FILM This article is not about Richard Attenborough's Gandhi. It deals, rather, with the circumstances that demand a Gandhi and make it possible, if at any point in the future an attempt is made to use the article to confer an intellectual legitimacy to the film, I would request readers to bear in mind that this is most emphatically not the intention of writing it. So systematically has Attenborough exploited various opinions expressed on his film toward his own ends, including the gathering public opinion in India against the decision of the Indian government to finance part of the Rs 22 crore project, that it is not unlikely that whatever attempts are made now to understand the issues involved would be misused in the same manner. In the possible event of a reply from his public relations men, for they have been extremely alert in replying to criticisms in even small journals, or from any of his numerous defendants and apologists, this fact may please be borne in mind. I would like to express my gratitude to Parag Amiadi, who was closely associated with the writing of this article, and who supplied the references from Cahiers du Cinema. 1. From David Niven's Bring on the Empty Horses, p. 319. 2. Official Collectors' Edition, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Columbia Pictures, p. 28. 3. Much of the next argument is based on *John Ford's Young Mr Lincoln', by the editors of Cahiers du Cinema. Published in Screen Reader 1, SEFT; and also in Movies & Methods, ed., Bill Nichols, UCLP. This reference in Screen Reader 1, p. 123. 4. Screen Reader 1, p. 127. 5. Screen Reader 2, p. 126. 6. Screen Reader J, p. 127. ^2 April-June 1983