the jewel on the screen

I've been (re)watching The Jewel in the Crown (1984). It is one of the screen depictions of India that has put the country so high on my list of places I'd like to visit. Other movies include City of Joy (1992) and Gandhi (1982). The acting in all three of these films is extraordinary. Peggy Ashcroft and Art Malik were probably the two that I remembered best from my watching of The Jewel when it was first shown on PBS. At least, by name.

Now, it is Geraldine James that I am finding most thrilling. Just her presence on screen, as Sarah Layton, fills me with emotion. It is partly because I had watched Benediction (2021) not long before I started watching The Jewel on Netflix discs. She is not someone that I particularly knew before this recent infatuation but there are other recent roles that I enjoyed without attaching her name (and career). She played Queen Mary in the first Downton Abbey movie. She is in 45 Years which has been on my Netflix queue for some time (I've just moved it up the queue). In that, she plays the friend of Charlotte Rampling who was nominated for an Oscar for her role.

When I was internet traversing for this post, I drifted across pictures of Geraldine James with Ben Kingsley as Gandhi. I was surprised to see that she had done another film set in India and then even more surprised to see that it predated, but only just, The Jewel. I guess I'll have to go watch Gandhi again now. One thing is leading to another ... like always.

(The picture is from the Apple TV page for The Jewel in the Crown. The actor in the driver's seat is Charles Dance, here playing Guy Perron, and also playing Lord Mountbatten in The Crown.)