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Year: 1982 (55th) Academy Awards
Category: Writing (Screenplay Written Directly for the Screen)
Film Title: Gandhi
Winner: John Briley
Presenter: Philip Dunne
Date & Venue: April 11, 1983; Dorothy Chandler Pavilion
JOHN BRILEY:
I wrote a long movie, I'm gonna make a long speech. Ah, no. Like everybody who stands up here I've got a lot of debts; I just want to acknowledge three. One to Dickie, Sir Richard, for having the faith and courage to trust me with his dream, put up with me once it became mine too, and fulfilling both our dreams with such brilliance and honesty. And to Ben, for a performance that went beyond dreams. For me it's still emotional to watch Ben although I've seen it like fifty or sixty times. I think it's so moving and so profound that it does an honor to our whole industry and justice even to the man that inspired the whole film.
And then I would like to thank Gandhi himself. When I came to this material I despaired for it as drama and I didn't think it had much relevance in a world as cruel and as harsh as ours. But as I came to know the man I found that he knew everything we all know about our cruelty, our selfishness, our greed, our fears. But he also had a faith in the kind of stubborn resolution that we all have to be a little humane, to be a little understanding, to be a little, even, brotherly. And he lived his life in a way that showed that if we called upon that in ourselves and in our enemies, that there was hope for each of us and maybe for this planet. He gave me that. I tried in writing the screenplay to give it back in a way that he would have approved. I thank him. I thank you.
© Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences
[Note: All winners are present except where noted; NOT all winners may have spoken.]
