April 17 and 24 at 8pm | 7 Movies & 1 Documentary
The words “Merchant Ivory” evoke a distinct cinematic universe, one that recalls nostalgia paired with sweeping cinematography depicting lush landscapes. Merchant Ivory films are often adaptations of a literary novel that investigates seismic cultural shifts but in micro locales, like a country house estate, and many of the finest British thespians have taken their turn playing in these atmospheric stories. They are a view of the past through a rose-tinged, tea-stained perspective with social messaging all the more succinct for its subtlety. Their most well-known films, A Room with a View (1985), Howards End (1992) and The Remains of the Day (1993), portray the beauty of the United Kingdom whilst also signaling the end of its rigid class structures and its effects on its ordinary citizens.
What at first seems the mark of a single auteur is actually the synergistic collaboration of Indian producer Ismail Merchant, American director James Ivory, German Jewish writer Ruth Prawer Jhabvala and American composer Richard Robbins. Their partnership produced over 40 movies over the course of 50 years and is regarded as the most prolific film partnership of all time. They gave the stuffy genre of the period piece a renewed vitality, paving the way for modern Jane Austen adaptations, “Downton Abbey” and even “Bridgerton.” Born in Mumbai, Merchant befriended Bollywood actors as a child and grew up wanting to make these films he so admired. He first met California-born, Oregon-raised Ivory at a screening of Ivory’s documentary The Sword and The Flute at the Indian Consulate in New York City in 1959.
At the time, James Ivory was directing only documentary films. They found that their artistic sensibilities resonated with one another, and they formed a production company called Merchant Ivory, whose initial purpose was to film English-language narratives in India for the international market. Their first movie together was adapted from a novel by Jhabvala, The Householder in 1963. Jhabvala would go on to pen the scripts for 23 Merchant Ivory films. The Householder became the first Indian movie to be exhibited internationally by a major American distributor – Columbia Pictures. Merchant Ivory moved away from Indian subjects with The Wild Party starring Raquel Welch in 1975, a film about 1920s Hollywood set in a mansion that subtly references the “Fatty” Arbuckle scandal. Roseland is a 1977 anthology film set at the Roseland Ballroom in New York City, which explores the romances and memories of three different dancers, told in three varying vignettes. A young Christopher Walken appears in the middle tale called “The Hustle.” The film’s narrative drive is finding the right dance partner, not too unlike finding the ideal creative partner.
An E.M. Forster adaptation catapulted Merchant Ivory into box-office success and renown. A Room with a View was the first of the Forster adaptations, shot on location in Italy and England, for only $3 million... a surprise considering its sumptuous scenery and detailed costume design bespeak of a much higher budget reminiscent of Golden Age Hollywood. This film ushered in the Golden Age of Merchant Ivory as a creative powerhouse. The story is set in the early 20th century. Helena Bonham Carter plays a sweet but naive young woman, Lucy Honeychurch, who travels to Florence with her prudish, never-married cousin Charlotte. There she forms a bond with an intense, introverted young man, George Emerson, played by Julian Sands. When she returns to England, she is engaged to Daniel Day-Lewis’ Cecil Vyse, an uptight man of leisure whose embrace of books and manners is tighter than any hugs he gives to Lucy. When Lucy discovers that George has moved into her village, she must confront their undeniable connection and choose between Victorian expectations or her true passion.
A Room with a View earned eight Academy Award nominations and won three for Best Costume Design, Art Direction and Best Adapted Screenplay for Jhabvala. It was also a box-office hit, the likes of which was never expected of an indie film. Despite their depictions of grandeur, Merchant Ivory’s budgets could be modest compared to the scope of their ambitions. Ismail Merchant, ever the wheeling-dealing producer, always thought of creative ways to finance films, with many donations given on the basis of his charm alone. Costume designers Jenny Beavan and John Bright once joked that when they won their Oscar, Merchant insisted the award should be enough compensation for their work. Sometimes he would defer payment to cast or crew, often smoothing out any complaints by cooking for the crew himself, treating them to a family-style dinner. And in many ways, Merchant saw their creative teams as family. Arguments would erupt onset like siblings in a spat, but James Ivory – the calm, cool, collected foil to Merchant’s bombastic, chaotic, producer persona – could always bring everyone back down to earth. They complemented each other on set and in life.
Merchant Ivory leveraged the success of A Room with A View into adapting a much lesser-known E.M. Forster novel called Maurice in 1987 – a romance about “a love that dare not speak its name” between two characters played by Rupert Graves and Hugh Grant – roles that launched both their careers. The film was groundbreaking in a way the novel could never be, as it was written in the early 1900s. Slaves of New York in 1989 was an outlier amidst Merchant Ivory’s period dramas, seemingly keeping audiences on their toes by proving they could travel easily between past and present times. Based on a short story collection by Tama Janowitz, who also wrote the screenplay, the film profiles New York’s artist darlings during the 1980s, tapping into the zeitgeist of the art scene.
Howards End was Merchant Ivory’s next adaptation of a Forster novel, covering the more familiar terrain of English society and the clashes between classes. Emma Thompson plays the role of Margaret, the elder of a pair of intellectual middle-class Schlegel sisters who befriends a rich aristocrat played by Vanessa Redgrave and is willed the estate of Howards End upon her death. Widowed husband Henry Wilcox (Anthony Hopkins in the first of many roles with Merchant Ivory), denies her bequeath yet marries Margaret. When Margaret’s sister Helen (Helena Bonham Carter) has a dalliance with a man of a much lower social class, their affair threatens to unravel the family’s financial stability and the future of the estate. The hypocrisy of the wealthy is explored with an unflinching eye, and despite the beauty of the house, the audience realizes the cost of keeping up such appearances. Howards End was nominated for nine Academy Awards including Best Picture for Merchant, Best Director for Ivory and Best Supporting Actress for Redgrave. Thompson won for Best Actress and Jhabvala for Best Adapted Screenplay.
The Remains of the Day followed on the heels of Howards End, bearing many similarities to its predecessor, namely a stately English country manor for the setting and Hopkins and Thompson in the lead. Based on the Booker prize-winning novel of the same name by Kazuo Ishiguro, the film shows that privilege shielded no one, least of all the aristocratic society, from moral duty and that keeping the status quo during changing times could be personally and politically destructive. Hopkins plays the butler Stevens, whose unwavering dedication to his job comes at the expense of his own personal fulfillment. Thompson plays the housekeeper, and it’s clear she is a breath of fresh air to Hopkins’ repetitive life in a house that never seems to change. Hopkins’ subtle acting shows he yearns for her, yet he never allows himself any kind of freedom in love, life or otherwise. This stubborn, relentless effort to keep the status quo, though, proves as detrimental to the butler as to the Lord of the house – Darlington (James Fox), who in trying with many of the upper class’s efforts to keep England out of World War II, becomes a Nazi sympathizer, accepting with too many manners the atrocities that should inspire revolt.
The White Countess (2005) was the last film Ivory and Merchant collaborated on. Merchant died that year at the age of 68. Ishiguro wrote the screenplay for the romantic drama set in 1930s Shanghai. Natasha Richardson is Sofia Belinskaya, a Russian royal who has fallen from grace and supports her family through unsavory work. Ralph Fiennes is Todd Jackson, an American diplomat who lost not only his wife and children but also his vision in a bombing. Winning money from a lucky racehorse bet, Todd opens a nightclub called The White Countess and invites Sofia to be its hostess, saving her disgrace. Their bond strengthens to affection, but everything they built is shattered by an impending conflict between Japan and China, eventually leading to the start of World War II in Asia. Though the film depicts characters facing personal and political tragedies, unlike the characters in The Remains of the Day, the protagonists fight for what they desire and redeem themselves as the world crumbles around them.
Audiences did not know that behind the scenes, Merchant and Ivory were not only creative partners but also life partners. The 2023 documentary Merchant Ivory by director Stephen Soucy delves into their personal as well as professional history. Featuring interviews by such thespian heavyweights as Redgrave, Hugh Grant, Thompson and Bonham Carter, the documentary explores the relationship between Merchant, Jhabvala, Robbins and Ivory, who is the last living member of the eponymous company. Of this creative partnership, James Ivory said, “I was the President, but Ismail was the Congress, and Ruth was the Supreme Court.” Merchant Ivory’s most resonant films deal with personal repression and emotional restraint, and the illumination of their partnership through Soucy’s documentary underscores the notion that art indeed mirrors life. One can only wonder how much their romantic relationship and their need to keep it discreet informed their creative pursuits. Merchant Ivory established a prolific and powerful body of work made all the more beautiful by their profound synchronicity. If their last film together is a testament to anything, it is that love is worth the fight.
