►E.M.Foster: Classic Note

►Chandrapore = Bankipur

Adela Quested, a young Englishwoman, travels to India in the late 1920s to visit her fiancé, a British magistrate posted in a small town; her traveling companion is his mother Mrs. Moore. They want to see something of the country and to meet everyday Indians, but are frustrated by the British community's insistence that relations with the locals are best experienced from a distance. Finally, a friend introduces them to a Muslim doctor whom Mrs. Moore had seen briefly on her visit to a mosque. He takes them on an outing to the nearby caverns (a local attraction), but what happens there threatens to destroy any civility between the British and Indian societies.

Filmed on location in Bangalore, India and at Shepperton Studios from November, 1983 to June, 1984 at a cost of approximately $14.7 million. Academy Awards for Best Music and Supporting Actress (Peggy Ashcroft=Mrs Moore); nominations for Best Picture, Director, Screenplay, Cinematography, Art Direction, Sound, Editing, Costume Design, and Actress (Judy Davis=Adela Quested) source

In 1981, David Lean was approached to direct a film version of E.M. Forster's novel A Passage to India (1984). He wrote his own script for the film. Alec Guinness played his last role for Lean, Professor Godbole. The film was a critical success, winning two Oscars, and Lean was knighted the year of its release. The previous year he had been made one of the first Fellows of the British Film Institute and in 1990 he received a Lifetime Achievement Award from the American Film Institute. David Lean died of pneumonia on 16 April 1991, while preparing to film his adaptation of Joseph Conrad's novel Nostromo. source / filmography

Extract from PtI

Encyclopedic references

In 1921-22 [Forster] revisited India, working as personal secretary for the maharajah of the native state of Dewas Senior for several months. The completion of *A Pas-sage to India (1922-4) which he had begun before the war, was overshadowed by the death of his closest Egyptian friend Mohammed, but when the novel appeared in June 1924 it was highly acclaimed.  more ...

Virginia Woolf - The Hours

pages 1/2/3

English Learner
Movie Guide

Aspects of the Novel

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