Phantom India

{{Use dmy dates|date=September 2022}} {{Infobox television | native_name = L'Inde fantôme: Reflexions sur un voyage | image = | image_size = | image_alt = | caption = | genre = Documentary | creator = | based_on = | writer = | screenplay = | story = | director = Louis Malle | starring = | narrator = Louis Malle | theme_music_composer = | country = France<br/>India | language = | num_episodes = 7 | producer = Louis Kastner | editor = Suzanne Baron | cinematography = Étienne Becker | runtime = 363 | company = | budget = | network = | first_aired = | last_aired = }}

'''''L'Inde fantôme: Reflexions sur un voyage''''' is a 1969 French seven part television documentary miniseries about India, directed by Louis Malle. It was shown on BBC television as '''''Louis Malle's India'''''.<ref name="Blum-Reid2003">{{cite book|author=Sylvie Blum-Reid|title=East-West Encounters: Franco-Asian Cinema and Literature|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=aMrQFxR3jcYC&pg=PA91|year=2003|publisher=Wallflower Press|isbn=978-1-903364-67-3|pages=91–}}</ref>

Malle later said that the film was his most personal work and the one he was most proud of. It is widely regarded as the crowning achievement of his career. It was initially inspired by a two-month trip to India in late 1967 that Malle made on behalf of the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs to present a selection of "new French cinema" throughout the country. Filming took place between January 5, 1968, and May 1, 1968, with a crew of two, a cameraman and a sound recordist. Malle arrived in India with no particular plans and financed the trip himself. The resulting 30 hours of footage was then edited down to the 363 minutes of ''Phantom India''. The 105-minute-long ''Calcutta'' used the footage he had recorded over his three-week stay in that city. ''Phantom India'' was shown on French television and the BBC in the UK in 1969.<ref>Koresky, Michael [http://www.criterion.com/current/posts/561-eclipse-series-2-the-documentaries-of-louis-malle Eclipse Series 2: The Documentaries of Louis Malle] criterion.com</ref><ref>{{cite web | archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20141009155822/http://www.nytimes.com/movies/movie/165696/Phantom-India/overview | title=Phantom India (1969) | archivedate=9 October 2014 | url=http://www.nytimes.com/movies/movie/165696/Phantom-India/overview | newspaper=The New York Times | accessdate=4 September 2022}}</ref>

Many British Indians and the Indian Government felt that Malle had shown a one-sided portrait of India, focusing on the impoverished, rather than the developing parts of the country. A diplomatic incident occurred when the Indian government asked the BBC to stop broadcasting the programme. The BBC refused and were briefly asked to leave their New Delhi bureau.<ref>Frey, Hugo ''Phantom India'' in Aiken, Ian (Ed.) ''The Concise Routledge Encyclopedia of the Documentary Film'', p. 714, Routledge, 2013</ref>

==Episodes== {{Episode table |total_width=50 |background=4E5C1D |overall= |title= |airdate= |episodes= {{Episode list/sublist|Phantom India |EpisodeNumber = 1 |Title = The Impossible Camera |OriginalAirDate = {{Start date|1969|df=yes}} |ShortSummary = |LineColor = 4E5C1D }} {{Episode list/sublist|Phantom India |EpisodeNumber = 2 |Title = Things Seen in Madras |OriginalAirDate = {{Start date|1969|df=yes}} |ShortSummary = |LineColor = 4E5C1D }} {{Episode list/sublist|Phantom India |EpisodeNumber = 3 |Title = The Indians and the Sacred |OriginalAirDate = {{Start date|1969|df=yes}} |ShortSummary = |LineColor = 4E5C1D }} {{Episode list/sublist|Phantom India |EpisodeNumber = 4 |Title = Dreams and Reality |OriginalAirDate = {{Start date|1969|df=yes}} |ShortSummary = |LineColor = 4E5C1D }} {{Episode list/sublist|Phantom India |EpisodeNumber = 5 |Title = A Look at the Castes |OriginalAirDate = {{Start date|1969|df=yes}} |ShortSummary = |LineColor = 4E5C1D }} {{Episode list/sublist|Phantom India |EpisodeNumber = 6 |Title = On the Fringes of Indian Society |OriginalAirDate = {{Start date|1969|df=yes}} |ShortSummary = |LineColor = 4E5C1D }} {{Episode list/sublist|Phantom India |EpisodeNumber = 7 |Title = Bombay: The Future India |OriginalAirDate = {{Start date|1969|df=yes}} |ShortSummary = |LineColor = 4E5C1D }} }}

==References== {{reflist}}

==External links== *{{IMDb title|id=0063914|title=Phantom India}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Phantom India}} Category:1969 films Category:1960s French-language films Category:French documentary films Category:Films directed by Louis Malle Category:Films set in India Category:1969 documentary films Category:Documentary films about India Category:1969 French films