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Richard Attenborough calls ET better film than Gandhi

London: Director Richard Attenborough has said that Steven Spielberg film's 'ET: The Extra-Terrestrial' was a better than his film 'Gandhi'. The biopic on Mahatma Gandhi won eight awards, including best director and picture, at 1983's Oscars while ET won only four. However, he said that ET was "extraordinary" as it "depended on the concept of cinema." In an interview with presenter Simon Mayo at BBC Radio Five Live, Attenborough said that Gandhi was a wonderful story "because it's about a wonderful man". But ET was "an infinitely more creative and fundamental piece of cinema" than Gandhi. "[Business partner] Diana and I went to see ET in Los Angeles shortly before all the awards and we used language, when we came out, to the extent of saying 'we have no chance - ET should and will walk away with it'," BBC quoted him, as saying. "Without the initial premise of Mahatma Gandhi, the film would be nothing. Therefore it's a narrative film but it's a piece of narration rather than a piece of cinema, as such. "ET depended absolutely on the concept of cinema and I think that Steven Spielberg, who I'm very fond of, is a genius. "I think ET is a quite extraordinary piece of cinema," he added. Talking about his standing ovation he received at the 1983 Academy Awards, Attenborough said that it was a career milestone. "It was when they stood up - the entire huge auditorium stood up at the end of the show - and the fact that I'd got best film and so on and I didn't weep...," he said. "I had difficulty speaking in that I was, what is known as, choked up a bit," he added.
-Sept 9, 2008

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