The Anatomy of a Biographical Film

After I had rented the movie Gandhi from Netflix, I came across this quote on Wikipedia by Lawrence James:

"The film ... is pure hagiography, the late-twentieth-century equivalent of a mediaeval encomium of a remarkable saint rendered in words and illuminated pictures."

Despite the eponymous title, I don't consider Gandhi a biography of the man. I instead consider it a biography of the philosophy of a man through which the man is a conduit. A film like Patton explores the man- not just his philosophies, but his entire network of thought and being. Consider that Patton covers the issue of reincarnation far more than Gandhi does, though the latter is rife with religious subtext while the former is not. That's because Patton posits that reincarnation buffets the entire framework of the man. He is not just a student of war history - he is a part of that history.

Gandhi instead pursues other virtues. We are seldom treated to Gandhi's definitions - his boundaries, his girth. We are not told why he has dedicated himself to a life of nonviolence. All we know is that he was thrown off a train and decides to do something about it. And then we are not told how he becomes such a persuasive figure, able to convince apart from his actions. One scene he is meek and reticent. The next scene he draws a chorus of applause with his words. From the outside he seems a mystery, simple in that his simplicity is pure virtue. He shows no moments of weakness, and because of that we get no look at his soul. That is fine if there is a reverential, giant quality to him, which the film portrays without blemish. It has to work in that regard, however. Gandhi only looks so virtuous because his philosophy is so virtuous, and that is what the movie is trying to show.

This is, after all, a film first and a factual thesis second. A film is biased. It has an initiative, a theme. It has to say something extraordinary beyond the realm of what simply is. If a film is so concerned with telling something honesty and exhaustively, then I think it has license to pursue what it wants.