Word: charleson
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GANDHI is technically a fine film. Attenborough's direction is solid, despite some lapses in John Briley's generally adequate script. Attenborough gets good performances out of his star-heavy cast, which includes John Gielgud, Martin Sheen, Trevor Howard, and Jan Charleson. But Candace Bergen as Katherine Bourke White is a beautifully leaden exception and the actors occasionally get stuck in tight spots. Sheen, for instance as a New York Times reporter who follows Gandhi both in South Africa and India and reminisces wistfully about his early meetings with the Mahatma, has to say, "We were a bit like college...
...wild, hazy Scottish moors where he lives, Eric Liddell (Ian Charleson) explains to his earnest sister his motivation for running: "God made me fast, and when I run I feel His pleasure." Liddell plans on a missionary career in China, but first he must spread public awareness of the Lord by himself acquiring worldwide renown. His sister fears that fame will corrupt the purity of his soul, but she needn't worry. Liddell refuses to race in the Olympic preliminary heats because they occur on Sunday; instead, he delivers a sermon in church...
...Charleson handles his part well; he conveys the appropriate combination of an unswerving religiosity and an ecstatic, near-orgiastic love of running. But the film requires suspension of critical judgment: It demands not only our acceptance of Liddell's surety that his speed represents an heavenly visitation, but also our belief that Liddell is correct, that his swiftness really is the gift...
...incidental to the rewards of watching Chariots of Fire. This is not, after all, Rocky. It is something more even than a thinking man's Rocky. One takes from it subtler pleasures-the controlled ferocity of Ben Cross as Abrahams, for instance, and the gentle strength of Ian Charleson as Liddell. A word of praise, too, goes to a supporting cast that includes Sir John Gielgud and Lindsay Anderson as a pair of congealed Cambridge dons, Nigel Davenport and Patrick Magee as Olympic committeemen respectively too smooth and too Blimpish. Like every element in this picture, the actors look...
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