Lord Attenborough

The Ustinov Forum here continues the Awareness Awards devised and started in 2022, to honour professionals in the field of culture, who have utilised their talents in that field, to increase understanding of and  make the case stronger against, prejudice. It memorialises recipients whose legacy should last and indeed shall. It continues to do so, inspired by the legacy of Sir Peter Ustinov, who did much in that area and who inspires our Forum. In 2022 the first Honoree was Sir Sidney Poitier.

 https://www.ustinovforum.com/articles/sir-sidney

 

This year is the Centenary of the birth of Richard Attenborough and The Ustinov Prejuidice Awareness Forum creates the second Awareness Award and chooses him in recognition of his considerable efforts and remarkable achievements as a cultural figure who raised greater awareness of prejudice both as a filmmaker and as an individual campaigner. It continues to celebrate his legacy, as an artist and humanitarian 

  https://theartsandhumanityscause.com/ra-1-richard-attenborough-100/

 

 

The Citation In Celebration Of Lord Richard Attenborough.

 

           Richard Attenborough was an actor, producer, director, whose versatility he showed as a professional and  in what he did,  was as obvious as the  vitality he had as a person and in who he was. Like the man who instigated the work of this Forum, Sir Peter Ustinov, he was a man of many parts. Our Honoree celebrated here, was an exact  contemporary of Sir Peter, who he liked sincerely, and rated highly. Attenborough said, of Ustinov, ” There was no doubt in our minds that the genius of our generation was Ustinov. We regarded his potential as great as Chekhov or Shaw, but he hasn’t yet written what he is capable of writing, largely due to his diversity of talents.” Praise indeed from one colleague to another, that, in saying so much about the person it is about, says as much about the person saying it. Richard Attenborough had a generosity of spirit that was reflected in the spirit of the people he celebrated as a filmmaker. It is in this spirit that we celebrate him here.

 

             The Ustinov Forum celebrates a man who was a storyteller whose medium was film but whose mindset went beyond it. It honours him specifically for his efforts as a cultural figure whose career contributed to the eradication of prejudice through exposing it in the stories he helped to tell. But it also communicates the breadth of his work, that had root in the broad range of characters he played as an actor, and the lives he brought to attention as a producer and  director. We can think of his role in the film, The Angry Silence, in which he played a union member shunned in a factory, because he does not support a strike. In a film with a screenplay by his close friend and then regular  partner in filmmaking, Bryan Forbes, this brave film, reveals the prejudices that can be found beyond issues of protected characteristics, with issues based on a different viewpoint or stance by an individual against groupthink, that can be found on the left, as well as those on the right, more often exposed.

 

             We acknowledge the struggle he had, despite his status in the film industry and wider society, to make the film Gandhi. Years of effort as fundraiser, advocating the idea of such a film biography, preceeded the making of it. The results when he did make it, payed off, but the problems encountered cannot be ignored. They add to his achievement.  The film has in its telling of the life of Gandhi, a glimpse into the  core of some of the worst elements of colonisation. Made by a man known for both his progressivism and his patriotism, it is a well rounded and fullsome treatment of its subject that does not shy away from it.

 

              We remember, too, his years as a campaigner against Apartheid in South Africa, culminating in his making of the film Cry Freedom, about the bravery of the activist Steve Biko and his friendship with the journalist Donald Woods. This commitment to that cause led to his getting to know President Nelson Mandela, on his release from prison, something his film contributed in its own way, to achieving, by raising awareness of the brutality of Apartheid.

 

              These achievements alone merit the choice of our recipient being awarded. But we add, amongst many other films, another, Grey Owl, deserving of an “honoury mention.” This story that brings the life of Archie Belaney to the screen, the Englishman so keen on the culture of the Native North American, that he emigrated to Canada and lived as a Native of that country, pretending to be of part Apachee origin, was another that breaks down the barriers that are at the basis of prejudice often.

 

               A man greatly honoured in his lifetime, because of his honours here, is not remembered. Adding to them is not to increase the recognition of or further enhance his status. Richard Attenborough was a good man. That he was a man of great achievement makes that deserved because of it. Had he failed with his ventures we could admire him just the same for trying. We recognise the title in front of his name as a man, only as we see the name above or on the titles of a movie.

 

               When told once, someone had said he and his films as a director, were all substance, with little style, he considered it a compliment. We honour a man of substance, but whose style was his own.