Heat and Dust (film)
| Heat and Dust | |
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Theatrical release poster by Drew Struzan
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| Directed by | James Ivory |
| Produced by | Ismail Merchant |
| Written by | Ruth Prawer Jhabvala |
| Based on |
Heat and Dust by Ruth Prawer Jhabvala |
| Starring |
Julie Christie Greta Scacchi Shashi Kapoor Zakir Hussain |
| Music by |
Richard Robbins Zakir Hussain |
| Cinematography | Walter Lassally |
| Edited by | Humphrey Dixon |
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Production
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| Distributed by | Curzon Film Distributors (UK) Universal Classics (US) |
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Release date
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Running time
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133 minutes |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Language | English Urdu Hindi |
| Budget | ₤2.2 million |
| Box office | $1,741,435 |
Heat and Dust is a 1983 romantic drama film with a screenplay by Ruth Prawer Jhabvala based upon her novel, Heat and Dust. It was directed by James Ivory and produced by Ismail Merchant. It stars Greta Scacchi, Shashi Kapoor and Julie Christie.
The plot of Heat and Dust follows two intertwined stories. The first is set in the 1920s and deals with an illicit affair between Olivia, the beautiful young wife of a British colonial official, and an Indian Nawab. The second, set in 1982, deals with Anne, Olivia's great-niece, who travels to India hoping to find out about her great-aunt's life, and while there also has an affair with an Indian man.
Heat and Dust forms part of a cycle of film and television productions which emerged during the first half of the 1980s, reflecting Britain's growing interest in the British Raj. In addition to Heat and Dust, this cycle included Gandhi (1982), The Jewel in the Crown (1984), The Far Pavilions (1984) and A Passage to India (1984).
In 1982, an Englishwoman named Ann (Julie Christie) begins an investigation into the fate of her great-aunt Olivia (Greta Scacchi), whose letters and diary she has inherited. She interviews the elderly Harry Hamilton-Paul (Nickolas Grace), who in his youth was Olivia's close friend when they were both living in India.
Anne’s search brings her to India, where the story of Olivia's life is told in flashbacks. In 1923, during the British Raj, Olivia, recently married to Douglas Rivers (Christopher Cazenove), a civil servant in the colonial administration, has come to join her husband in Satipur, in central India. Douglas is an attentive husband and the couple seems to be very much in love. When he insists that Olivia spend the summer in Simla to avoid the extreme heat, she refuses in order to remain with him. However, the conventional narrow society of the English memsahibs bores her. Mrs Saunders (Jennifer Kendal), the morbid wife of the local doctor, warns Olivia that all Indian men are potential rapists. Mrs Crawford (Susan Fleetwood), the Burra Memsahib, is kindly but equally conservative. The racist Doctor Saunders takes an instant dislike to Olivia. While the Anglo-Indian society seems to have little to offer Olivia, she is slowly enthralled by India itself. The region is being ransacked by a group of sanguinary bandits, and intrigues are opposing the British community led by Major Minnies and Mr. Crawford against the ruler of the neighboring princely state, the Nawab of Khatm (Shashi Kapoor). The British suspect him of being in league with a gang of bandits, allowing them to operate with impunity in exchange for a share of their booty.
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