, and to Lord Louis.

Without... It would never have happened, without them.

And, of course, to Pandit Nehru, too.

Five years after Gandhi, came another critically acclaimed film

which tackled actual and epic events -

Cry Freedom,

an examination of South Africa's apartheid system.

It told the story of the activist Steve Biko

and how the journalist Donald Woods

exposed the truth about Biko's death to the whole world.

Dickie, can we deal first of all with the biggest criticism

that's so far been levelled against the film -

that it misrepresents the friendship between Donald Woods and Steve Biko.

There are people who are saying that in fact they were not close friends,

that Biko was indeed using Donald Woods

to get propaganda into the newspapers.

How do you react to that?

Well, I don't quite know where it comes from, Barry.

Putting the most sinister interpretation on it,

it is those who are opposed to the film in South Africa

who have started this story.

And so Sheila and I went to South Africa

with the principal purpose of going to ask Mrs Biko, Steve's widow,

whether she would approve of the film if we were able to make it?

She said, not only did she approve of the film,

but one of the principal reasons she would like the film made,

was because Donald Woods was one of Steve Biko's very closest friends.

Now, coming from the widow, that seems fine, as far as I'm concerned.

Can we move on to the casting of the film?

You've got Denzel Washington as Steve Biko,

and Kevin Kline as Donald Woods - two Americans.

Now, did you choose them because they are well-known in America

and therefore makes the film more accessible to an American audience,

to have two well-known actors in the picture?

Not at all. Absolutely, not at all.

There was no pressure to cast an American,

nor did I view it from that point of view.

I just couldn't find the right person.

If you are making a story about a massively charismatic figure,

if you don't have that,

then there's no story.

And I, therefore, having remembered Soldier's Story -

and knowing St Elsewhere, but primarily Soldier's Story -

met Denzel Washington,

and believed that if all else failed,

he would be marvellous casting.

And it did fail.

I couldn't find an emigre or resident black South African actor.

And the same, in a way, applied to Kevin Kline.

Let's have a look at them -

the charismatic Denzel Washington, and the composed Kevin Kline.

A white South African, 41 years old, a newspaperman.

Have you ever spent any time in the black township?

I've been to many...

No, don't be embarrassed.

Except for the police,

I don't think one white South African in 10,000 has.

You see, we know how you live.

We cut your lawns, we cook your food, clean your rubbish.

How would you like to see how we live?

The 90 percent of your fellow countrymen

who have to get off your white streets at six o'clock at night.

It must have been a temptation, Dickie, surely,

just to have done the Steve Biko story.

Because that has much more drama, in fact, than the Donald Woods story.

Why didn't you do that?

Was it because Donald Woods gives you a sort of uplifting ending?

Whereas the death of Biko gives you a downbeat ending?

You're absolutely right. I mean, I...

as you know, I am a somewhat ageing male Mary Poppins, really.

And I have total faith in the human spirit.

And to make a film where the regime won,

where the oppressive regime was victorious,

in the murder of Steve Biko, would have been awful.

What was the reaction from the African organisations there,

because you had a discussion, I believe,

with the Azanian People's organisation.

Was that because they were critical of the idea of the film?

Yes. AZAPO...

Steve Biko's party was called a Black Consciousness movement,

and that was banned.

And then, ultimately, it was reformed under the title of AZAPO.

And AZAPO feel that they are, quite properly,

the guardians of Steve's credo, as it were.

They, before they'd read the script or seen the film,

for some reason or other, decided

that they were going to condemn it,

and that it didn't display the correct attitudes,

didn't define Biko correctly, and so on.

Ultimately, they not only read the script

as did many, many, many advisers,

from the whole spectrum of parties and individuals

and friends of Steve's,

but they read the script and indeed they saw the film,

and, fortunately, they have now formally

not only withdrawn their criticisms - on any level -

but have said that they think the film is quite remarkably accurate

in portraying that period ten years ago in South Africa.

What do you hope the film is going to achieve?

Presumably, you haven't made it JUST as a piece of entertainment?

I imagine you had some aim in mind.

What was that?

Well, Barry, I hope it is a piece of entertainment,

because I think if you're working in the cinema

and you don't make something that is "entertaining"

then you shouldn't be in movies,

you should be writing a book, or on a political platform or something.

So I hope it's set in an entertainment context,

but, equally, I would hope that...

I mean, preaching to the converted is boring.

There's no point in doing that.

I want to reach the unknowing, the uncaring, and even the antagonistic.

And I hope that - particularly the first two categories -

at the end of the movie, when they come out,

they would never again be able to dismiss

the regime that exists as something that is none of their business,

something that they needn't concern themselves with.

That it IS our concern, and it is an insult to human dignity

that such a regime should be set out

within the legislated law of the land,

and that that is something we should express,

at least morally, our total condemnation of.

Cry Freedom and Gandhi were both discussed in more detail in 2003

in the Arena documentary called

The Many Lives Of Richard Attenborough,

that was released to mark the director's 80th birthday.

We staged the funeral on the same date -

30th of January - as it actually took place in 1948.

We estimate there was something like 400,000 people there.

Once the funeral cortege had started, it had to come.

You couldn't stop it. You couldn't halt it.

I collapsed at the end of the day.

I mean, I was just totally, totally exhausted.

Gandhi was nominated for 15 Oscars at the 1982 Academy Awards

and won eight, including Best Picture

and Best Director for Attenborough.

It totally changed my career.

The fact that Gandhi got all those Oscars

and, as a result, did the sort of business that it did,

suddenly meant that I was being offered pictures

that would never prior to that time ever have come within my ken.

The Oscars opened the doors.

The fact that I was a double-Oscar winner

was an entree into any studio office

that I wanted to go into.

CHANTING AND SINGING

I don't believe that the vast majority of people

around the world... I don't believe that they were aware

of the depth of depravity and brutality

that existed in South Africa.

It was a really Nazi totalitarian regime.

Stop! Stop right there!

This is an illegal gathering.

I'm giving you three minutes to disperse.

Go home. Go home!

I'm warning you!

We were telling the story of life and the dangers and the cruelties

and the violence that existed in South Africa.

And the fact that that was self evidently a true story,

a story that had to stand up to scrutiny

as to its credibility and truth.

I believe it was very surprising.

And, I hope, made its contribution towards the end of apartheid.

AUTOMATIC WEAPON FIRE

SHOUTING AND SCREAMING

SCREAMING AND GUNFIRE

SCREAMING AND GUNFIRE CONTINUES

They were frightened of the truth, really.

They were frightened that I might, in fact,

have an ability to be able to question their behaviour,

and to demonstrate

that it was obscene.

And that it was unacceptable.

And, er, beyond the pale.

And I suppose that a film-maker is capable of doing that sort of thing.

MUSIC: Nkosi Sikelel' iAfrika

Although Biko was this famous, celebrated, extraordinary figure,

there dozens and dozens and dozens of other people

who were similarly hanged or murdered or whatever.

So I simply wanted to say at the end

what you have seen is typical of life

under apartheid in South Africa.

Look, here are X number of people. So without comment, merely...

HE HUMS "NKOSI SIKELEL' IAFRIKA"

..we simply rolled those names

and the phoney reasons

set against each name as to how

the police described their deaths.

I think that is as poignant

as anything in the movie, quite honestly.

I always intended to do that.

Despite his years,

Sir Richard would carry on working throughout the '90s,

directing acclaimed films like Chaplin and Shadowlands

and acting in Steven Spielberg's Jurassic Park.

He was made Lord Attenborough in 1993,

and he was also president of RADA,

BAFTA and even the Chelsea Football Club.

Somehow, at the same time,

he carved himself a reputation

as one of the best-loved and respected figures

the British film industry has ever known.

The nation's favourite luvvie.

He's a man who looked for the good in everything, and everyone,

so when someone once said,

"The problem with Attenborough

"is that substance matters much more to him than style!"

Attenborough simply called it

"The most charming compliment that I could ever have been given."