It might be justified to assume that the legendary production company Merchant Ivory, which gave the world such classic costume dramas as Remains of the day Starring Anthony Hopkins and Room with a viewThe film could have starred Helena Bonham Carter, and it was such a successful and respected filmmaking machine that it made every production easy. But as director Stephen Soucie explains in his informative and entertaining documentary, ivory merchantOften, producer Ismail Merchant and director James Ivory were working under such onerous restrictions that Hopkins sued the company for unpaid wages.
Sosy The documentary is full of such Pouring tea behind the scenesBut the film is also deeply moving when it chronicles the personal relationship between Ivory, who grew up in Oregon, and Merchant, a Mumbai-born Muslim. They were a gay couple during a difficult time for such relationships. Yet, despite cultural pitfalls and bouts of infidelity, they maintained an inextricable personal bond as well as a professional one that led to 43 films and more than twenty Oscar nominations.
In telling the company's story, Susi gets new interviews with Merchant Ivory pioneers like Emma Thompson, Helena Bonham Carter, Vanessa Redgrave, and Hugh Grant. But The main interviewee was Ivory himself, who is still active at the age of 96. He made the documentary required viewing. For those who crave more insight into a personal and professional relationship that was often as fascinating as any Merchant Ivory film.
Humble Beginnings of an Oscar-Nominated Duo
The spartan nature of Merchant Ivory’s film, especially in its early days, is what gives Soucy’s documentary much of its humour and surprise. Much of this is due to Merchant, who Hugh Grant has said was “not a conventional producer”, a charge for which Soucy has provided plenty of evidence. But Ivory trusted Merchant “because he was always able to put it all together”, which he did, often in clever ways.
Merchant was known for his ability to convince disgruntled crew members not to leave productions by arranging exclusive and unique day trips. Once, when agents sent telegrams to their clients demanding that they stop working on Merchant Ivory's production due to non-payment, Merchant stole the telegrams before they reached their hotel rooms so he could continue filming.She never went to bed without trying to come up with ways to kill him.“But you can't not love him,” says Merchant's biographer, Anna Kythrotis.
Indeed, love, both on and off screen, is the main thread of Soucie's documentary. Two of Merchant Ivory's best films were examinations of love buried under the burden of duty (Remains of the day) and love denied, often under threat of imprisonment. The latter describes a particularly powerful passage from their groundbreaking 1987 gay love story, MauriceThe film was a risky follow-up to Merchant Ivory. Room with a viewwhich won three Oscars but was not a big financial windfall for the company.
Still, Maurice It was a film Ivory insisted on making at a time when then-British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher was complaining that children were “learning they have an inalienable right to be gay.” MauriceThe film that gave Hugh Grant a huge boost to his career is referred to here as the “grandfather” of gay cinema.
For Merchant and Ivory, it was “love at second sight.”
There is little English reserve in Ivory as he recounts the ups and downs of His 40-year personal relationship with MerchantBut we do know that the pair met at the Indian consulate in New York City in 1961 during a screening of Ivory's short documentary, The sword and the fluteIvory says they soon added a filmmaking partnership to their personal one, moving to India to make English-language films for the local market.
The couple were tight-lipped about their love. To Merchant's conservative Muslim family, Ivory was just his “American friend,” though the discreet cast of their first film, the 1963 Indian drama householderI would like to call the couple Jack and Jill.
householder It was recorded by composer Richard Robbins, who will take over. Writing music for 21 Merchant Ivory films In one of the documentary's biggest surprises, Ivory admits that Robbins had an affair with Merchant. householder The film was based on a novel by Ruth Prawer Jhabvala, who was the duo's eventual main collaborator, Writing 23 screenplays for the movie Merchant Ivory Including the 1979 film version of Henry James' novel. EuropeansThis was their first production outside India, and it was the film that would change the course of their careers as they began making highly emotional and highly cultural book adaptations.
Ivory wins Oscar for Call Me by Your Name
Sosy The scattered and flat narrative is the downside.But otherwise, Soucy and editor John Hart manage to move things along nicely, and don’t hesitate to detail how the quality of Merchant Ivory’s films began to decline once American studio money came into the picture. Soucy also extracts select quotes from interviewees who remember the duo fondly, including Sam Waterston (a veteran of three Merchant Ivory films), who calls the pair “fantastic pirates,” and Jhabvala’s daughter, who, with a sly smile, calls them “crooks and thieves.”
This is, of course, a gross exaggeration, but Susie The intriguing documentary proves that Ismail Merchant and James Ivory were a decidedly odd couple; the hard-working producer who saved money and the elegant director who made lasting films and lasting relationships. Ivory may be the only surviving member of the company’s core quartet – Merchant died after abdominal surgery in 2005, Robbins in 2012 and Jhabvala in 2013 – but he’s far from retiring.
In 2018, Ivory became the oldest person to win an Academy Award, winning Best Adapted Screenplay for a film. call me by your name. Much like Susie. This documentary was a fitting and well-deserved triumph for a man whose life and art continue to push boundaries. Produced by Cohen Media Group, Merchant Ivory will open in New York and Los Angeles on August 30 before opening more widely in September. You can find theaters and showtimes here..
